Courthouse wedding and reception

DON'T MAKE YOUR GUESTS PAY! Why don't push the wedding back until you guys are financially stable? It would be best.

If you are having guests, you pay for everything. Food and drinks (including alcohol).

For the record, all these "just the courthouse" posts are pissing me off. FH and I have chosen to go this route because we don't want a large wedding. It wasn't a last fucking resort, it was our first choice.

Own your decision, if you are having guests, you host them properly. If not, elope and be done with it.

I think there is some etiquette rule about inviting people to an event where you don't plan to host food. You should be able to say "please join us" at such and such restaurant afterwards to celebrate. Fair warning, your guests may find this tacky and be offended. If it's just close family and close friends, they may understand your situation and be fine with it.

FH & I are paying for everything ( neither sides of our families our helping).

So if you don't want a courthouse wedding then wait til you can afford a small dinner at least.

I would rather go to a dinner where you pay than have to rush over to some small community center for just chips and water.

Have your wedding now and a celebration later, when you can afford to properly host your guests. Friends of ours *chose* to have a courthouse wedding, with a few immediate family members in attendance (read: MOB, MOG, FOB). Then at a later time, they had a kick ass reception/party.

Just elope or have only your parents and siblings, then take everyone out for a meal afterwards that you two pay for. It's ok to get married when you don't have a lot of spare cash, obviously, but it does mean an elopement or getting the guest list down to only the people you can properly host (you pay, food and alcohol provided). Almost everyone here is paying for all/nearly all of their wedding and many have long engagements and take second and third jobs to have the kind of wedding they want. You can also go that route and just wait until you have saved up enough to do what you want to do.

JessieJV: I want nothing more than to elope and get married at the courthouse, so these posts rub me the wrong way too.

What's a "regular wedding"?

I never meant the courthouse to be a bad thing I'm happy with it I can have all my guest I want there it's only going to be close family and friends and no where do it say food must be catered

Also no reason to be rude

A reception 's whole point is to thank your guests for attending the ceremony. Therefore, making them pay for their own thank you (or exposing them to food-borne pathogens via self catering) is an extremely rude plan.

Stop trying to host more people than you can afford. You could have a REALLY nice elopement somewhere for what you're planning to spend on a sub-par party for 30. Save yourselves and your guests the grief, or postpone and save until you can afford the wedding you want. Period. You don't mistreat your guests like that.

ETA: most couples here are paying for their weddings themselves. Don't expect sympathy that mommy and daddy aren't helping pick up the bill. You won't get it. Paying for your wedding is nobody's responsibility but yours and your FH's.

I'm having one of these abnormal, irregular weddings that you're talking about. We're paying for it 100% on our own and would never dream of asking anyone to help us. Any celebration of our marriage afterwards will be 100% paid for by us. If we want people to celebrate with us then we have to pay for that. It would be rude to expect them to pay for their own meal afterwards.

You can hold a celebration at a community center, but consider a small guest list and doing Italian or BBQ catering from a local restaurant. Push your date back if you need to.

Um, how are people being rude?

Get the community center and order some sandwich platters from a grocery store. You don't want to be prepping food for your wedding, you'll just be too busy that day, should be enjoying yourself, and there are safety concerns when you're serving food to a crowd.

If your day is ruined by what an Internet stranger says to you, you have some growing up to do. No one was rude.

Geez someone has their panties in a bunch this morning

1. Nobody said that it has to be catered. It was mentioned that you could go to a nice restaurant and pay for your guests meals.

2. You can't tell members not to post, what they can post, or tell them to leave.

3. Nobody was being rude.

Argggggg......there is nothing wrong with a courthouse wedding, but the concept rubs me the wrong way too because you could certainly have something with a little more charisma for not much more money. We do simple elopements at a castle backdrop in NJ for 250.00. It's a lot nicer than Tuesday morning after traffic court; the ceremony is unique and sweet, the setting is gorgeous and free, and it sure beats "step this way".....

You don't make people pay. If you can't host them, you do your ceremony with the least amount of guests you want or need (not all states require witnesses...). You take them all to lunch. Bingo. You're married. If I arranged this all for one of my couples, it would be less than 500.00.

@Melissa - You cannot tell people on an open forum how to post. Here's the thing, you are being offensive to many of the brides and grooms on this site who actually want to have "just a courthouse wedding". Just an FYI, it's a real wedding too.

FTR, I'm having guests at my courthouse wedding whom I am going to host the shit out of by providing them with lots of food and alcohol. I'm not the rude one in this scenario. I'll post what I want, and if I want to let you know that your idea is horrible, rude and tacky, I will.

Most users on WW are paying for their wedding with their FH/FW on their own as well so that isn't an excuse to be cheap and make your guests pay for their own meal. The reception is a thank you for your guests so they should not be paying for their food. And the food needs to be catered. Do more research, there are plenty of WW users who are doing pasta or BBQ catered for their guest for under $20/pp. If you can't afford this then push back the wedding or cut the guest list.

Also a courthouse wedding is just as real as any other wedding and many people on here choose to do that so please don't diminish it.

Try even like a huge sub sandwich and buy some sides. Do not self cater and do not have people pay for their own meal.