What did you lot who are married do? We have finally set a date after a quick 10 year engagement. Planning on very small reg office ceremony then parents house for tea then 4 days in Wales on bikes for honeymoon 🙂

Has anyone else avoided the wedding circus and just done small and simple? I’m excited 🙂

Total cost of mine was under £200 and that included putting £50 behind the bar. Quite possibly the worst £200 I ever spent as getting rid cost me well over 100K 😀

getting married to the SO on 1st July this year. Just me and her – no friends or family. But we are going to Svalbard to do it. and then the honeymoon will be in the same place, hiking and stuff.

If I was getting married I would do it on the same day as Wills & Kate.

Then pretend all the celebrations were for me 8)

that day is booked for the SSEC

We did it on a fairly small scale.

Didnt tell anyone (including parents) we were getting married, went to registry office in gibraltar, had two strangers as witnesses and then went to seville for 4 days for the honeymoon.

Worked well for us, really enjoyed it, much more than I would have enjoyed the big wedding that most people have.

Jamie – Member
If I was getting married….

ROFLMFAO LOLzCoPtErS

WTF

LOLz

😆 😯 😆 😯

I got married 18 months ago, and while some might consider what we did to be a circus, it was smallish with the vast majority of guests being only close family and friends, all of whom were chosen by my (now) wife and I.

Since it was paid for (almost exclusively) by ourselves, we had no external pressures or influences. T’was a perfect day.

We were also engaged for 10 years 🙂

You need to think pf your parents as they have looked forward to the day so involve them.
either that or do it abroad and no one can afford to come out for the whole week

Yeah parents on both sides will be involved, I need them more than anyone else really. Not so worried about money somuchas it not turning into a massive show, thought of a big formal wedding completely terrifies us which is one of the reasons we’ve put it off for so long. Would like to have run away and done it on our own but we are both close to our families and very family orientated, they would have been devastated if hey weren’t part of it so we couldn’t really do it without them.

ROFLMFAO LOLzCoPtErS

WTF

LOLz

😥

We went to Sri Lanka to get married, to avoid the wedding circus cerfuffle. The wedding cost another £NOTHING on top of the £2500 for the holiday as some family came along too (paid for themselves)

It was a nice way to avoid paying £50 or £60 a head to feed people I don’t even like.

no regrets about going abroad either.

We ‘ran’ off to Gretna on our own and did it there, but we’ve both been married before and had the usual big wedding and couldn’t think of anything worse second time around. After all it is really only about two people commiting. All in it cost about £1000.

It was a brilliant day all to ourselves 😉

We had a small garden party when we got home, mainly for our kids.

We had a very small ‘circus’ 🙂
Full frock and suit thing – just the 2 of us though, no hiring stuff for others etc.
Married in the local church, reception for 40 of us, close family and ‘3am’ friends (the ones you know are there for you whenever / whatever) at a local pub / restaurant.
Top table for 2!
No one was asked to do speeches – Mrs MM’s dad did an ad-hoc one that was wonderful and MrsMM and I said a few words.
End of the night, when everyone had gone home or to bed we were in bar… told the owner and her staff to take a break from cleaning, sit with us and open one last bottle of fizz (prosecco, nowt flash 😉 ).
Week in Devon for honeymoon…
Slightly more expensive perhaps than yours but still minimal compared to those I now photograph for a living 🙂
Best wishes to all tying the knot this year….

I got married at Gretna Green, was good, awaiting divorce at the minute 🙄

We had a registry office do followed by reception at our own house. This followed many years of putting off. We wanted a quality day but had resisted being ripped off or herded around. It worked exceptionally well. Friends came from near and far with their kids – to add to our three. We had good weather which undoubtedly helps. Catering was by Waitrose, tiered cake from M&S online. I ordered a substantial amount of champagne, wine etc. May have cost about £1000 all in, can’t really remember. What I do remember is that it was our day, done in a style that suited us.

It was after I proposed that I discovered my wife-to-be had no idea what a budget was.. 😯

Another one for about £200.
That covered the reg office fees and small meal with a few friends afterwards.

No family came(as they didn’t know) Having my uncle see us obviously dressed to wed, as he went to pay he rent in the adjoining council offices went down well.

Spend lots prepare to be disappointed.
Spend little and there’s less to go wrong focusing the day on the two of you and not the people turning up to see you get hitched.

Do it exactly the way the both of you want it.
Avoid reading bridal mags as like other mags they’re all about getting people to go OTT and making a lavish occasion of it.

Imagine your perfect day together, something that will make YOU both happy and not what others would like.

Make it YOUR day and enjoy it.

And one more piece of advice.

Take the right partner. I took the wife to be. The now ex wife.

Sharki and I in the same boat

Thanks for the tips chaps. Very sad that so many people get divorced but I am sure that we are right for one another, after 11 years together we know each other well enough to know we can put up with one another and we have been through some truly awful times together and got through them.

Going to have to work very hard to keep it our day and just the way we want it, some of my friends have the very best intentions but want it to be a big thing.

One thing we have definatley decided is that we are having a mountain bike themed wedding cake 🙂

You are right about the magazines sharki, had a quick flick through them and caught a quick look at ‘how to have a simple, no frills wedding’. Overall costs – £20K!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not a CHANCE. What a load of rubbish

No frills?

Just lace!! Where’s my invite?

Mail me 😉

One thing we have definatley decided is that we are having a mountain bike themed wedding cake

We got a plain, iced one and did the decorations ourselves.

Saving the frills for my husband sharki sorry 🙂

Oh I say ‘husband’ sounds grown up

ours was expensive, but our parents paid for most of it. about 70 guests during the day, 140 at night, a great three course meal, expensive dress etc etc. I wasn’t that fussed, but my wife really wanted a big day and I was happy to go along with that. All in all, including three nights in an amazing hotel in yorkshire, 12k 😕 Parents paid about 10 of that.

Its worth saying I had a great day and night, and wouldn’t change any of it.

we did chester zoo
awesome venue very helpful and reasonably priced
plus guests get free access to the zoo all day!
http://www.chesterzoo.org/plan-your-visit/plan-your-celebration/weddings

and very close to wales for biking fun

Warton – what hotel? Swindon park? Rudding?

Btw, we did a civil ceremony with family and closest friends, then a garden party (at the in-laws) for the masses. Still cost quite a bit but a wonderful day.

I HATE weddings

We got married after 11 years a mega wedding then it was
of to the maldives fantastic time made us closer good luck to you both

Never got married. Been together 23 years, 3 kids of 21, 19 and 17. Kids don’t want us to marry, we’re not fussed, so why bother. What is driving your desire to get married?

Me and Muz had been together 15 years when we got married.
We did a ‘half and half’ kind of wedding – it was small and unspectacular, but I got my lovely red dress and he spent a lot on a pair of lush shoes. 😉

We married at Sheff register office with about 20 guests, took them for lunch at Pizza Express (who were bloody fantastic, I have to say) then we went to the botanical gardens with a friend and she took some pics for us.
Then we went home, put our feet up and had a cup of tea and a breather, then we went to a nice real ale pub with a slightly larger group of friends and and our own bar and I pulled pints all evening.
It was a fantastic day and, as weddings go, a proper cheapo. (Mum made my dress, her friend made our cake. It was a lovely, small scale do and I really wouldn’t have had it any other way.)

Our honeymoon was 3 days in the lakes at a posh B&B – it started raining when we arrived and was raining when we left – I definitely would have had that some other way…
We had a honeymoon re-run later in the year and had a week of camping and cycling in the Alps. That was cool. 🙂

What is driving your desire to get married?

I want to be his wife and I want to be able to call him my husband and visa versa. We are also hoping to have a family of our own someday and I think for my own peace of mind I want to know that he is my next of kin in every respect. We’ve left it so long to marry because we are very anti religion and couldn’t face the whole church wedding or the big hotel type wedding. I suppose we’ve only been exposed to what we feel are quite grotesque affairs which usually are all show and end up in divorce a couple of years later. Horrible stuff. I’ve always wanted a small no frills affair and its only now that we are sure enough of ourselves to stand up to everyone who wants us to have their type of wedding and say ‘no, this is what we want’.

TN your wedding sounds perfect 🙂 Apart from the rain on honeymoon!

Who had an all dayer wedding then? I was thinking more of having it at about 5 p.m. then could have some food and get rid of every one by 9 😆 but registrar said had to do it at 3.30 p.m 🙁 Still hoping to get rid by midnight though 🙄

IMO small scale is fine, but try to get as much of the family there as possible. Its not just an event for you but a joining of 2 families.

All of course IMO

but try to get as much of the family there as possible

but i don’t like most of my family and he doesn’t know a lot of his 😯 All the important people that we know and love the most will be there that’s a definite.

Thats fine, as long as you’re happy explaining to them the reasons you didnt invite them – it can be awkward!

don’t see them enough for them to find out to be honest. There is one person in particular I will enjoy telling that they aren’t invited, I might mock up a whole ‘you are not invited’ invitation for him actually 😀 not that i want to use the best day of my life to kick someone in the goolies 😈

I’m with the anti tradition and sod the family if they’re not close way.

This is a celebration to show your love and commitment to each other.
To show those close to you friends and close family if any and to share the day and your shared happiness together to them.

Ultimately the family will wish to be there. However if they know you both and respect you, then they’ll understand why they are not part of the ceremony.

Quite often, parents and family like to have a say in the whole days arrangements and mothers or mother in laws will try to ru(i)n the show.
If this is a concern, they need a stiff dressing down if they are to hope for any invite to it.

It seems like you been together long enough to know it’s the right time and you’ve got a friends group that you want to be part of a fairly intimate, therefore special day.

Keep it that way.

A simple dress, something you can wear again, something that’s you, with a little extra. Why go all lavish and never wear it again and stuff it in the loft and hidden away.

Sod the opinions of others, because if you do want others suggest, it stops being your day.
So on the note, ignore what i just said.

thanks sharki, consider yourself acknowledged and ignored! 🙂 very good advice though, thank you!

Just get the invite in the post.

I’ll even iron a crease down the fronts of my baggies and polish my cleats and helmet.

Consider it done. whilst you are giving such good advice and are obviously on a roll, what type of flowers for a summer wedding that will match some gold sparkly shoes 🙂