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I am all for the idea of an all out honeymoon! But I've struggled with this too, since I'm cheaping out on a some things at the wedding since we're paying everything over the family donations we got :) I was (probably overthinking this...but...) worried that people would think, "Oh, they cheaped out on such and such but are splurging on their vacation" and thinking I'm cheap, so I think it's important to still spend on those things that will make sure your guests have a good time. And doing a small wedding as you suggested is a great way to do this--especially since it sounds like you will do a classy job and make the guests have a great time! So I say go for it!
Thanks missnoche,
i'd love to hear a little about your wedding if you don't mind and what you're planning/doing. thanks!!
Hi ladybug,
My fiance and I are doing the same thing - trying to keep the wedding costs as low as possible, and going all out on the honeymoon. We are planning on taking a month-long trip travelling around Western Europe.
A couple of suggestions to keep costs down
1) Cut the guest list to family and close friends only. We will have 60 guests at our wedding. Because the less guests you have, the less your catering bill will be, and that, I have found. If you want to be even more thrifty, cut the numbers down to about 20. I had a friend who did that - a few close friends of the bride and groom, the rest immediate family. This is the biggest cost saver.
2) Have a hors doeurves only reception. Some people would argue with me on this, but really, if you have enough hors doeurves, no one will go hungry.
3) Throw any pre-conceived notions about what you have to have in your wedding out the window. Set priorities. I wanted really nice photos, so I spent money on a good photographer. Negotiate with vendors to get the price you want. Check out Craigslist for photography options. I found an amazing photographer just starting out from school. Her photos are beautiful, and she was inexpensive.
4) Recruit friends and family to help as much as they can. Ask a trusted family member or charismatic friend to be the MC.
5) Flowers - make your own bouquets from flowers bought at the grocery store. They are beautiful and you can have lovely flowers for a relatively low cost. There are tons of tutorials on the internet for how to put together your own bouquets to ensure they don't wilt.
Anywho, you can PM me if you want a breakdown of the costs, but right now our wedding is only costing about 8 k, including plane tickets for my FI and I to fly home across Canada.
That was a plan FI and i were contemplating for some time. We didn't want to spend so much on one day, and we're really low key people so a huge party wasn't really "us". We ended up not going that route because FI's mom was insistent that her sister's had to be there, and we couldn't only invite her siblings, so things got bigger again.
My ideal wedding would be a small ceremony with 20-25 people and a nice, long, relaxing honeymoon. We're still keeping things within our tiny budget though, and will hopefully have a nice honeymoon abroad somewhere.
That sounds like an incredible idea... I'd love to do that. My wedding is more for our families than it is for us. We're still having a smaller wedding, but bigger than we want.
The advice above is great, but beware of hors doeurves receptions... the cost adds up a lot quicker than you'd think. Had we gone that route our cost per person would have doubled. People eat a lot more because they're bite sized pieces & it takes more for them to get full!
My opinion is if you have a small wedding, as in few guests, that is OK. It is your wedding. If you'd rather not have a big party and save it for your honeymoon, that's not a problem.
Where I do take issue, is having an "inexpensive wedding" and an extravagent honeymoon. (I don't have a problem with people who can't afford a wedding). But if your guests know you are going on an expensive honeymoon, and they feel like they are being skimped on, I'm afraid it will look like you are being cheap and/or being gift grabby. If you want to buy an inexpensive dress or DIY flowers etc. that's fine. But if you are cutting costs by not serving your guests dinner, alcohol, whatever, then it looks like you are trying to fit everything you want (big wedding and honeymoon) on an unmanageable budget and they are the ones who get the shaft.
Sounds great! The whole wedding process is about you two, and YOU TWO alone! Why not spend the most cash on something the TWO OF YOU can do together! I say that's a great idea!
@Tanya: The connundrum with your comment is that you say having a small wedding is okay, but if you don't do x,y,z, then you look "cheap" to you guests. Then it goes back into the whole debate that a wedding is a show to be put on for others. Why shouldn't the new couple be allowed to spend more money on a honeymoon? It's no different than someone spending 50 K on their wedding and going on a small honeymoon. Its just a difference in priorities for some. And that is okay :)
We love to travel - it's a huge part of our relationship - so we considered having a very, very small wedding that was just the two of us and immediate family and then spending the money on a round the world trip. But both of our parents are on the older side and I am the youngest in my family, so it was important to me to have a proper wedding and also include friends that are like family to us. We ended up compromising and having a destination wedding with a honeymoon in a new place we haven't visited yet. But every now and then my fiance brings up that round the world trip that could have been : )
I'm in this same boat (or at least somewhat considering my budget).
My FI and I are most likely footing the entire bill for our wedding/honeymoon. Esp. since his parents helped us w. the downpayment on our house that we just bought this January. sigh! My family doesn't have that kind of $ and IF they are able to help out, it will be little things here and there (which still would be great if they can!)
Our budget is $5000 (and that's with us saving our $ right up until just about the wedding date).
Our 'luxurious HM' on that budget is to be for WDW for 4-5 days! :) I am feeling really down that I want to invite all my family/friends (who are mostly all OOT) while his family (small at that) is all local. :/ So, I'm having a muuucchh harder time trying to pair down the guest list....
and so I too would feel like I'm not doing enough for the wedding, if I only have a $2000 budget, while planning on spending the rest of my budget (over 1/2 of it) on our HM.
Though at the same time - it's supposed to be about the bride and groom and what they want, right??? Yes, families feel they have 'rights' and that's true in some respect....but esp. if the bride/groom are footing the bill..it should be up to them. It's their marriage ulitmately what the wedding/reception celebration is for anyway?
Though I guess it depends really on the budget.
Whatever you do...just be honest with yourself about what you want and ensure your family understands your wishes. :)
I am going to have to work on that myself...:)
Good luck!
We're also going the smaller wedding and longer HM-route.
@Valhalla really gave the best advice there are - that you need to cut away anything that isn't super important to you. For us that meant luxury transport on the day, videography, e-pics and flowers (we're growing out own) as well as cake (we're baking our own).
That way we'll be able to go overseas for a month. I'm looking almost as much forward to the HM as I do to the wedding!
We are doing somewhat of that.... we have a budget of only $3,000 for our wedding we are doing a little country wedding for around 80-100 guests. Nothing to fancy just a ceremony some good food, good cake and dancing. Ou wedding while it is important to us and I think it will be beautiful. It is one day of our life and no matter what we do it will be special to us just because we are getting married. I honestly just cut my costs on things that i didnt care about. I cut out all paper goods but Invitations ,rsvp's & thank yous. since i am doing a rustic outdoor ceremony at a spot that has picnic tables... I skipped linens and opted for the thicker non shiny plastic table clothes. I am also going with plastic untensils plates and cups. We found vendors who were less advertised or worked from home to save money. DIY everything with fake flowers
We however have a budget of $8,000 for our honeymoon because we know this will probably be the only trip we take like this with just us.. no kids and we want to make the most out of it.
There is another route less taken...you could have the wedding you want - whether it is big and "all out" or smaller and intimate. AS LONG AS it is what you and your FI envision your day to be. THEN wait a short while and give yourselves a little extra time to save for the honeymoon you always wanted. Although it's tradition, there's no set-in-stone rule that you have to take your honeymoon right after your wedding.
My FI and I decided to have a VERY small wedding of less than 20 guests in May - all of whom are traveling from out of town. We are paying for everything ourselves. Beacause of this, we are able to provide a much nicer dinner at a historic hotel we could have never afforded to have a large wedding at. And we are focusing on the small details to make it as special for our guests as it is to us. We are then flying to our home state of MI in October for a less-than-formal backyard reception/honeymoon send-off to an all inclusive resort in Jamacia. It worked for us becuase we are able to pay for the wedding (without going into debt) and then pay off our honeymoon a little bit after. Plus, it gives us something to look forward to later in the year!
The bottom line for you is to spend your day in whatever way works for you guys and ENJOY! Best of luck~
That sounds great, do it! We're taking a nice honeymoon but still having a fairly normal sized wedding of 100 ppl. Our honeymoon works out to about 1/4 of our budget but it's 2 weeks in St. Lucia so I don't feel like we sacraficed anything there.
A former colleague of mine splurged on a honeymoon/elopement and a nice photographer then they had a small reception when they came home where they celebrated their marriage and shared the hotos from their wedding. It was really perfect for them and their photos showed ho much they enjoyed themselves and their quiet relaxing weddingmoon. I was inspired but it was not the right option for us.
*bump*
I feel a lot of anxiety over this, wondering what others will think about us having a tiny wedding and then a big honeymoon. It's not that our honeymoon is luxious per say, it's just that it costs so much because airfare to our destination is so expensive. So, maybe people don't know that and won't think about it... We were originally going to do the typical 200 person wedding that would have put us in debt, so we figured why not do a small 20 person ceremony and nice supper and end up with extra money to do a honeymoon? I'm hoping that extended family that "assumed" there would be a big wedding will understand that we've only invited parents, grandparents, and siblings, and that no one will think we're cheaping out by doing this. Although it's 20 people we're still doing it up with a privately catered venue, professional photog, etc.
Though I still worry about what people might think this just works better for us (the huge number of people was giving me anxiety) and wow it's such a tough decision in choosing residual debt or a paid for honeymoon...:)
We're still having about 70 people but we went fairly cheap. Our entire wedding will be just a little over $5,000. That's the amount my parents agreed to give us and FI's parents agreed to pay for our honeymoon (but it was a big issue if we wanted them to contribute to our wedding). Ceremony in my parents backyard, then buffet dinner at a local party house including 3 hours open bar. Hopefully people don't have an issue with the fact that they have to fly 3,000 miles (FI's family and most of his friends live on the west coast) for a buffet with us flying to Jamaica after to be pampered and enjoy great food lol.
Hi Bees!
FI and I are doing this very same thing!!
We will be holding an intimate,private ceremony at a historic mansion in our area. Only immediate family members are invited..so that will be 24 people. We are all going out to a nice dinner afterwards. As much as I love big, beautiful weddings..I like them for others and not myself lol. We are super chill people..so this is perfect for us, and we are just so excited! Since we opted out of the big traditional wedding/reception..my parents are not only covering the ceremony and dinner..but they are also covering our honeymoon. We decided on the Excellence Playa Mujeres..we will be doing 10 days in the 2 story suite wiith the Excellence club package. We will be holding an 'after the wedding' celebration with our close friends when we return.
wow some of these comments just make me even more glad that i'm having a small wedding and all out honeymoon!
Call me selfish; but it meant more to ME & my FI that we spend the money we have on what was most important to us. In our case-our honeymoon and our wedding bands.
We're having a SMALL wedding-no more than 30 people. We're having a civil ceremony @ the NYC Hall (Marriage Bureau) with about 15 people; and then hosting a dinner that evening for 30 people at one of our favorite restaurants. No big reception; no DJ; no crazy expensive flowers.
But we're spending quite a chunk of money on our wedding bands; and we're going to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. Something we personally couldn't have afforded especially with the airfare into the Liberia airport over $800 pp!
It just blows my mind how some people think guests will fee cheated or like we're being cheap about the wedding.
Maybe i'm overly sensitive about the issue; because i'm just tired of people "expecting" so much (guests/family) when the wedding is really just supposed to be about my FI & I.
All that to say; do what you want; don't worry about what your potential guests may feel. They should just be happy that you decided to include them in your day!
We also have some extended family that hear we're getting married and immediately think wedding & big party. But we just have to keep explaining to people we're just having an intimate ceremony. NOT a big wedding. If i haven't talked to you in almost 2 years why no do you expect me to invite you?? Sorry again-feeling a little sensitive dealing with everyone around me!
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Hi All!
As I have mentioned on other boards, I was planning a big, out of my price range wedding and am trying to look at other options. Has anyone here had a small, classy, intimate wedding with close family and friends and then a REALLY nice go all out honeymoon with your fiance? If anyone has ideas/experiences, please share!!!
Thank you!