Cheap but funky wedding ideas

Hi ladies!
We are in the midst of planning our wedding. We want to do something a little bit different to the usual sit down buffet type dinner. Something less formal I guess but cheap! ha! Thought the Ohbaby wealth of knowledge might be able to come up with some cool ideas? or casual venues in the Auckland area?

My partner and I were thinking about going really cheap when we get married. Have everything done at the registry office and then we can have an informal party afterwards where we can have a friend or family member have us recite the vows and everything.

Budget:
Actual legal marriage - $178 or so last time I looked
Drinks and food - $200
Total - $378 approx

Neither of us are really for formal gatherings anyway so I'm pretty sure it would work out well for us. Only have another 3 and a half years to wait and find out.

Our wedding cost less than $5000 and that was including the dresses

We were going to have it at a reserve which means a lot to me lots of childhood and teenage hood memories ,and was a place I went to a lot with my friend who passed away 3years ago , but of course , it rained that day , so we had it in our church instead, which was just as beautiful

The reception we had at our home, our inlaws had a huge marquee and we her friend catered it , and we had two bbqs going

We were quite lucky in many regards, our wedding cake was a wedding gift and all our photos were free too



not bad for $30 bridesmaid dresses and a $400 dress huh ?

A few of our photos we did in a local cafe
Im 6 months pregnant here too , just thought id point that out haha



yeah ...im just putting this one in here cos I love it



...yeah , I just used this as an excuse to show off some wedding pics

Yeah we did the spit roast too which was reasonable and also I gotta say was a lot nicer than I expected...we tried to do it on the cheap too coz just not into the big fancy wedding but still ended up spending more than I meant...whoops!

I've been to 2 weddings now where guests were asked to bring a plate rather than presents - and the hosts put on a bbq and we supplied salads and sweets. It worked out well especially as we were travelling to get to both of them and would have been more expensive buying presents.

We went over budget aswell, oops! It seems to be a common theme though

You could just have a massive BBQ, and then go down to like Bush Roads and get a few 5kg bags of salads- they are the ones served in most supermarkets (they have a HUGE variety!) and then just do like hot potatoes etc? It wouldn't be too expensive! Nothing wrong with sausages and bread at a wedding We went to one like that, and it was probably one of the most enjoyable weddings we went to!

Kelly- where were your bridesmaid dresses from? Lol. They look the same as the ones we had- but my bridesmaids were in black...

Who said the marriage license was $178???? Ours cost $120.. It can't be that much cheaper cos we're in Southland? I would have thought it was a set price throughout NZ???

We did an early afternoon ceremony followed by afternoon tea - catered by the local New World!!! Deli and bakery did platters of all sorts, we had cakes/slices in the freezer for lunches for 6 months, and we didn't spend that much! They also did the alcohol, anything not used could be returned, and free glass hire. So don't discount the local supermarket!!!

We had a BBQ that evening at my parents house, just to end the day, had got changed out of my dress etc by then.

BBQ spit roast
so cheap and easy they cook it all and keep it coming

Our wedding cost us less then $5000 too, we had 35 guests and where a bit selfish when putting the guest list together, ie we had good friends who are seeing somebody but if we didn't know the other person he/she wasn't invited. It was our day and we wanted to share it with people that meant something to us.
We got married at Alberton House in AKL where we had fingerfood and drinks served after the ceremony. After that we had a private room in restaurant booked for people who wanted to join us. We paid for drinks but asked guests to pay for their own meals.

Hi there, I haven't read the other replies but thought I'd tell you about our wedding in case there's any ideas you like.

We had planned the whole shebang..big white wedding, but changed the date and that was the end of that.   

We ended up finding an awesome little local cafe, with beautiful wooden floors etc, they usually do catering for functions and stuff anyway... one of my friends had her wedding in coromandel on the beach with just family then had a party at the cafe when they returned to palmy for friends etc. (so there's one idea).   

anyway, I approached them and asked if they would mind if we were married there too. they were fine with that. I bought a wooden archway from bunnings, got fake ivy from a cool shop here and weaved it around with flowers and fake flax up the sides and butterflies all over it, turned out really cool and much cheaper than hiring the one we wanted.   

I did mostly everything, we printed our own invites on pearly white paper (warehouse stationary $10 for 20 sheets, each sheet fitted 3 on it in length across), punched little butterflies in a couple of parts on it, backed it on blue card (warehouse stationary $2 a sheet of A3), and put an orange ribbon thru the top, in a bow. cheap as and individual.. I moulded the choccys from nestle metls in choccy heart moulds (cheap as from trademe), and hand wrapped them in foils from trademe, again waaaay cheaper than buying them at 50cents per heart. got a metre of organza from spotlight, made organza bags and threaded tiny orange ribbon thru them, each bag had 3 hearts in it in orange, blue and green foil.

Anyway we had my brother do photos for us before the wedding up at massey uni here cos they had heaps of neat places to have them, then we went tot he cafe, where an aisle had been made with our archway at the end, tables were arranged either side, with votive candles on the tables (we got them cheap too at warehouse, hot glued them to those little square dish thingies you get dipping sauces in at restaurants, and put white tiny stones around)

we had a sunset ceremony at 7pm, followed by supper, and dancing. It was actually just right for us, we had time to just mingle and chat, no stopping for sit down meal, we still had speeches, i made our cake (edmonds choc cake mix, madeup in hired cake tins from local hire place, covered in plain white icing with blue ribbon and more butterflies...)

we did it on the cheap..it depends on how much you are prepared to do yourselves... the wedding industry really hikes up prices when for a little effort you can do alot yourself bor half, to even a quarter of the price.

The wedding reception for us cost $1,100, all up, that was supper catering for 70 people and an open bar.

Think outside the square... some people have beach weddings, then have a barbeque with their mates, others hire marquees and have them on a friends farm... It can be as big or little as you want. I really liked that we got married at sunset, sounds so romantic, and i really enjoyed that it was just a fun day, we all had lunch together at a cafe before goingour own ways for the afternoon etc.

hope that gave you some ideas. good luck.