Small (American) Wedding

[Peter_Pan 661]

Some of the members on this forum had a small American wedding, and a larger, religious ceremony in the native country of their spouses. I would like to know exactly how small was the first ceremony? Did you chose smth religious or Courthouse? Bride dress or something else? And how much did you spend for it?

Thank you!

[david'sgirl 134]

Some of the members on this forum had a small American wedding, and a larger, religious ceremony in the native country of their spouses. I would like to know exactly how small was the first ceremony? Did you chose smth religious or Courthouse? Bride dress or something else? And how much did you spend for it?

Thank you!

Well I can answer on the small wedding part but it wss not in the US. We wed in a registrar's office (like a courthouse but they did have a nice room for wedding), I wore a wedding dress but got it very affordably on holyclothing.com, veil from ebay and borrowed my sis in laws tiara. We got local flowers for my bouquet and boutineer. We had a meal at a local restaurant and we ordered Personalized wine bottle labels and put them on a bottle for each guest. My husband wore a kilt and shirt he owned. My sister in law got two cakes at a shop and stacked them to create a layered look and wrapped them in ribbon and got a flower topper. My brother in law took the photos. We used our own car to get to and from the service. So in all we spent about $600. for the wedding including my visa and gown!

[El Cachalote 12]

Hi and happy new year,

We had a small Peruvian wedding in Lima. It was a civil ceremony and a total of 15 in the wedding party. My wife had a hand made wedding dress ($120), there was a photographer, and I flew my wife's family in from another region of Peru.

My total cost was approx. $1800. I was a small and wonderful ceremony. I am happy we chose to do it that way.

El Cachalote

[N M 96]

We had one wedding, here in CO. Nothing back in Britain.

A handful of people from the UK were able to fly over, but the total number of guests (American & British) was about 25. To be frank, it was lovely - way more intimate than the 200+ guest things that I've often been to in Britain.

Service and reception was outside in the garden of the museum where Annette works (so no cost for the venue - though we made a donation to say thank you).

Pastor from Annette's church charged his normal fee. Can't remember what - but not much.

We have a REALLY good pizzeria in town, so we bought a dozen huge pizzas, and a load of Italian deserts, and fed everyone those. The beer and the wine came from Sam's Club.

Annette's dress was beautiful, but very simple. And only cost a couple of hundred bucks from J-Crew.

Only expensive thing was the photographs.

All in - about $1,500 - $1,800.

Edited January 7, 2012 by N M

[jojolicious 38]

We had a small religious ceremony with just his immediate family, best friends, his godfather and his godfather's wife. I wore a short white dress I got in the mall and he bought a suit. I loved it because it was so intimate and felt very special. Excluding our rings I'd say we spent less than $2000. People knew we were getting married but that they would have to wait until the official reception later in the year.

Then we had a reenactment of the ceremony and official wedding reception 6 months later where our relatives and friends flew in from different states and countries to be there. Co-workers, schoolmates etc also attended.

Both were in the U.S. though

[wee carrington 33]

Well I can answer on the small wedding part but it wss not in the US. We wed in a registrar's office (like a courthouse but they did have a nice room for wedding), I wore a wedding dress but got it very affordably on holyclothing.com, veil from ebay and borrowed my sis in laws tiara. We got local flowers for my bouquet and boutineer. We had a meal at a local restaurant and we ordered Personalized wine bottle labels and put them on a bottle for each guest. My husband wore a kilt and shirt he owned. My sister in law got two cakes at a shop and stacked them to create a layered look and wrapped them in ribbon and got a flower topper. My brother in law took the photos. We used our own car to get to and from the service. So in all we spent about $600. for the wedding including my visa and gown!

That's close to what ours was like

[Travis and Meghan 24]

We had a small outdoor ceremony in the late afternoon (sunset and weather was perfect!) I think the cost for the venue and celebrant was $400 but my Aunt and Uncle paid for that. There was probably about 20/25 people there, after all of the visa stuff we didn't really want to plan some massive wedding. The only family i had there was my aunt and uncle and there was also my husbands parents and sister and some of our friends. After the ceremony we went to ihop. The people at ihop we're great, they set us up outside and re arranged the tables for us and let us bring our own cake. My inlaws got the cake made for us by a family friend so that was no cost. And my aunt and uncle paid for everyones meals but ihop isn't all that expensive to begin with so if everyone had bought their own it wouldn't have been a huge cost to anyone.

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

Second wedding for each of us so no dreams in our heads of white dresses, flowers, frills.

So we had a lovely Sunday afternoon gathering of the people we saw most often--our morning coffee group who have become great friends. Didn't bother with any relatives (except my daughters) or life long friends. About a dozen people.

Venue--FREE (huge covered patio and house of one friend)

Officiant--FREE (my childhood friend is a district judge)

Glass dishes, punchbowl--FREE (one of the guests)

Champagne--FREE (one of the guests. 7 bottles she had left from a party)

Coffee--FREE (2 flavors in the pump things offered by the coffee shop)

China cups and real crystal flutes--FREE (one of the guests)

Punch--FREE (daughter)

Tiny 2-tiered wedding cake--around $60

It was casual but elegant with lots of visiting, some football watching, and coffee drinking before. The ceremony was everybody gathered around us standing in a circle. Then we had cake and champagne. The whole thing was put together in a matter of days with friends kicking in with what they wanted to bring. Short, sweet, and special.

[david'sgirl 134]

That's close to what ours was like

Second wedding for each of us so no dreams in our heads of white dresses, flowers, frills.

So we had a lovely Sunday afternoon gathering of the people we saw most often--our morning coffee group who have become great friends. Didn't bother with any relatives (except my daughters) or life long friends. About a dozen people.

Venue--FREE (huge covered patio and house of one friend)

Officiant--FREE (my childhood friend is a district judge)

Glass dishes, punchbowl--FREE (one of the guests)

Champagne--FREE (one of the guests. 7 bottles she had left from a party)

Coffee--FREE (2 flavors in the pump things offered by the coffee shop)

China cups and real crystal flutes--FREE (one of the guests)

Punch--FREE (daughter)

Tiny 2-tiered wedding cake--around $60

It was casual but elegant with lots of visiting, some football watching, and coffee drinking before. The ceremony was everybody gathered around us standing in a circle. Then we had cake and champagne. The whole thing was put together in a matter of days with friends kicking in with what they wanted to bring. Short, sweet, and special.

Sounds nice.

[Marilyn. 340]

we had a small Canadian wedding.. Cost was around $1000 total and that included my husband's flight up to Canada and back and our mini honeymoon...

My mom made my dress and the flower girl's dress. I only had to pay for the material, which cost around 100 bucks. The flowers I got done by someone my SIL knew and that cost under 75 bucks. We bought my husband a tux from Sears for around 100 bucks. My matron of honour happened to have a dress in the right colour so she wore that. A friend of mine paid to get my hair done as a wedding gift to me.

We got married in a little chapel on the grounds of the bed and breakfast where we were going to have our honeymoon. We got a couple nights free because we had stayed there before. There was maybe 16 people at the wedding ceremony. Mainly family with a few friends. We invited more people to the reception.

A friend of the family's took our pictures and gave them to us as a wedding gift.. That is one area I wish I had splurged on. Our family friend did a good job but he was more used to taking pictures of trains than real real people. My brother took the video of the ceremony. We had a marriage commissioner marry us and she cost around 100 bucks.

We had the reception at my parent's house and my mom and dad paid for a caterer, around $300. I made our wedding cake, banana with chocolate frosting (YUM!).

it was a great day!

We plan on having a renewal of vows thing for our 10 year anniversary which is coming up in 2014.