My kids have said they would probably “elope” (have no ceremony) if and when they got married, although just living together with their SO’s seems to be working for now.
My own wedding party was limited to parents, grandparents, and siblings on each side.
This was my father in law’s suggestion as he had a number of weddings coming up together to pay for.
We had just under a hundred people and it was held in my parent’s back yard. They lived right on the water and it was beautiful. Tent, catered buffet, local karaoke-type singer (he sang to backing tracks and was very good). We supplied the alcohol (and lots of it). No tuxes…the guys wore their own black suits and my attendants all picked out the same dress at Express. Mid-October in North Carolina. The “place cards” were tiny flowers (miniature pansies…what are they called?) that we planted in tiny clay pots with name tags tied to them with raffia. The favors were salt water taffy in little metal boxes. We hung mason jars with sand and tea lights in all the trees. Total cost was about $2500 (7 1/2 years ago).
133 - it was lovely. Not too big not too small. It was right on the water in little Mystic, Connecticut. Ahhhh!!! What memories. 
My dad calls those ‘johnny jump-ups’. They are his favorite flower.
We had about 40 people at our wedding. 'Twas plenty enough.
We had about 225 people at ours. We had five attendants each. We both have large families and actually had to exclude some of the friends we’d like to have invited but many of them came to the dance anyway (that’s pretty common around here) so it all worked out. We had an outdoor wedding in my in-laws’ yard. They live by a lake. We had the reception at a local restaurant with a banquet room (owned by a friend of the family). It was fantastic.
Me and Mrs. RickJay. We eloped to Las Vegas.
Smartest thing I ever did. Everything - airfare, hotel, gambling, food, wedding - cost $3500, total. And we had a fantastic vacation, best I’ve ever had, and memories to last a lifetime.
My sister just got married Tuesday - in Las Vegas. Seven family members came this time, though, so nine people, total. Fantastic.
I recommend a Vegas wedding to anyone.
Yes! Gah - my brain isn’t working today. And I meant to type parents’, not parent’s.
My parents are going to throw me a lavish wedding, exactly what they gave to my sister. So it’s going to end up at about 130-150 people at a swank hotel in Boston. The nice part is they’re both quasi-retired so they did all the planning for hers and will most likely do all the work for mine.
I would be perfectly content with something small, even 'Let’s go down to city hall" small. My SO on the other hand wants HUGE, he would be ecstatic if there were TV cameras there. Seeing as we can’t legally marry yet, I’m sure we’ll get a compromise worked out before the time comes.
I got married in the woods at a pagan festival. We informally invited our assorted parents, but only my dad and step-mom were comfortable showing up. There were about 60 people there, all decked out in their hippie dippie best. The women attending took me to a nearby fallow field and each picked a flower and gave it to me with a blessing, word of advice, or just a hug. It made the best bouquet ever. My “flower girl” was one of my better guy friends, my age. He skipped in front of me with a basket of flower petals to toss - very Pan-ish. A flutist was wandering by and joined the procession with a double flute thingie, and a number of people drummed a little. Six people did the ceremony, three married couples. After my husband and I exchanged vows, he did a piece (not legally) adopting my 7 year old son, as well, which made everyone cry.
When it was done, we went back to the campground and had a pot luck barbeque banquet, and drummed and sang and drank mead and scotch which everybody else brought and generally made fools of ourselves. When it was dark, there was a huge (4 story, no lie!) bonfire a field over where the entire 2000ish people at the festival gathered all night to drum and sing and “dance” (you can’t really dance around a fire that big, you just sort of walk, skip, jump and circle it over and over).
So I like to say there were 2000 people at my wedding, but only about 60 of them knew why they were there!
Oh, my dress cost $60 and I bought it the day before the wedding, my headpiece was a cubic zirconia necklace and a white silk scarf pinned to my head, both of which I bought used out of a dollar bin, and I didn’t wear shoes! And, of course, I was excused from cooking that day, though I think I did help make frybread or something anyway. Oh, and Catherine Cartwright-Jones hersself did my mehandi for some ridiculously low price as a wedding gift. Another $60, I think.
$122! Beat that! 
My fiance and I want a smaller, more casual wedding. Not “in the back yard” casual, but neither of us want to feel stuffy while everyone is in tuxes and overly dramatic gowns. 50-75 people would be great, and 50 would be ideal. We’re thinking a beach wedding would be fun, and neither of us want a church wedding. (We’re not very religious and the only person who is openly bothered by that is his mom.) Another issue with size and formality with us is that we don’t want to be going into major debt just to have a big party. Neither of us have a lot of money, and I’m not about to bankrupt either of my parents just to have the wedding Martha Stewart wants me to have. (blech! Bows and lace and girly, frilly things are just not me. No offense to anyone who likes that stuff.) I’m just hoping there isn’t a lot I’m going to have to compromise on, because I intensely dislike a lot of the more “traditional” elements in weddings.
We’ve got 2-3 years until we get married, though. Gotta take care of grad school first.
$46, total.
$20 for the license, $20 gratuity to the judge, and $6 for two certified copies of the marriage certificate. (This was in Colorado in 1994.)
We had a “reception” at our house the following month for about $250 – basically, just a big party with champagne and cake.
It was my first wedding, the hubby’s second. I wouldn’t change anything.
That’s kinda funny to me - violas are weeds in my yard, growing everywhere.
Our wedding was 25 people, immediate family and close friends only, in a small community hall and a JP. We did a lot of stuff ourselves, and didn’t get crazy with anything, and we still ended up at $3000. I couldn’t even tell you where all the money went at this point. 
The only thing I would change was my dress - I wasn’t very happy with it, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for in the stores. I wanted a chiffon, flowy dress, which I saw a lot of while shopping for my sister’s wedding dress recently. Where were all you dresses five years ago? :mad:
Eloped to Vegas. Wonderful ceremony, just us, the minister and whoever drove by the drive-up window. Total cost for the whole schmeer: less than $300. That includes 3 nights at the Imperial Palace (free), plus comps and gas from SoCal. Neither one of us wanted a big ceremony, and since our families are scattered all over the country, we could never have gotten all of them together at one time.
We had about 60 people in a nice old college building on the east coast. Our officiant and photographer were former classmates of mine. We bought similar but not identical jackets of blue and green fabric, which we wore with black shirts and pants. We hired two adolescent children of a friend to usher and had an ensemble of musician friends who played early music.
A monthy before, we had picked up a case of champagne, and some blue glass vases at Pier 1. We stored them at a friend’s house on the east coast. The morning of, we collected these, went to an IGA and got a lot of irises, food to put together meat/cheese/veggie trays, and plates/napkins/forks. We swung by the bakery and got the three excellent cakes we’d ordered. We then went to the room and set it up. At a certain point, we put on our wedding clothes and had the ceremony.
We then did a less-lavish reprise on the west coast for the other friends and relatives.
I don’t know what the cost was, but it was rather low, even including the airfare. My father died very shortly after the wedding so my memory for the details is pretty poor.
We had about 60 people, including young’uns. An outdoor wedding in the NC mountains in May. It was wonderful. We splurged on food, booze, and photography and did most of the rest ourselves with the help of famiyl and friends. My oldest friends played the music for the ceremony, my brother-in-law was the DJ for the reception, my cousin made the cake, and my sister-in-law made our invitations.
I’m in the process of planning a wedding as we speak (fiance proposed on Christmas Eve.) It’s not going to be huge, per se, but it’s going to be lavish.
At this point we’re looking at ~100 guests (we’ll be making a final copy of the invite list this weekend.) It’s going to be a formal, evening wedding. We’re not looking at ice sculptures and swans or anything (though I like to tease my father with ridiculous requests), but I am very much looking forward to a beautiful dress with a long train, my sweetie in a gorgeous tux, and a lavish backdrop for the ceremony and reception. My parents have offered to pay for the wedding, since they can afford it and I am an only child, and we’ll be working with my dad to make sure we get the wedding of our dreams without making him cry.
My wedding was about 850+ adults plus another 100 or so children. Everyone was invited to the Music/Dance party the night before (with a catered dinner), the wedding (breakfast before and lunch after) and finally the formal reception (with dinner). It was alot fun for everyone except the bride and groom. It was a typical Indian-American wedding courtesy of my wife’s parents. Apparently, her father had been saving up for it since she was born.
We invited 70 people, but probably only had 35-50. It was an amazingly intimate feeling. The ceremony was so informal we spent most of the time cracking up (I’ve got wedding pics of me actually doubled over with laughter.)
The wedding was outdoors, on the property of some friends of my mother-in-law (who have now become our lifelong friends as a result of the experience.) I am not into the “theatrics” of weddings, and we had about $3,000 to work with. I wanted something very casual and simple but also very elegant. We didn’t have a DJ but we had a catered dinner from Boston Market, because they cut us a sweet deal since I used to be a catering coordinator there. No chicken dance, no tossing of the bouquet, only our first dance (Stand my Me) in the driveway of our friends’ house… and a litany of songs I just really liked that I’d thrown on my MP3 player.
I did splurge a little for my dress ($350 + another $350 for accessories), because I was absolutely in love with it from the first day I laid eyes on it. I would say the “fanciest” part of the wedding was the attire on the bridal party, but even then it was really low key–all the bridesmaids picked out whatever style they wanted in that shade of red.
Oh, whatever. Here’s some pics:
As you can surely see, it was a very serious affair. Very serious indeed.
I can’t put into words what a beautiful day it was or how flawlessly everything came together. It was hands down the best day of our lives. You really don’t need money to make magic… just good people.
Olives!
I gotta ask…did you get married at that insane wedding hall in NJ that’s a reproduction of the Royal Albert Hall and are you Gujrati? Because I went to a wedding exactly like yours 4 or 5 years ago.
