Obviously you get them to be in on it.
One of the funnest receptions I went to was one where the bride and groom had very little money. They rented a grange hall (~$100), asked everyone to bring a pot luck dish, and then one of the uncles barbecued hamburgers for the guests. They had around 50 guests, paid for the cake, the hamburger fixings, the hall, dress, tuxedo, a keg of beer, champagne, soda, decorations, disposable cups, plates, and utensils, and it was less than $500.
It sounds like it would have been tacky, but it really was fun. The bride was a preschool teacher and the children made pictures which were used to decorate the hall. The two of us also picked wildflowers and used those for her bouquet and for table centerpieces. One of the groom’s friends had a band, and he donated their time for the reception, which was a nice touch, but some favorite cd’s would work just as well.
Whoever told you wedding guests don’t mind paying for their food is criminally insane.
Per B’s idea, use the University facilites as much as possible (chapel- halls etc) . Don’t worry about going a little cheap if you have to. Your friends will understand, and on a practical level they will not be emotionally invested in your wedding “presentation” the way your female inlaws would. It is unlikely they would see a non-lavish wedding as a disgrace or mock worthy, unless you do something unbearably tacky like sing to each other at the alter.
Well, if you can get the hall arranged with the Uni, can you prepare the food yourself in advance? A little something Italian and a little something Chinese to celebrate both your cultures. Maybe something like ravioli and General Tso’s chicken (or something equivilant). You should be able to have self-service if you can have the food on a steam table or with canned heat under them. If you don’t cook, maybe the place where your fiancee waitresses would be happy to give you a good deal on catering. Maybe they could rent you a space, even.
Congratulations and good luck!
StG
This sounds really lame, but the only thing that ever irritates me about “cheap” weddings (and I am so into cheap weddings that I went to the courthouse) is when a the bride and groom register for nothing but insanely expensive gifts–I know a gift is not a payment for a catered meal, and I know that you don’t have to buy from the registry, but when I look at a registry and 90% of the items there are $100 plus, I think that sends the message that that is the expected price range and that anything under is tacky. That’s fine, but if you are going to expect that sort of thing you have to get the second mortgage to recipocate.
As far as tackiness goes, if you are both University students far from home, you have a LOT more leeway. The other possibility is to put the problems to your friends and then let them help you decide–then, if they all suggest they help pay for the wedding in lieu of a gift or they make some other suggestion, you can graciously accept things that you could never, ever suggest. And with so few people, as long as the central core of your friends are all on board with your plan (which they will be if they feel like it is their idea), then they will spread the word to everyone else.
In the #10 issue of Ready Made Magazine they have a cheapie wedding and in another issue ( that is lost or loaned out in the shirley Ujest Public Library)
how a couple married at a local elementary school and did their own spectacularly cute decorations ( with a school theme) and had hot dogs and basic fun food served cafeteria style.
With the advent of the laser printer and nice card stock, you can do you own invites at home.
I second this idea, weather permitting of course. This is how my sister did it a couple of years ago in San Fransisco, and everybody loved it.
In the end we settled for having the party in our flat, small as it is. It is mostly a question of keeping everything under control.
The panic comes on a point of etiquette. I cannot invite everyone anymore because they just wouldn’t fit; yet there is space for everyone in the Civic Centre where the ceremony is held. So I could invite everyone for the ceremony and have a smaller number of people later in our place. Well, I don’t like leaving out people I am in touch with nearly every day. I know I have the right to invite who I want, but I don’t want to cause feelings of exclusion.
Granted, the people I wouldn’t invite for the party are the ones that care a bit less about me so it wouldn’t be such a terrible shock, but I am terribly uneasy going on with this plan.
You can’t invite someone to the ceremony and not to the reception. Period. Especially when they’ll be surrounded by people talking about the cool party they’re about to go to, and they’re not invited. You might as well slap them on the face with a wet halibut at the front door.
Why not hold the party in the same Civic Center?
Honestly, I would bag the idea of a tiny party at your home. It sounds like you really want to invite more people, but are limited on space and funds. I think the whole point of the reception is to celebrate your wedding with the people you care about. The form of that celebration is dependant on your funds, but you shouldn’t cut people out that you want to share the moment with.
If you can afford a restaurant dinner for 30 people, you can afford to put together a nice non-dinner reception for 30. Plates of appetizers and finger foods, beer/wine, and a reserved space is not terribly expensive. Talk to local places like coffee shops, bars, restaurants to see if they can do this sort of thing.
As others have suggested, the key is WHEN you hold the wedding reception. A really classy – as in, approved by all the classic etiquette mavens – but cheap way to go is have your wedding around 2 pm, and afterwards serve nothing but wine (champagne if you can find cheap but drinkable) or coffee/tea and the wedding cake. (Or cakes – don’t the British also have a tradition of a ‘grooms’ cake?) Since you’re at a university, I’ll bet you could find some student(s) to play pleasant atmospheric music in the background.
Obviously this would be a brief gathering, with everyone on their way long before the question of dinner arises.
Also: there is no reason you can’t also have a small but more festive get together with just your closest friends later on – you just have to separate the two events by enough time that those who are at the first won’t feel they should automatically have been invited to the second. So no problem with a 2 o’clock wedding followed by the ‘reception’ running until four or so, and then having your friends over to a bash at eight that night or the following night or whatever.
I second (third?) the potluck idea. Maybe it’s because I’m from a small southern town, but the idea seems so quaint and familial. Most people would love to pitch in to help you guys save money…especially if they get good food and a good time in return. 
You could use the money you save on a restaurant meal or a caterer on an inexpensive hall and beverages.
Hey Lars!
Do you belong to a Fraternity? A Greek chapter?
If so, ask your brothers for a little financial help with the wedding.
They’d have to be pretty low not to pass the hat.
I agree. Do not do this.
I have some friends who didn’t have much money and what they did was have everybody gather at a lodge in a national forest for a weekend. It couldn’t have cost much. They may have even asked for a small contribution. I don’t remember exactly. It was pretty bare-bones. The ceremony was outside and the reception was inside. Most people slept in the lodge. Food was prepared by family members and they had a local bluegrass band play the ceremony and reception. I played at the ceremony too free of charge. It was a fantastic wedding.
Do it in thre easy steps!
- Invite lots of her family and her family’s friends. (if of course they are in England)
- Collect lots of red envelopes.
- Profit!
I have no money at all and once payed for 20 or so Chinese people to eat a 15 course meal in an expensive restaurant’s private room complete with good wine and a couple bottles of Johnny Walker black label. My wife and I made so much money from people slipping us red envelopes that when we subtracted the money we came out ahead.
Mrs. Bughunter and I did exactly this at our ceremony last January. We did everything ourselves except for DJ, waiters and furniture. When we looked at the cost of catering a meal for the entire ceremony guest list of 120 people, it was prohibitive… and there’s no way we could have done that ourselves.
So we did cake and champagne. Cheesecake, actually… the best cheesecake on the west coast… made by the bride’s mother, who has been approached by 5-star restaurants to provide cheesecakes. Her nickname is Cheesecake, even.
We researched and selected and reserved the venue, hired security, got insurance. We did all the decorations, Leslie made her own wedding dress (out of white suede, believe it or not) and bought all the flowers at the flower market in Downtown LA the morning of the ceremony. We bought all the wine and champagne and coffee and snacks, starting weeks in advance, to spread out the expenses. We had our closest friends get ordained by the Universal Life Church to officiate the ceremony, and we wrote our own vows and scripted the ceremony. A friend provided photography services, and we developed the proofs and enlargments ourselves, later.
Anyway, it worked out perfectly. We organized a dinner for family and close friends afterwards, at 7pm, at a nice restaurant, and the bride’s parents picked up half the bill.
And then I knocked up their daugher on our honeymoon.
The resulting offspring is due any day now.
Ghad… I should make it clear that I have a cheap ass keyboard that randomly decides not to register a keypress.
Does the board software have a spellchecker option?
A thought for an unusual and FUN wedding ( IMHO) would be to have it at a bowling alley!
Affordable, fun and you get throw a heavy ball at something.
It would be Da Bomb and highly memorable.
No. Learning to spell constitutes Fighting Ignorance.
Not invited to the reception: Tacky, tacky, tacky.
I was once invited to a big wedding, 400+ guests. Me and about ten of my friends were invited to the ceremony, and for dancing, and NOT for dinner. We had to fuck off after the ceremony, find somewhere to eat, and return for the party. I guess the speeches ran late because we had to stand in the lobby, with the dessert (for 400+ people inside), for half an hour before we were allowed in.
Ugh.