Hay /straw bales

If you are planning a formal celebration then you are going to need chairs. If people are turning up in their best clothes then you at least need to provide something clean and dry for them to sit on, even if there isn't a formal meal.

When are you getting married? Weather makes a huge difference to hay bale availability and cost. If you are putting the haybales inside then you will need to cover them with a waterproof layer (stout polythene or oilcloth rather than just tarp) which you can cover with a pretty fabric cover if you wish. if you have clean boards you could make benches. If you are coppicing a wood you could make stools.

Do you have a tame farmer who will lend you the bales? If you have to buy they will work out more than chair hire....

Depends how small your budget is and exactly what you want the chairs for - for example if people are going to be sat up to tables (have you hired the tables?) then I think you might have to stick with chairs rather than hay bales. Ask around a bit and see if you can get cheaper quotes for less fancy chairs. Is there a school or village hall nearby that might be able to hire some to you (they probably wont be very pretty).

This will be controversial but if you are really really desperate (and the chairs don't have to go with tables) and you have the hire of the barn for a while for storage - you could ask your guests to each lend you a chair or two for the day - nothing will match and it will make the wedding quite unusual. I figure that I have 6 chairs at my house and we rarely use more than two of them unless we have guests over. You could ask your bridesmaids and ushers etc to drive around collecting people's spare chairs to borrow for the day (note that you'd have to then do the same in reverse the day after the wedding).

Like I said - its a bit mad and I am not enitrely sure how i would feel if someone wanted to borrow chair for their wedding (and 100 is a lot of chairs to get) but it's an idea.

I don’t know any alternatives but I just have to say I would be horrified if I turned up to a wedding and was expected to sit on bales of hay.

I think you need to make room in the budget.

This exactly. My OH has a farm and I have no problem mucking in and we have used bales for parties BUT it was an outdoor farm party so we were all in jeans and boots. When I go to weddings I will dress up and would be very put out to have to sit on bales in my expensive dress. Also straw bales are quite scratchy and uncomfortable on skin so again fine when in jeans.

As someone else said (sorry I don't know how to double quote) the time of year will effect the availability and quality of bales. so they have just finished harvest and there are loads around which are fresh but come spring the bales will have been stored for a few months probably outside under a tarp or in an old barn so may be a little damp or in the worst case mouldy.

How about hiring benches? Would that be more cost effective than chairs? I've been to weddings where they hay bales and fire (whoops) and it was fine

I should hasten to add it was a closed fire pit!

OK, I'm picking up that it's probably a bad idea! We're getting married in April so bales would be less avaliable, although we do have plenty farmer friends who would be able to loan us them, provided we didn't have to spray them with anything to make them fire proof.

I like the bench idea, we're not having a meal, we just need somewhere for people to sit while recovering from dancing!

If this is the case i see no problem with hay bales. Also have to say that even in my fancy clothes it wouldnt be a problem to me if I turned up at a wedding and that was all the seating they had. Even if i knew in advance id still be wearing my fancy clothes because its a wedding so it wouldnt matter to me anyway. I think it would go lovely with your venue and you can cover them to make them look pretty/more comfortable.

I made bale covers from old curtains and duvet covers, using floral and patterned fabrics that fitted in with the garden party/fete-type flavour.

I'd happily sit on straw bales in my garb.