Backyard wedding

Cost of rentals including rent and porta-johns are something to consider. Make sure you’re not paying more than you would for an inclusive venue.

Tent* sorry phone autocorrect

Yes rental costs as previously mentioned. Tent, porta-johns, tables, chairs, linens, silverware, dance floor, lighting, etc. Also check that there are no noise retro ruins or ordinances in the city/ town.

Cons: port-o-potties, the cost of renting EVERYTHING, a lot more work than expected.

Pros: sentimental location

Rentals are going to make up a huge part of your budget. Depending on your caterer, you may need to rent industrial kitchen equipment, which has its own power supply requirements; you'll need a bathroom trailer most likely, plus all the other things which others have mentioned.

I considered the same for my wedding but a back yard wedding you have to buy/rent EVERYTHING. Bathrooms, tent, table chairs, silverware, napkins. Buy the booze and food. One thing I was really worried about was liability for injury. What if one of my guests fell or got hurt on the property and sued my family (crazy to say but it’s happened before). Who is going to do the cleanup for all of that? Was I going to stick it with my family or was I going to get up the day after my wedding to clean the yard. Did I have to hire servers and bartenders? Where would all the trash go? All of that was way too much anxiety for me to handle. HOWEVER, I have seen beautiful back yard weddings that were lovely and went off without a hitch! I would recommend a day of coordinator tho if you go that route because you will be dealing with a ton of vendors!

My first thought is weather. Even if it's not super hot you could get hit with storms, or in our case, hurricanes. Invest in renting a tent, but there is the next hurdle, rentals. You would need everything including tables, chairs, linens, and whatever you will use to provide food. A food truck could really work for this though. Also consider power. Do you want music? How will you get electricity to the reception area? Generators can be noisy so keep that in mind.

Having said all that, I think it could be absolutely beautiful if you have all you need to pull it off. Good luck!

Keep insurance coverage in mind. If someone was to slip and fall and they got hurt- your parents would be liable for their medical bills. Could possibly end up getting sued.

It definitely is more to plan since there's all these separate costs and things to book.

The things that actually discouraged me from having a backyard wedding were:

-what will happen to the ground if it rains? Even if you have a tent, the ground could still get softer and your heels could sink. You may need to rent a “floor” in addition to a tent.

-what will you do about speakers for music? Do you have speakers, will you need to rent them, are there outlets outdoors in their backyard area?

-what about bathrooms? Is their bathroom easily accessible? Do they mind everyone going into their house to use the bathroom? Is the plumbing good enough to hold up with the amount all your guests will be flushing? Or will you need to rent a portable restroom?

These were all things that made me realize that for MY situation it would be more complicated than it’s worth. But you may have good answers to these in which case it could be a lovely idea! Just wanted to make sure you thought of everything

My family owns a ranch outside of a mountain town so it was an option for us but we opted against it. The cost to bring in a tent, chairs, tables, generators, sound system, bathroom rentals, etc. was actually more than our $11,000 venue. We don't have a professional kitchen, so the caterer would have to cook most then bring it in. We are off a dirt road, so we would have to provide some sort of transportation from town. The nearest hotel was at least 30 minutes away. We would have to deal with bugs unless we had a major spraying company come in. We have no neighbors nearby at all, but with 10 acres I assume neighbors could hear noise if it was past 10 PM and that may bother them? Also depending on county or city zoning, it may not be allowed.

View Quoted Comment Yes, pretty much what pirate said.

FH and I are getting married on FILs property and its actually costing a little bit more than it would have for the venue I wanted. We decided to do it at FILs though because I liked the idea of going back to the place where we said our vows.


Also, if you do decide to do it at families, BUY WEDDING INSURANCE

Port a potties, parking, chairs, TENTS TENTS TENTS, wedding insurance, zoning laws on noise if there will be music, hiring a licensed bartender.