Backyard Wedding?? HELP! Cost & Ideas?

I'm doing a backyard wedding in someone else's backyard...be prepared for huge rental costs. Every thing that comes with a venue had to be rented. If you are doing some thing with very few guests you can do less of that, but otherwise it is a lot of work.

Yea where you may save from not needing a venue may end up costing you more in rentals as you will be building a venue from the ground up. You'll have to rent everything from tables and chairs to sound system for the band etc

How many people did you want to invite and where are you located?

I love this idea so much, I wanted to do a backyard wedding but my guest list is way too big. So instead I'm having a backyard bridal shower. The issue with the entire thing is that you have to build the space from scratch, you need:

-A Tent

-Floor

-Lighting

-Air Conditioning and or Heating sources

-Tables

-Chairs

-Cutlery (2 forks, a spoon, 2 knives)

-Dinner ware (Dinner plate, Salad Plate, Desert plate, Coffee or Tea Saucer)

-Glassware (Water Glass, Wine Glass, Champagne Flute)

-Napkins

-Tablecloths

-Centerpieces

-Décor ( the outdoors will probably be beautiful. Although if you are having a tented event, you might need some décor to spruce it up and make it more formal)

-Extra Tables and linens for the tables (cake table, favor table, candy table)

-Bathrooms

-Stage or risers

Additionally because it isn't held at a venue then you need to serving staff for the day of including but not limited to (waiters, bartenders)

Also have you thought about where the food will be cooked? I guess to keep things fun and maybe even cut costs you could hire a really cool and hip food truck, one or two with different food options. They have some really nice gourmet food trucks too because that whole industry has exploded recently.

Either way enjoy your planning, I am quite envious you can actually have a backyard wedding.

I can't think of much more right now but

I like the idea of a wedding at home, but I wonder if all the things like the probably tent and all will be more stressful than renting the back room at a nice restaurant. I was at a backyard wedding last summer and it was great. but we also got lucky and had great weather.

I am located outside of the Portland Oregon area. We will be having the wedding at my fiance's parents. I know that rentals will be more expensive than doing a venue which in comparison to some of the venues its worth it I think. I was thinking of borrowing hale bales from a friend for seating during the ceremony (cover of course) since we live in the country. The band comes equipped with their own system. And we are planning on doing just simple food like burgers, pulled pork, beans, etc. We are planning probably around 50 or so. It's going to be one of those "wear your best jeans" kind of thing. I don't want it to be tacky but I just want it to be comfortable for my guests. I basically just want to get married and have a BBQ with music. Any ideas how to not make it tacky and do it on the cheaper end. I work in the industry so I have some connections but I dont want it to be too weddinglike if that makes any sense?

We are doing this in our backyard. After all is said and done, we will have probably spent $3k. We rented a tent/chairs and I'm DIYing all decor out of discard books from the school where I work. We're having lawn games, beer, BBQ, and that's it...Nothing fancy. I bought my linens from linentablecloth.com and twinkle lights from 1000bulbs.com. We're smoking all meats ourselves and having pasta/potato salads drop-off catered. Pies instead of cakes. Focus on fun instead of PFAD! We can't wait.

It will cost more than you think.

We were able to get an amazing deal on our tent by going through a friend of friend who has a small rental biZ. Only $600 including tables, chairs, and perimeter lights.

Also NO HAY BALES! they are cool in pictures, but not fun for actual sitting.

Another not on the hay bales if I had to sit on them I would be sneezing and snorting throughout your entire ceremony.

Also in case of inclement weather? do you have a plan B? will you be able to move it inside?

I've been a little iffy on the hay bales for that reason. I am trying to find something other than chairs just because it can get a little monotonous having the same chairs during the reception as well. I was thinking maybe benches or something but if can't find an option I like I'll just do matching chairs. I plan on having a tent of some sort and inside is an option as well in case of bad weather! I know its going to be expensive, I mean it is still a wedding, I just don't see the need to spend 15k on a wedding when I am not that kind of person. I am hoping to spend only around 2k, which might be a little bit of a stretch but thats the goal! Gaga your wedding sounds exactly like what I am going for!

The rental can get expensive but it doesn't have to be a crazy hassle or too costly if you're willing to look around a bit.

I know that my best decision so far planning my backyard wedding is that I found a caterer who is also handling all the rental which means I'm only dealing with one person. He is organizing all the tables, chairs, linens, tents, place settings, bar and bartender, the works. The only thing we are handling on that side of things is the actual alcohol for the bar.

For Approx 100 people it's costing us $3500 for all the rentals etc plus food.

Flooring (at least for dancing).

Potty trailers.

Im having a backyard wedding....we did extensive price searching for rentals and found amazing deals.....no it doesnt have to cost as much as a venue like people are saying, if you want it laid back you save a hell of a lot of money. fh and i crafted long tables out of old pallets (free wood, no rental of tables), found chair rental at 75 cents a piece, hit up goodwill for other goods. its really kept the cost down. do a ton of price checking before purchasing and get creative with solutions. our home has 3 bathrooms so we got to skip on potty trailer rentals, im skipping on flowers and expensive linens, etc its all about what you can skip and what you can modify

I had a backyard wedding, and through all the decisions we made we were able to really keep costs down. We had about 65 people total.

We set up separate "spaces" in the yard for the wedding, with the ceremony in the garden, a small open area for the cocktail hour, a tented area for dinner, and an area on the deck for dancing. By setting it up so where we just had dinner under the tent, we were able to rent a smaller tent, which resulted in a significant savings.

We did not rent flooring for the tent, or draping, we rented two sidewalls and left two walls open, to allow air to move through. We used our website and word of mouth to let guests know that it was an outdoor wedding and they would be walking across grass, and I don't think there were any issues with not having the tent flooring.

Rather than paying the rental company to provide the lighting, I purchased globe lights at target, and we hung them inside the tent ourselves, over the center of our tables. They ended up providing plenty of light.

We saved money on rental items by using the same chairs for our ceremony and dinner. During the cocktail hour the catering company moved the chairs for us, which minimized that rental cost.

I also did not rent all the items from the same rental company, in order to get the best price on each item. The tent, tables, chairs and place settings were rented from two local companies, and I rented the lines online from LinenHero, in order to have the specific color I was looking for.

We kept our table settings relatively simple, and ordered delphinium stems which we placed in vases ordered from Amazon. We made our own table runners from fabric ordered online, and filled out the decorations with simple candles.

Rather than purchasing floral arrangements or decor for our ceremony site, we purchased perennials that were blooming a few days before the wedding, and planted them into some empty spaces in the garden.

Another tip is that I purchased all of our serving platters from Crate & Barrel rather than renting them. From early on in the planning process, I regularly looked at the sale items on the website, and was able to purchase very attractive serving platters for a lower cost than renting a less attractive item.

Our total cost for rental items, food & beverages (including beer, wine & cocktails) and the decor items we purchased was between $4,000 and $5,000.

Here are a few pictures while we were getting things set up.

I followed this blog forever and loved their backyard wedding ideas. Wish I didn't have as many guests so I could have mine in a backyard too!

http://www.younghouselove.com/wedding-album/

Hope it helps!

This is a message for Julia K. I would love to know where your backyard wedding was. It's beautiful.