Thank you all and yes, now time to plan a Mustachian wedding. My better half is fully on board with that! :)
We're looking at a small, minimalist wedding held outdoors or at a park, fewer than 50 people. Simple and meaningful.
Nice ring choice, and I'm not just saying that because it's similar to my own, lol.
Just FYI, outdoor weddings can be much more expensive than cheap venue weddings because you have to rent EVERYTHING to turn an outdoor space into an event space. We had our ceremony at a restaurant during their closed hours, officiated by a friend who is a judge. The venue fee was $300, and we didn't have to rent anything or have anything to set up other than the staff removing some tables and arranging chairs to make an aisle.
I had always dreamed of getting married on my mom's stunning property, but the cost was actually prohibitive compared to renting out the entire luxury, glass atrium restaurant overlooking a waterfall during their off hours. That's not where we did the dinner though, we had that at a friend's restaurant.
Where you save on outdoor is if you do a really casual BBQ for the reception, especially if it's at a park with plenty of picnic table seating, otherwise, again, you'll bleed cash into rental and set up costs. However, you still have the issue of where to seat people for the ceremony, and 50 is a lot of chairs to rent and set up for a short ceremony.
I've planned a lot of events for 30-300 people on shoestring budgets, and I have never done outdoor events as a less expensive option for any event with any degree of formality. Too many moving parts to make an outdoor space behave like an event space.
Basically, do your research and if you really want to save money, then think outside the box.