Mustachian Wedding - GO!

[ejmyrow]

Aloha!
We welcome advice on how to do this wedding!

We are mustachian. Our parents are not necessarily (but have some tendencies). I (the bride) am super simple. Groom prefers a bit more class.
- Dress is done (a miracle occurred - found one I like for cheap at Macy's. I know hundreds of other brides may have the same dress. Don't care. It looks good on my bod.)
- Venue - we are finding that churches are cheaper than "wedding venues and halls" and my college is also cheaper (cash in some alumni points) (parents' backyard is in small city and most of attendants are in big expensive city 8 hr drive away) (bride kind of wishes we could do it in backyard)
- Food... thoughts?
- How to have as little booze as possible (just a champagne toast??)
- Officiant could be a friend...
- Flowers?
- Decorations?
- Music?
** Registry - we have a small apartment and don't want STUFF. what do we do??
Other thoughts?!
Thank you!!

[SmallCheese]

Someone else recently posted a similar thread:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/planning-a-low-budget-wedding


I'll reiterate what I said there: don't skimp on your photographer if you care about pictures.

[JDS]

I got married in July 2016 before I discovered the mustachian community. We had the ceremony in the woods at a cool overlook at one of our favorite hiking trails at a local park for free. It worked out great a was low stress. We only had our immediate family members and the officiant there to keep it simple. The next week we had a big catered picnic in a pavilion that we rented for all friends and family. We didn't have alcohol which probably wasn't allowed in the picnic  grove and because it was an afternoon picnic vs an evening party no one seemed to mind. We also didn't need a DJ. It worked out great and was low stress which was our #1 goal above being low cost. I think the back yard could be a great idea.

We are both teachers and the low cost wedding allowed us to wait a year and then take a 40 day and 40 night 8,000 mile honeymoon/road trip across the country in our camper van which was awesome!

[sokoloff]

We got married in our backyard, self "catered" by our favorite BBQ joint, spent maybe $500 on food, $500 on wine (and had plenty of leftovers), $200 on Justice of Peace, and maybe $300-500 on decorations, utensils, and the grocery store cake.

Doesn't make us love each other any less or any less happy.

We don't have a ton of pictures of the event, and what we do have is cell phone and point-n-shoot cameras. Maybe I'll care 30 years from now, but I doubt it.

[zeli2033]

I posted in the thread SmallCheese included but in addition to that, we also didn't have a registry. We didn't care about acquiring more stuff. So we went the cash route. Yes, I know every wedding website will tell you that's crass and Emily Post would probably rollover in her grave if she cared enough about my life but it worked for us.

Here's the messaging we used:

"All we want on this day is to get married with you all there to heckle us and celebrate with breakfast food, coffee and bubbly. That said, we’ve decided not to register for gifts. If you’d like to give beyond what you've already given us (plane tickets, hotel stays, your time and more), feel free to sneak some cash into the reception and we'll use it on our next adventure: [insert adventure or honeymoon destination or married life!]"

No one seemed to be bothered, it cut down the gifts to only two (some people just really want to get you a gift which you can't fight) and everyone who wanted to gave us cards with checks or cash - or nothing at all! It was perfect.

[Trifle]

We got married in the backyard of my in-laws' farm, with family and the justice of the peace.  Total cost was about $900 which covered the JP, my dress, our rings (el cheapos), self-catered food, and booze.  No photographer; just point-and-shoots.  No decorations other than a few wildflowers.  No music.  No regrets at all -- it was a wonderful day.  The weekend after that we had a massive bacchanalian camp out with some good friends in the middle of nowhere. A great time was had by all. 

For registry ideas, I've heard you can do so at Home Depot and Lowes.  Or maybe a garden/center nursery?  Depends what your interests and needs are.

[iris lily]

What is important to you? Identify that, and forget the rest. Fir a wedding there needs to be two people to get married  and in some cases an officient. The rest of it is superfluous.

But I will say this about alcohol: if you are having the typical Saturday night wedding reception, please I beg you, make sure there is alcohol beyond “ a champagne toast.” Even if a cash bar, give those of us who are bored at weddings an opportunity to have relaxing drinks.

Many years ago I attended back to back weddings of DH’s neices, both dry. Hours spent at each one, and we traveled out of state for both. Those were the last weddings in his family
I attended.

[Bracken_Joy]

https://apracticalwedding.com/get-started-wedding-planning/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/frugal-wedding/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/planning-a-low-budget-wedding/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/how-the-hell-am-i-going-to-pull-off-this-frugal-wedding/

Good luck =)

[seattlecyclone]

Food and venue are often the most expensive parts. Anytime you get a caterer involved it's going to be pretty pricey, but it's hard to avoid that unless you either don't have (much) food or you impose on relatives to take care of the cooking. The latter certainly can be an option if you have someone willing to do that for you, but that's a big request to make of someone.

Booze: try to find a venue that will let you bring your own. A full bar is pretty unnecessary; beer and wine are fine. Depending on how much your guests like to drink, this part need not be that expensive. We got through a ~100 person wedding with a 1/6th barrel keg of local beer and a couple cases of wine. We found a venue that just charged us a few hours of the bartender's time, no "corkage fees" or marked-up booze.

Invitations: we sent save-the-dates via email (free!) and printed our own invitations from a kit from Office Depot. Note that postcard postage is slightly cheaper than envelope postage. The invitation kit came with envelopes for the RSVP cards, but we left those out and put postcard stamps directly on the RSVP cards. Besides saving money on return postage, we also had a stack of small envelopes ready for thank-you notes afterwards.

Flowers: Pike Place Market is a notable tourist attraction in Seattle. They also have a few very inexpensive flower vendors. My wife went down there the morning of the wedding with something like $1-200 cash and came back with a ton of flowers. A couple friends arranged them into a bunch of completely non-matching vases for the dinner tables that we got from Goodwill for 69¢ apiece. We let any interested guests take home a vase or two at the end of the night. See if a similar opportunity might exist in your area.

[iris lily]

I will also add that when I ask for alcohol at an eveing event,
I mean just beer and wine. Nothng else is necessary.

But Sunday brunch weddings a re pretty and lovely with just champagne. No one really expects to drink much in the morning!

[Poeirenta]

We grew a bed of wildflowers in our yard (mid July wedding in Seattle) and a florist friend of ours did the bouquet and bouteniers. If they had not been ready in time, she was going to go to the wholesale flower market.

We asked our musician friend with the killer dj set up to do the music.

We had the ceremony at a bnb with a great view and big lawn. We both have small families, so the parents stayed in the bnb and we paid a small extra fee to use the grounds for the ceremony and reception. Way cheaper than a "wedding venue" and no requirements of caterer, time restriction, etc.

We got a keg from a local brewery, and wine at a discount from the local grocery store.

Our wedding cake was a couple of costco cheesecakes with fresh local fruit on top.

We created and printed our own invites. A cartoonist friend did an adorable illustration for the invite and I did the rest on publisher.

[MrsTuxedocat]

For my center piece I had candles, floating candles in a vase on mirrors. It looked lovely and I sold it for the same price I bought on Craigslist. For your bouquet, I would use in season flowers and go with classics to keep the cost down (hydrangea, lilies, lilies).

[the_fella]

If you're going to have a friend officiate, make sure that they are legal with your state. Requirements vary from state to state. For instance, in my state, clergy are required to register with the state and pay a small fee ($10) in order to be granted an Authorization to Solemnize Marriages. As I mentioned, the requirements vary WIDELY from state to state. I recommend you point them toward https://theamm.org/ They offer free ordinations and they also have a very detailed state-by-state breakdown of the requirements to make the officiant legal. I'm ordained by AMM and registered with my state.


Fwiw, don't tell people you're using the decorations, flowers, etc. for a wedding. The price increases exponentially if you do.

[patrickza]

We eloped to Paris to have a combo wedding and honeymoon! It was just the two of us, so we didn’t have to worry about what colour the napkins should be. We also didn’t have to worry that mad uncle Eric would drink too much and try join the band, or that someone would knock over the ridiculously ostentatious wedding cake. I was also fairly confident that I wouldn’t end up in a runaway bride skit, because I’m not Richard Gere!

Total cost came to around $4k and we were lucky enough to have airBNB guests rent our apartment for some of the time while we were away which paid for a large chunk of that :)

If you're interested in hearing more I wrote a little about it here: http://investorchallenge.co.za/all-about-timing/

[Ryland]

I've been thinking about this a bit lately... One thing I thought would be cool is to have everyone who comes contribute to the event in their own skillset in the morning of the event.

Like have artsy people paint and awesome mural... Martha stewart moms build the flower pieces on the tables... etc. And you just supply the flowers, paints, etc

Maybe not mustachian, but thought you might like it! :)

[ejmyrow]

Everyone gave such awesome advice! Thank you all so much for sharing!! <3 <3 <3