Young Couple With No Money!! Please Help!

There is a real good book called Bigm Weddings on a small budget you can find it usally on e bay.I am living by this book for my upcomming wedding in November. Good luck

I would suggest looking around at your local dollar & Discount stores to see what you can find. Try seeing what you can do yourselves. Like your Invitations, Favors, Centerpieces or Flowers. You could ask your Family if in Leiu of gifts if they would consider helping put together the food for the Wedding. I would be more than happy to give you tips on how to put things together inexpensively. Here`s my Email tksavon@Yahoo.com.

Lauren,
You can have a lovely wedding on a shoestring. First off, it is not the money you spend and the show you put on that is important (or shouldn`t be) but rather the people that gather to honor you and your husband.
Most of them if not all realize that you all are working within a budget (if they don`t- why are they even invited - who are you trying to impress?)

As to inexpensive ways to have the wedding: You need no halls and churches to have a lovely cermony. Of course, some churches offer their facilities free to members. My husband and I called up a Church of Religious Science that advertised in the yellow pages that they do weddings (we did not belong to it) and the Reverend did a wonderful ceremony that everybody raved about as his words were very meaningful. The cost for the service and use of the church was "free will", meaning that we could pay what ever we felt we could afford. We didn`t know and did ask what the going rate was and he told us that he gets anywhere from $35 on up. That was a few years back but I bet there are places you can get a nice wedding for under $100.

As to the food, believe it or not, because we had people who were vegetarians, some ate fish, others ate only meat etc, we decided to go to a place that had an elegant buffet. We had a section of the restaurant reserved for us, overlooking a park, and the guest all went and helped themselves to the buffet which featured a super selection. They loved it. Cost: under $10 per person and we were allowed to bring our own champagne and wedding cake. No extra cost for the "room". We did tip the wait staff nicely as they all went out of their way to make this a special event.

Depending where you are located and at what time of year your wedding is, a wedding in a park, on a lake, at a friends garden on a mountain top, at some event, if you have a hobby that it would fit in,(I saw a post here about a "fishing theme celebrate down by the old fishing hole?) all can make for inexpensive weddings.

As to wedding gown and other trappings: I married in a regular dress and my husband wore business attire. (It was a morning wedding) I recommend a morning or midday wedding as you can make it easily less elaborate. (a friend of ours found a gorgeous wedding dress in a thrift store for $25. I`ve seen them for under $10 at times and they were gorgeous dresses. Take it to the cleaners and tell nobody and they won`t know that it is not from "Madam Snobs Bridal Creations".

As to flowers, favors etc, make them yourself, again thrift stores and Big Lots type stores have great stuff for small budgets. In the buffet place I mentioned above, they had flowers on the table. We just brought in a little greenery to make it a little more festive - (and we pruned grandma`s ivy hedge at the same time.) A few friends helped put some Jordan Almonds in lace squares and tied with a ribbon and a twig of ivy and artificial flowers.

We had a few speeches, a friend with a guitar who sang a couple of songs and otherwise, everybody entertained themselves visiting with other guests and the buffet.

We had some of the other restaurant guest wish us a GREAT and Happy Life together and one sent us an envelope with a $20 bill in it.

We kept our wedding under $500. (25 guests)

But you can have a wedding for even less than that and best way to do an inexpensice, memorable wedding is by looking for a theme. My sister`s daughter married close to Halloween and asked wedding guest to come dressed up in costumes.
First the cermony was in a near their home park. The minister was non-denominational and did it for $25 and came dressed up, too, and stayed to the late night. Then everybody went to the brides home and celebrated in the backyard. Food was catered by family members, entertainment was by local college student friends who were happy with a $25 offering. They had a strolling guitar playing singer, a fire eater, a clown who made baloon animals, a marimba player and we all did our best to do the limbo. Of course, just the fact that we all were dressed up in costumes added to the entertainment. The wedding went to after midnight. (Yes, all the neighbors had been invited and were there still, too.)
Memorable for sure.

I hope you have a memorable wedding, too and may it be one that doesn`t put you and your family into debt. (Some wedding debt is paid off years longer than the marriage lasts - makes no sense to me.)

Maggie

Hello, I am not sure if there is a military base in your husband’s hometown, but military weddings can be very inexpensive. I am getting married at my local base, and it will cost me $100 for the chapel with a wedding coordinator included, and we will have a cake and punch reception in the annex beside the chapel. Thy also have free candelabras for my use and I can rent the pew bows for a great price!

Later that day we are going to take our close family and friends (about 10-12 guests) to a 4-diamond restaurant for a more formal reception. It will be a great day for less that $600!