How To Pull Off A Small Intimate Wedding On A Small Budget. Really!

Pictures and MORE details about how you saved! How did you save so much on flowers? What else did you do to save..please include vendors if possible. People love to know these helpful hints to save! :-)

I cannot deal with trolls on top of the spam today.

Ummm... okay?

Sweet.

Is this post a humble-brag or are you trying to help ?

Change you avatar. There is too much spam to be dealing with this.

I'm sorry, but what was the point of your thread?

Give us more details to help out budget brides.

Ooooor did you just post to humble brag?

Hey, good for you.

The surprise wedding sometimes goes over like a fart in church so glad it worked for you.

Please change your avatar and kindly respond to the comments

Well, I just posted a few minutes ago. Surprised to get comments so quickly. I will post photos as soon as I get them cropped, etc. 1. We don't have that many friends in any one location so it did not make sense for us to rent a venue that would be fairly empty. When I saw what was in store for a clerk of court ceremony, I retreated quickly and called someone that I had seen officiating another ceremony to ask questions. He offered his services and explained everything. With the limited number of people we were inviting (family and close friends), we had only 16 people, so we thought why not a home wedding. While we were not trying to impress anyone, I wanted it tasteful and attractive. I bought a shell pink lace dress off the rack (I'm a mature bride); watched Utube videos on how to create a bridal boquet , boutineer, after I went online and saw the price of going to a florist, used some of my home accessories that were already inhouse by moving them center stage on the dining room table, used white silk peonies to enhance the branches that already were in large vases bodering the large glass dining room table since my fresh flowers were used in the maid of honor , bridal boquets, boutineer, and center pieces. I also used pink glass marbles in a tall plexiglass center piece to position LED candles and roses to highlight the cake and center piece since I did not have a tall tiered cake.

I made my own hor dourves, covered the champagne bottles with little bride and groom bottle covers. The cake was a lace decorated cake from Publix for $20 that played well with my lace dress, and I decorated it with pink roses on one side carrying the pink, red, and white theme. I had bought a wedding cake topper that i did not use because it looked so typical. I recorded our favorite music on CD's to give as party favors, with a label thanking our guests for sharing our special day. Actually, the festivities of the cocktail party took a back seat to the surprise effect of the event. We did not have $20,000 to spend on a wedding planner, florists, etc., and if we had, I would have opted to spend it on a trip around the world rather than 1 day. We spent approximately $900 on the ceremony and that included paying the officiant who performed the ceremony in our home. I found that as we added guests, the costs of course continued to rise.

Now the rings and honeymoon were another thing, but we reduced the cost of the honeymoon by using our frequent flyer miles for the plane fares, and using our time share exchange for a really awesome resort stay. And I pulled it all off within a 6 week time frame. I suggest giving yourself at least 2 months to plan, but my now husband had already put in for his vacation so when we decided to do it, we had to plan around his vacation.

Well, I just posted a few minutes ago. Surprised to get comments so quickly. I will post photos as soon as I get them cropped, etc. 1. We don't have that many friends in any one location so it did not make sense for us to rent a venue that would be fairly empty. When I saw what was in store for a clerk of court ceremony, I retreated quickly and called someone that I had seen officiating another ceremony to ask questions. He offered his services and explained everything. With the limited number of people we were inviting (family and close friends), we had only 16 people, so we thought why not a home wedding. While we were not trying to impress anyone, I wanted it tasteful and attractive. I bought a shell pink lace dress off the rack (I'm a mature bride); watched Utube videos on how to create a bridal boquet , boutineer, after I went online and saw the price of going to a florist, used some of my home accessories that were already inhouse by moving them center stage on the dining room table, used white silk peonies to enhance the branches that already were in large vases bodering the large glass dining room table since my fresh flowers were used in the maid of honor , bridal boquets, boutineer, and center pieces. I also used pink glass marbles in a tall plexiglass center piece to position LED candles and roses to highlight the cake and center piece since I did not have a tall tiered cake.

I made my own hor dourves, covered the champagne bottles with little bride and groom bottle covers. The cake was a lace decorated cake from Publix for $20 that played well with my lace dress, and I decorated it with pink roses on one side carrying the pink, red, and white theme. I had bought a wedding cake topper that i did not use because it looked so typical. I recorded our favorite music on CD's to give as party favors, with a label thanking our guests for sharing our special day. Actually, the festivities of the cocktail party took a back seat to the surprise effect of the event. We did not have $20,000 to spend on a wedding planner, florists, etc., and if we had, I would have opted to spend it on a trip around the world rather than 1 day. We spent approximately $900 on the ceremony and that included paying the officiant who performed the ceremony in our home. I found that as we added guests, the costs of course continued to rise.

Now the rings and honeymoon were another thing, but we reduced the cost of the honeymoon by using our frequent flyer miles for the plane fares, and using our time share exchange for a really awesome resort stay. And I pulled it all off within a 6 week time frame. I suggest giving yourself at least 2 months to plan, but my now husband had already put in for his vacation so when we decided to do it, we had to plan around his vacation.

Congratulations! It sounds like it was a lovely party.

Let me clap for you.

That sounds very nice. Please share more photos and highlights of your day so that other budget brides can learn some tips and tricks.

Also, please change your avatar, there's been a lot of spam today and I wouldn't want your post to get lost.

Congratulations. It all sounds lovely!

Well, for 16 people thats roughly $55 per person, thats pretty damned good. Im have 43 (guest list went up 6 people recently) and my budget is 3000 so youve got me beat, but we are having a sit down dinner at a restaurant, and our wedding at a church - so not exactly apples to oranges. Im making some of my flowers myself too, in addition to some grocerystore flowers, and am wearing a MOB dress purchased from Craigslist (new) for $20. Grocerystore cake, too. Im glad you had the wedding and surprise party that you wanted and that it turned out wonderful. Good tips for budget brides!