Small intimate wedding

I can't speak on the small intimate wedding part. But the general consensus is "No pay, no say." You do what you and FH wants, not what your family wants. Be on the same page with FH and stand your ground when it comes to family.

Yes! Have the wedding that you can afford. How many people are you thinking? I like the ceremony then reception in a room of a restaurant idea.

Ohh believe me we are both Great at no pay no say so now we are just like ok what to do?! Small destination wedding ?? Quick courthouse and small reception? Hmm lol

We found a house to rent that the backyard overlooks lake winnipisaukee...for less than 1600 for 4 days... 4 bedrooms 4 bathrooms..only about 30-35 people

Invited...whole thing is costing us less than 3500 with backyard grilling!

@mrsc OMG I would LOVE that!!! Especially because it's exactly what I want i know I deff want to be married outside and I've always loved the rustic barn weddings plus my guest list would be around that amount maybe 50-60

I wish I was having small and intimate... happy planning!

We did a DW specifically so that our wedding would be small and intimate. We had ours in a hotel suite in Las Vegas, and then took everyone to dinner at a restaurant in the resort. We had 30 guests.

FH and I decided on a small beach wedding! Only inviting parents and grandparents. Then when we come home we will have a "celebrations of marriage" for our entire family to celebrate with us. But it will be just a BBQ at a state park nothing extravagant. We found an amazing officiant that includes everything in his package, check him out! It's in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Benjy Simmons from Simple Wedding Day. He's been such a great help so far and he makes everything as easy as possible for us!

I had 15 guests. We rented a hotel suite at a resort/casino. We had the ceremony in there and then had the restaurant in the resort cater. Later some of us went and played in the casino. We spent about $5k altogether.

We're doing an intimate wedding of about 35 guests. Initially we began by planning for a guest list of 90 and after realizing costs, not really loving the venue too much, and me having a bright idea we decided to scrap that plan. We now will host our small guest list with an outdoor near the water ceremony we envisioned, and a fun whimsical day after at the theme-park with our closest loved ones. We'll spend about the same, but have a much better experience imo.

Oh, no! You're going to have to pay for it yourself?! That's just so wrong of everyone! Don't they know it's totally their responsibility to pay for YOUR wedding?!?

Oh, did that sound stuck up and bratty, spoiled even? Yeah, most of the couples here are paying for their own weddings because, well, it's THEIR wedding. You should never expect someone else to pay, and remember, no pay, no say, and the moment anyone gives any money toward your wedding, they get to start making decisions for you.

My suggestion? Save money from your paycheck a each month, set a budget according to that, and move forward with your wedding that YOU paid for!

20 guests only over here and we are a couple with a loooot of friends and family- but since we prefer to buy a house than food/music/booze for 150 people we opt for the small wedding.

@mna - Chill. She said they're good with paying themselves, she's just looking for ideas.

@Karla M. - We're doing a small wedding (fewer than 30 guests) at a garden/courtyard venue. It's actually like the world's smallest and most random state park, so it's pretty cheap! And there's a nice hotel within walking distance - literally half a block away - so that's great for our out-of-town guests.

If you haven't already, figure out your budget and do a venue search on here to see what pops up. I don't know your area, but there are a ton of lovely bed & breakfast type places around here that you can rent for crazy cheap prices....and state parks are almost always a great deal!

Thank you to all the lovey ladies that took the time to provide awesome ideas! I think we are deff going with a small intimate wedding with a guest list of possibly 20-30 and I'm loving the back yard bbq ideas! Also to the post that brought up renting a big house!? GENIUS! really all of your plans are beautiful though!

Not sure where you are but some of the bed and breakfasts around here have intimate wedding packages. You can have the ceremony either inside or sometimes there's a garden or it's by the ocean. Then you have a nice dinner. Sometimes they even throw in a night at the inn.

We're renting a private room at one of our favorite restaurants. It has a beautiful fire place for our ceremony and a bar too, so it's perfect for our under 40 people wedding.

We also looked at renting a B&B, I LOVED the idea but the didn't do indoor ceremonies so our winter wedding had to be somewhere else.

I'll be DIYing my flowers too, which I wouldn't have done for a bigger wedding. Good luck with your planning!

@Chick:

"...and already the drama with my family has begun as far as money goes. Long story short the majority of spendings for our wedding is solely now depended of my FH and I,"

That's from op directly. If she didn't make it sound like a travesty that nobody else was going to pay for their wedding, my response would have been much different. I would assume any ADULT old enough to get married would not EXPECT anyone else to pay for their wedding except themselves though, and I would EXPECT them not to sound like they were upset/disappointed when people weren't giving them money to have a wedding with.

Same as Mrs. Atwood - wishing we'd stuck to the small and intimate idea...but his side has a huge family, and they seem to think that ALL cousins, aunts (great aunts, etc) need to be invited.....

I would say that if you're paying, stick to your plan without wavering when it comes to who to invite. If you've already had drama around who pays, I can foresee drama around the invite list. It seems to be a common source of stress and family issue. If others aren't contributing, they don't get to say who to invite. Period.

We are having ours in our favorite area in CA! We invited 50 people but know all 50 won't go, so it will probably be around 30 and that's our closest family and friends. I am so happy we decided to do it this way rather than a huge wedding here in AZ. It is more us and definitely more intimate.

We are lucky enough to have an entire resturant for 6 hours for our guest list of 35. We opted to do brunch because we only need to meet the brunch minimum of the resturant during those 6 hours. We are having the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception there. Planning has been fun and easy and there are so many ways to save money when the guest list is small

We are paying for ours as well, but even if we were not this is what we both want. Happy planning!