Struggling with affordable wedding ideas

Have you tried pubs/social clubs? An awful lot of them have free function rooms you can use (although some have a minimum bar spend). Pretty much all my family weddings growing up were in a bar/pub/club with various relatives who each brought in a platter of food to cater. Although my family all drink so we easily met the bar tab.

Or you can often find council owned buildings which you can get for cheap, they can look tired and a bit ropey, but some of them tend to be very old and can look nice enough!

Are you somewhere with chance of good weather? A member of my craft class paid to get married in a local stately home, then went outside and sat on the lawn on blankets and ate sandwiches/cakes from tesco.

Also have you looked inside the registry office? As the one in our town is really really awfully 1970s concrete bunker style on the outside, but inside the actual bit for the ceremony was modern, with lots of frosted glass, flowers and draping.

I'd have to say registry office, outdoors or see if you can get a package deal.

My venue includes ceremony room, red carpet, table linens wedding breakfast, wine and bubbly for the toast, and just the room for the evening (no food) and a hotel room for us to sleep in on the night. All in for 40 people is £2000.

Cost can come down if you go mid week rather than weekend too.

Congratulations on your engagement ?

We had the same problem, we don't want to have to spend loads, I've been married before and my OH isn't really into a lot of fuss. We've decided on just having 20 for our ceremony and meal and then from around 5ish have a big party, we're lucky that we've finally found a venue that can do this for us. We searched for over a year, all the places we looked at were too big or didn't have much history which is what we wanted. so we've got a lovely little room for the ceremony and meal and then the double doors open out into a bigger room ready for the party. When talking to our venue about the evening food a buffet was £11 pp or sausage and bacon baps £9 pp immediately my OH said the baps to save money, but the more I thought about it, I didn't want the people coming in the evening to be stuck with just that. So instead we're hiring a pizza van, they're doing us 50 pizzas, garlic bread, salads and olives for £780 and I'm going to get lots of sweet platters from M&S!

I do feel bad about not inviting everyone to the whole day, but I'm also saving myself the stress of the seating plan, favours, decorations, speeches etc. I just hope that people will understand and still want to party with us, I just need to work out how to word the invites that they wont be getting a 3 course meal ?

We're also having a winter wedding which works out cheaper

Bacchant, the stately home picnic idea, how lovely and romantic ❤️

I hope that you sort it out soon and start to enjoy the planning x

What location are you searching in?

Contact the main registry office and ask for a list of ALL the licensed premises in the area. Look up the pubs and smaller hotels to see what is on offer.

I photographed a wedding at a central Leeds pub recently - to my amazement it even has a lovely garden, patio and a conservatory for the ceremony. Sometimes you find big chains are cheap on a weekday, eg Britannia Hotels usually have amazing offers.

Thanks guys

I've worked my way through most of the approved premises list for the various locations - main ones are bath/bristol and cardiff.

Bath/bristol is great for village halls but lacking in places that will let you do the ceremony only and the registry offices are in the middle of the city so usually a way to any of the halls. And I found a couple of ceremony only options in cardiff but theres a lack of village halls/cheap reception venues there! Typical.

Pub function rooms is a good idea, I'll start looking into that. My issue with registry offices is what the actual rooms look like, I'm not fussed about the outside of the building but the classic city hall look with old paintings and red carpets with dated curtains is so not us - they also tend to be on the small side. I'd be okay with a neutral room - I went to a lovely wedding elsewhere in a registry office that was neutral and pretty.

Have you tried working mens clubs? Most of ours around here are free hire, I don't know if you'd find any that are the same.

If you're open to the idea you could get married at registry office ( just the two of toy and two witnesses, in my area that costs about £28). Then hire a working man's club function room and good a ceremony with someone close to toy 'marrying' the two of you at the beginning of the after party.

To save further money you could ask guests to bring food instead of wedding presents.