A Scavenger Wedding

If Ryanne and I were to ever get married, we’d totally follow your path. Spend the money on the party and festivities, not all the weird wedding rituals that seem inauthentic.

Doing it really DIY is just doing it in a park for free. Then just rent out the back of a restaurant as you suggested.

Not to advertise to you, but we’re promoting our Farmhouse as a place for DIY weddings: http://luraymodern.com/weddings-at-the-farmhouse
The idea is that people rent the entire weekend so they have a place to stay. Then just DIY the event, including food. Why not just do a pot luck or a big BBQ? Let guests camp out for cheap. No idea if there’s a market for this style of wedding.

your cheapest wedding would be to get married at City Hall and then have a party/dinner after. you wouldn’t be able to have 50 people at city hall. but you could have close family there and then everyone parties after. my sister rented a hall and had a potluck!

oh and my mom got married at an antique center/glass museum that she worked at (i think it was free) and then just had cocktails and horderves after (no dinner). it was super cheap and fun.

Yeah, I’m not really into weddings where I have to pay a lot of money to attend (clothes, hotels, travel)…and then see that the bride/groom shelled out a ton of money as well. You’re all trying to have a good time but everyone’s silently thinking “I spent a lot of money on this!”

Just my pinion: the more DIY, the more free everyone feels to inject their own creativity on your celebration. It feels less scripted and awkward…and more spontaneous. It could be pure celebration.

And is it tacky to just set up a donation page instead of gifts? “We want to buy this piece of land/house. Help us make a down payment!”. (Maybe too tacky)

My wife and I have been married for just over six years, and did things relatively “cheap” by “normal” standards. I see friends spending $40-50k on a wedding, and want to be sick…

All said and done, we were out the door in the $6-8k range, with about 80 guests. Still a boatload of money, but “cheap” by many standards, and everyone had a BLAST.

Ways we saved:
Hors d’oeuvres instead of a meal
Snacks were provided by us (bulk candy bar, pretzels, chips, etc)
Cash bar, no free drinks
Family friends acted as photographers, with photos as our wedding gift
My mother makes wedding cakes, so ours was free/dirt cheap
Set-up/tear-down was all family/friend labor, so we didn’t have to pay anyone for that

We didn’t register anywhere for a bunch of stuff we didn’t really need, so anyone wanting to give us something gave cash, or just a card. If memory serves correctly, we ended up with about $2-3k in cash from gifts. We didn’t specifically ask for cash, but by not asking for anything else, most people got the idea.

If I had it all to do over again, I would have tried to do it even cheaper. Our venue (a hotel looking over an apple orchard) and hors d’oeuvres were our biggest expenses (around $3-4k if I recall correctly). I’d look to have it somewhere cheaper, and would probably look into doing a big barbeque/etc for food. If you can cut your venue/food bill way down, the rest can be done relatively cheap.

On a non-scavenger related note, one of the best things we did (in my opinion) was have guests sign photo mats, instead of a guestbook. After the wedding, we put pictures from the wedding in the frames, and they hang on our wall, instead of buried in a closet.

Congrats BTW!

I had their baby bargains book and it was awesome. A lot of practical ideas and advice. https://windsorpeak.com/bridalbargains/

Our biggest waste was inviting and feeding coworkers out of obligation (who were out of our lives shortly after) and just generally having too many guests. it was pretty exhausting interacting with so many people. Our favorite moments were with our closest friends and family – we had time with out of towner close friends the day & night before. The photographer was our biggest splurge – no regrets there.

Hello everyone! My husband and I have been married for 18yrs. come this Jan. When we got married when spent a total of $1,200.00 tops for everything! Dress $100.00 consignment/thrift store. No tux husband bought suit $150.00 that he could reuse. Bridesmaid told them what color the dress needed to be if they already had it great if not found a nice dress that could be used for other occasions for between $50-$70. Church was free(husbands family used to attend), photographer $50(knew him from church), piano player/singer $50(knew from church). Decorations were done by family members. Food was done by family members, finger foods, punch bowl(mother-in-law use to cater, all utensils came from her years of catering,so free). Cake was 3 tiers $100.00! Preacher $50(knew from church). All in all we had about 50-70 guest. Wedding meal was in the Churches banquet hall. So it is very possible to have a wonderful wedding on a low budget. You just have to ask yourself what is important, the flash and glam of most weddings or what the wedding really means to you. For us we didn’t care if no one else was there it was for us.