Backyard Wedding Search!

I wouldnt ask anyone else to use their backyard. I mean.. having a backyard wedding is actually a HUGE feat. I wouldnt want to impose on anyone else like that.

I will tell you, briefly, my experience with wanting a backyard wedding.

(I did not end up having it in a backyard)

My husband and I wanted to have it in my in-laws backyard at first. They live on a lake and it is so beautiful. However, the lawn is slightly sloped. We had a rental company come out to help us see if it would work. They can set up platforms/scaffolding ( I guess a deck of sorts) to level the ground. JUST THAT. JUST THE "DECK" was going to cost just over 8 grand!!!! Then we had to add dance floor, table and chair rentals, etc. It would have been a 20k wedding AT HOME.

If the ground is even SLIGHTLY sloped, you cannot put in a portable dance floor as it will crack where the tiles connect (so the rental company told us). Depending on number of guests, you may need to rent portable bathrooms.

You would have to be realllllly close to have a backyard wedding at someone else's house. Their grass could get wrecked, there would be a lot of people in and out of their house as well as vendors. How many guests do you have?

In the end, we had a gorgeous wedding for 8k TOTAL. (Which, remember, was JUST the price of the quote for the flat floor in the backyard).

Backyard weddings can be tough and very expensive if they are not VERY small.

VRBO!!! People rent houses just for this sort of thing

This will cost more than you think.

^ You could... Just make sure you are honest with the house owner. They may NOT want a huge party like a wedding on their lawn. Again, the lawn has to be almost PERFECTLY flat for it to work out. The size of your guest list will make a huge difference! It definitely can be done.

Are you in TX?

I'm having a backyard wedding at MIL house because we live in an apartment. To save money I'm doing it diy.

For myself and FH we were the same as Kristy

My dad has a large backyard with a beautiful view and we were going to do it there.. but after the cost of every little thing it was going to be way too much. Now we are at a country club with dinner, ceremony, food, open bar etc for 90 people it's $5,000. I am now thinking how much easier and less stressful it is to not have a backyard wedding. Very tedious and a lot a lot of planning

Backyard weddings tend to be way more than using a more typical venue. A lot more work too. Most people I have know who have done it, regretted it. We did look into it as well because I thought it would be cheaper and I was really shocked.

I would agree it's a ton more work! Currently on the final stages of planning and it has been tedious. We got very lucky with the house we rented. There are so many aspects to look into before you commit to a backyard wedding.

This is so much work. And so much money. Did I mention work?

We live on ten acres and host a gathering every year of about 100 people. There is room to park. We have three bathrooms. A large pole barn. A pond. A covered porch and a patio with an awning. We have banquet tables, chairs, everything. We rent a tent as well.

A wedding, especially my own? Big bowl of nope right there.

I did this. A property was offered to us, and we accepted.

Here is what I needed:

Parking signs.

Lighting to the parking areas at night.

A tent

All chairs, tables, linens, flatware, glassware, everything.

Two dumpsters.

Six high end port-a-potties(trailers).

Lighting throughout.

A generator.

Dancefloor

Wedges for the tables and chairs so they all sat evenly.

Exit signs.

Fire extinguishers.

Transport from ceremony site to reception (100yds, but we had some elderly people who could not walk on the grass).

We did special mowing on the property for weeks in advance.

Propane heaters.

Propane, water (for drinking AND cleaning)

AND this is all with getting lucky of having an existing lean-to barn with full kitchen ALREADY there.

I did it all myself, and would recommend it to NO ONE.

I mean technically you can just say your I Dos and call it a day. But if you're looking for anything else beyond that then it will start costing money.

Backyard weddings are not my favorite for a couple reasons: generally speaking there is not a lot of parking, weather permitting can cause issues,bugs, and portable bathrooms... save yourself the head ache and rent a nice venue.

You will most likely have to get port o potties, too. I doubt a house can handle all those people flushing for 4 plus hours.

I'm in the middle of planning a backyard wedding that is in a very special spot. (His parents were married there and his uncle and aunt. It's his grandmothers house and now passed to the aunt)

Anywho.

If it wasn't so important that we have the wedding there I would have gone with a smaller venue that already had all the things you need.

The backyard wedding is soooooo much extra planning and money to rent what you need. Don't do it to save money. It does not save you money.

I would not recommend backyard weddings to even my worse enemy. :p

I'm renting a house for a backyard wedding. It is more work than getting an all inclusive venue, but not more work than I thought it would be. The main thing is that you'll have to rent tables/chairs/linens/cutlery/dance floor/lighting etc. I'm actually going to save money compared to the other venues I liked, but that's because I don't like hotel ballrooms. I definitely could have done it cheaper at a place that does several weddings a day, but that's not my thing. Instead I'll get to spend the entire weekend in a beautiful house with my family and get married in the backyard.

We had our wedding in our backyard. It worked out really well for us - and it was a ton of work. We spent the entire summer redoing our backyard. I felt the money and labor was worth having a gorgeous backyard for the wedding and beyond. We are still enjoying are beautiful backyard.

We had parking, the church down the street in our community let us use their parking lot and it was less than a 1 min walk to our house. We have three bathrooms. We kept our guest list small (under 40). We had the electrical to handle the lighting we put up for the evening. I rented chairs and tables. I spent the year w/ my MIL and GMIL going to yard sales, church rummage sales, estate sales and thrift stores for the china I wanted. I purchased the linens and borrowed a lot of stuff from an in law family member who just had a wedding. We also built almost everything else ourselves (pergola, bar, tables on the patio, cornhole game, giant jenga game, the whole enclosure for our front yard and I planted and grew most of our flowers). The flowers I did not grow, I purchased bulk from Sam's (very affordable). We had a town local restaurant cater. We had a back up tent on hold just in case there was rain. We had a propane fireplace and a wood burning fire pit. It did take us three trash days to get rid of all our recycle after, but that's because we used a ton of bourbon bottles for decor. We spent under $7k - and we live in Gilbert, AZ.

I wanted a backyard wedding too. My friends have a beautiful backyard and offered it to us but when I started calculating everything it was going to be way more expensive than the venue we chose and a ton of work!

@CA_DesertBride so not only are we getting married the same day, but I couldn't agree with you more. We are also renting a house for a backyard wedding for the same reasons you are.

I agree that it's a lot of work to plan this type of wedding. A LOT of work. But, I'm up for the work. You really have to know what you're doing to do a backyard wedding without losing your mind or your bank account. If you don't really have DIY experience, I don't suggest starting with your wedding. I blame Pinterest, lol.

@Tia: Gorgeous pictures! Thanks for the advice.

@Haley lol - I also blame pinterest. Why have I read articles saying nothing but how it's cuts a huge hole in expenses to get married in a backyard??

Thank you everyone for your input & advice. I did not think at all about how the expenses of a backyard wedding could really add up. I think that reason alone will get it crossed off the possible venue list