How much did you or will you spend on your wedding?

When my DH and I were married almost 8 years ago we were looking forward to being married but not the actual wedding/reception. What started out as a simple, fuss free plans for a wedding turned into arguments, disagreements(not between DH and I, but amongst our families) and unnecessary stress. So to save heartache and relationships and nontheless money, we found a celebrant and asked 2 very close friends to witness and we were married. It was perfect. Later in the month we held a party and invited 40 friends and families to our home and had an absolute ball. All in all including the party catering and the celebrant we spent less than $1500. I didnt have a wedding dress, just a new outfit. We didnt go on a honeymoon, we had a 4 week old baby.

The reason I started this thread is my sister is planning on getting married and wants the fairytale wedding with all the bells and whistles. My argument to her is money can be better spent on things such as a deposit on a house or more practical things(seems like commonsense to me)She wants to spend huge amounts of money on a magical day that in years to come all she will have is photos( and expensive ones at that!) to show for it. I really dont think your marriage is going to be better or last longer just because you have a fancy wedding. Sometimes I think more time and effort is put into organising the ceremony than the actual relationship itself. Dont get me wrong, I would never judge her on what she chooses cause its her life and her money but am curious as to what everyone else has experienced.

Sorry about the long post, a hard one to write in a couple of sentences.

We waited to get married until after Charlie was born.......we had been together about 8 years before we even got engaged.

We dithered over whether to go the whole hog, or just to elope and have a very very simple affair, as, like you, we were more looking forward to being married than "a big day".

That said, we had been living interstate for a few years, so had missed a lot of family in that time. And I am one of 5 siblings and none of my brothers or sisters have had a family wedding, so I kind of wanted to do the big day for my Mum's sake if nothing else.

Plus, and call me vain, but I wanted to show Olivia and Charlie off to all my family from the UK!

So, to my surprise, we ended up having "the big day".........

It was still a simple affair, but it was "us", and it was a brilliant day. My consistant memory of it is my daughter Olivia taking her first steps up the aisle! I melted into tears!

Our marriage is strong regardless of the $$ we spent. We were both very aware that it takes an awful lot more than an expensive day to create a loving and lasting relationship.

But no regrets from me........we spent a lot, but we had made a lot of $$ previously through some property, so we had the money at our disposal, so we didn't have other financial areas to spend our $$ on, so we were very lucky in that respect.......

I have babbled. I can see it from both sides, I really can.............

DH & I had all the bells & whistles. I think it depends on what sort of people you are. We love entertaining, and having everyone with us, so it suited us to have a big wedding. When we started planning our wedding, it didn't even occur to us to have a small wedding, we both just wanted a big one.
All up, our wedding cost $15k & our honeymoon was $5k. We haven't regretted a thing. We look back on our wedding dvd & photos, and although that's all that remains, we'd do it all over again in a flash (with each other though!!).

When we got married, we'd been together for 10 years, so the wedding wasn't about the 'wedding' it was more just a celebration of our relationship. We just wanted a BIG PARTY.
(The only reason we actaully got married was beause I was terribly clucky, and DH didn't want to have children out of wedlock :confused::confused: How terribly traditional of him after living with me for 7 years!!!!!)

We made sure that our wedding was a huge party, but it was a bloody expensive party too. Is was casual, but quite elegant still, and not a traditional 'princess' wedding. We had a FANTASTIC day, and I wouldn't change a thing!Our guests still tell us what a good time they had all these years later.

I'm pretty sure that it came to about $20-22K in total.

Just for the record, I would have been happy with me and him and a couple of witnesses in the park, but this was an awesome day! I'm glad that we did it.

Just to make this post longer (sorry) friends recently decided to forego the whole wedding and just take their honeymoon in Europe as a romantic holiday, and got married while they were over there with a couple of locals witnessing it. I LOVE THAT IDEA. And it's what worked for them. Their families respected thier decision.

I think what it comes down to is that we all have ideas as to what the 'perfect' wedding consists of. Your sister will do whatever she wants. It's her day, and her money, and she's the one who has to live with the decision. Do you really want her to take your advice and not have the day that she wants, and then regret it for the rest of her life?

You may not agree with her decision, but try to respect it.

I had everything i dreamed of at our wedding... the dress, cars, all my family and friends, honeymoon etc...

I knew it was only going to happen once so i made it worth the money. We already had a house and at the time a baby on the way.

It came to a tad over $21k.

Our wedding came in under $10,000, that included travel to Tassie for the wedding and a small honeymoon.

Would I change it? No. It was a great day, I had a beautiful dress (that I can re-wear), our friends and family had a wonderful time. In fact it is still talked about. I know in my heart that I would have regretted not having a wedding with friends and family around. A wedding is certainly a great excuse to get people together and much more joyful than a funeral, which seems to be the only other time people with make the effort.

I know it upset me when some friends were harping on and on about elopement and how great it is. They were bluntly told that if they really hated weddings, then they were uninvited, well they changed their tune very quickly and of course attended. One went on to have her own reasonable sized wedding and the otherhas been delayed due to pregnancy.

So overall it is their choice, just so long as they not spending someone else's money that can't afford it. It would be a boring world if we all had the same type of wedding. The only weddings I don't like are the ones that don't suit the person or they don't work within their actual budget (trying to have too big a wedding on too small a budget, hard to pull off).

My wedding wa about $5 - 6000 and I had everything I wanted. I had the princess dress and the horse drawn carriage. We just saved money on other areas, like doing our own invitations and having the wedding earlier in the day. It was a relaxed wedding and everyone had a great time. I have nothing but good memories of the day and the lead up.
For us it was a big deal because we had just bought a house and we had never lived together (very traditional, I know :rolleyes:) I would have no problem doing it all again

We have been together for 20 years in Nov this year....WOW I just realized that....first girlfriend/boyfriend for us both....We got married in Nov 1996 nearly to the day we met actually - not planned that way....I would say we are soul mates - even though we have had heaps of ups and downs

We got married for US, DH's family was a bit disappointed not to have a white wedding but they accepted what WE wanted.

Ultimately as others have said it is entirely a personal decision. Plus we didn't want the stress!! :):)

We didn't want to go thru the spending spree and went to a registry office, spent all up $1000 on dinner for immediate family and the license costs etc....we had a bbq the next day with our friends and was still hung over the next day - they thought we would never do it. The only thing we never did was have a honeymoon.....but together for so long - no difference for us....one day maybe.....

It didn't seem to make sense to us to use all that money for one day. I sometimes wish that we did things a little different - maybe a simple garden wedding, but am glad that we had money in account afterwards.....

And we are still mostly happily married and I am keen to TTC...

i think it depends on what resources you have to pay for the wedding with (including family support, if you have family).

i think if people already have the house, already have money in the bank to draw on, good luck to them how they spend it.

but if a couple takes out a big loan out to pay for that perfect day, that to me would be scarey. But then i'm the only person i know who doesn't have a credit card. I refuse to have one until i have the capacity to pay for it.

We wanted to pay for the entire wedding ourselves so we tried to save money wherever we could. I got a white bridesmaid dress instead of a wedding dress so it only cost me $300 (canadian). Then a friend of mine who is a graphic designer made me fantastic invitations as her wedding gift, another friend took the pictures, another friend offered to D.J., we went minimal on flowers I think we spent $80 on flowers for me and my bridesmaids and that's it, I made candles for all the tables, the girls dresses cost me $20each in fabric and each girl made their own dress or had someone in their family make it, my Dh's parents made us all our wine (it was fantastic) and then we bought some beer and just had wine and beer at the wedding. The only real cost was booking the place we wanted to get married at (Heritage Village) and the catering (which was amazing). I think in total our wedding was $8000 (canadian) which is about $8700 Australian. It was soooooo worth it.

we had a big wedding but i drew the line at 120 people!

Our wedding was big and white and people thought I spent a lot more than I actually did.

I spent a year planning every detail and got the best bargains imaginable. We spent around $10k including everything from underwear, the reception, dresses etc!

My first wedding cost about $1500- $2000 all up. We only had 20 odd guests but had the fancy reception place (a small one in the hills that did small weddings). We were able to buy the alcohol ourselves & take it up the day before & they just served it for us. We had a celebrant at the reception place and were married in the garden.

We had magnificent flowers but they were done by friend of the family who did floristry as a hobby so that didn't cost much. We didn't have a photographer - we had a family member take a video & another one to take the photos. Both turned out well. With digital cameras these days, having a friend do the photos would even be easier.

My dress cost $300 and was definately a "fairytale" dress but it was second hand. We were lucky with wedding cars as they were provided by my FIL's work so cost nothing.

We had nothing but positive comments from those that attended. They loved how small it was, it was more intimate. We got to talk properly to everyone who attended.

We did things this way as my parents offered to pay for a big wedding or a small wedding and a nice honeymoon. Because of what we chose we ended up honeymooning for two weeks in Hawaii. I will never regret our choice to do things the way we did them.

I'm getting married again (probably next year) and we are planning to have a small wedding too. No wedding dress this time as at 41 I feel I'm too old for that, but I will have something nice & it's sure to cost less than my 1st one did. We haven't worked out a budget yet but we will be keeping costs down as much as possible as we need the money for our future.

I'm not married but i wouldn't want a big wedding. To me it's the marriage that's important and (again, for me, not for everyone!) for me i know my marriage would do better starting without debt and with a house we can live in, and i don't care for fancy dresses etc.

I've already thought a lot about it. I'd want family and close friends but would try to keep it under 50 people in total, a quiet registry office ceremony, a new dress but i think i'd make it myself then it could be EXACTLY what i want. I guess i'd spend up to about 3000GBP - is that about $7000AUS? without freaking out - but that'd need to include the honeymoon too! LOL.

I think it comes down to the type of person you are. I have a huge aversion to the organisation stress. If you really want the bells and whistles you're more motivated to get the perfect dress/flowers etc. I'm just not interested enough. I care far more about where we'll live when we get home than where we'll go on our honeymoon. But some people look forward all their lives to marrying that special person, and having that wonderful day. If you're that sort of person you should have that, it's important.

I guess all my life i've been hoping for a man who can make me feel loved, understood, cherished. Now i've found him i'd get married in a bus station bathroom wearing a bin liner for a dress. I've already exceeded my expectations.

Bec

About $150 :lol: in Las Vegas in 1997 for the most exciting, romantic day of our lives. The package included chapel service with a Minister (The Little Chapel of the Flowers!), professional photos, long white limousine, keepsake ceremonial candle, and a video of the occasion.

Having said that, don't know if we'd do it that way again :rolleyes: now we're a bit older and wiser

wow thats so cheap berry! sounds great :D

we spent prolly 200 bux.. (here comes the hippy again) my dress was 48 dollars... we had it in my dads backyard, surrounded by close family and friends who had a beer in their hands as we did our vows... i had my neices, and nephew and SD dressed up as mini sporty spices...Dad made a three tier carrot cake... we walked up the road(me bare foot) for one night at a semi fancy hotel- yet ordered nothing but spicey wedges at midnight- then walked back to dads the next morning for yummy barby brunch...
We have been married 8 years this December and are more in love now than ever before.
Im so proud of our wedding and would do it exactly the same again and again... it was so "us" and everyone knew that and had a ball....
I think weddings should be about who you are- some people love big white weddings, some people dont.. i think they are all beautiful days... I would have been uncomfortable spending lots of money, its not who i am.. im nervous about lotsa money... we had a mortgage and i was only a 1st year apprentice painter so times were tight... o hang on they still bloody are!!!

We got married at a registry, no honeymoon as we planned to have a proper wedding later. Instead we'll probably have a full wedding reception and renew our vows and go on a honeymoon for our 10th wedding anniversary. Its going to be huge :) I plan on having a labyrinth style masquarade ball. With really interesting entertainment ;) Will probably cost us a bucket but its a once in a lifetime thing and it will be fun :)

*hugs*
Cailin

Ours cost around $10,000 for everything including my dress and it was prefect. I wouldn't have changed a single thing about our wedding at all. We did a few things relatively cheap, but there were other things I would not compromise on. My sister worked for a printing company at the time so I designed the invitations & paid for the wholesale paper only. My cake though was ridiculously expensive but was gorgeous & exactly what I wanted (a huge castle).

I don't think you have to spend an absolute fortune to have a beautiful wedding.

Cailin, that sounds fantastic, I have a wonderful mental picture in my head of what that would look like.

I can't even really remember what we spent all up. I was working for a newspaper at the time doing commmercial printing so I did all the invites, thank you cards, order of service booklets etc and got them for free. I brought one bon-bonerrie box, cut it down and traced the pattern and made my own ( cost me $5 all up instead of $4 per box). Mum brought the dress, FIL paid for the booze, and we only paid for the meal, honeymoon and pics and the other odds and ends. Think maybe it would have been $4k?

One thing I don't like to see people do it go into debt to get the 'dream wedding' - who wants to spend the next five years paying off one day? If statistics are true some marriages don't even last that long.

We started out organising the big wedding day but when we did all the sums it was going to cost close to $20000 and my mum was already starting to be pushy with the guest list. So...we ditched that plan and invited our family over to Fiji and we got married there and then went and had an amazing honey moon. The ceremony cost $1500 which included celebrant, flowers, photo's etc. I had a dress made which cost $1000 and then we payed for a great dinner with all of our family (immediate) that had come. 6 months later (I was completing a postgraduate course at the time so was rather busy) we threw a party in Victoria for our friends and my family , and a party in Adelaide for friends and his family. In total it cost us $10000 which included 10 days on a fijian island. It was amazing and I would do it all again. As the day was really about us - not what everyone else wanted.

I hear what you are saying Brigit and I agree, but some people just want the big fairy tale wedding and that is their choice to make.

$5000k including designer gown and helicopter.

However - I don't think there is much point hassling your sister too much. As you can see, some will spend a fortune, some won't but we all want "our" perfect day, and if your sis wants to spend bucketloads, let her and let her enjoy herself spend her dollars any way she wishes. It's not up to you really. Don't be a wet blanket hun.

We spent under $2K for our wedding, and it was perfect! The secret for us, was getting the essence of the thing without asking particularly for it as 'wedding' things. Eg, bought a (non-wedding) ivory dress off the rack, hired a restaurant to provide a 'function', and sourced our flowers from a business who did a wonderful job with orchids and gerberas (fresh, locally grown) without all the normal hoo-haa reserved for "wedding" flowers. Friends drove us in their car, my dad did the photography (he used to do wedding photography as a money-spinner in his heyday) and really what more do you want? I'm sure my guests didn't care a hoot because they were sitting on regular (nice) chairs instead of draped in ivory-chiffon-covered-in-bows that'll be $25 extra per person! BTW ppl still tell us that was one of the nicest weddings they have been to!

Wow, what a lot of variation here :)

We got married in 1994 as poor uni students (getting married got us more Austudy - our main reason for marrying so young LOL!) Our rings (which we made ourselves) cost $73 (yep, that's for both of em in 18 ct gold), we donated $100 to the Salvos (Salvo minister married us), and my dress cost under $50. We had a "reception" in a park and we probably spent about $200-300 on food, including our home-made mud cake. So all up under $500 - most of the money went to the Salvos.

A few years ago a GF got married with a bells and whistles wedding and DH and I were in the wedding party. I went thru a stage of regretting my "small" non-white-dress wedding, but one visit to Brides of Melbourne cured me of that - I am not a big wedding girl, never was and never will be, even though I love watching them from the sidelines. Cai your 10th anniversary bash sounds perfect - we might do something similar for our 25th (only 12 yrs away now, OMG)

I guess we did the bells and whistles thing but in one way would've liked a smaller wedding. We spent $25K which included the $5K honeymoon & rings (incl. engagement). Back then I was working in hospitality and just wanted a big party & the chance to have lots of family together and have a great time. We had a lot of relies come over from o/seas and shouted them bits and pieces as well.

Looking back on it, I would now spend a lot less and have more meaning to the ceremony which we didn't really at the time. Whole ceremony took 7 minutes. I was so disappointed at this and embarrassed when I watched it on a friend's video tape. $25K for 7 minutes - that's ridiculous!

Anyway, my sister just got married this year in NZ and when she started planning it she asked how much we spent and said with disgust that she couldn't stomach spending that much money on a wedding. Well, how the tables turn.....10mths or so down the track and the wedding has been..........she spent $33K!!!! She had a great time though and doesn't regret it. But it's funny how your state of mind changes as you are preparing and getting immersed in the whole thing.

When I worked in hospitality at a 5star hotel, it was so amazing to see what money people would spend. I remeber this one wedding where they spent $50K on the flowers alone. The food & wine bill came to well over $200K for 600 guests......never mind the dress, honeymoon etc.

I think our reception, celebrant, band etc 1400+300+c was around $6500.
The Thai Silk fabric for my dress was around $100, amd 2 of my Aunties made it for me. Bridesmaids dress about the same, she wanted to make her own so I said OK.
Rings were from Celtic Origins in Armidale - gorgeous! - about $800 all up for both
5 star Hotel for wedding night was $100 from last minute or one of those type things..
Honeymoon in Tassie, which I loved and was fabulous was around $1400
My shoes were $150 but only becuase my feet are too big (11) to get nice wedding shoes at a regular shop
Hair and makeup for me and bridesmaid inc trials $150
Cake - tins, ingedients, icing etc about $100. My Aunty made it for me (multitalented, same Aunty that made my dress) she also made a gorgeous Castle cake for her daughters Medieval Wedding.
Photography was free, I paid for films and developing only.

So all up just over $9k. Wow it was more expensive than I thought when you write it all down.

We spent more than we intended. We had a 'quickie' wedding so to speak, he proposed and we set the date for 3 months later. The venue was free and outside, we paid for a penthouse apartment to have the reception and that cost around $2000 for 3 nights. Food and alcohol I have no idea, but we catered a big bbq for 60 people and the alcohol just lasted till the end, it must have been at least $2000. Our friend is a celebrant so we got mates rates there but that was still around $500. My dress and hair etc came to around $2000 and DH hired his suit. Rings again mates rates - I've got white gold and my DH titanium, we paid cost price for those. Came to about $500 instead of a few thousand. We paid for some of our family and friends to stay in rental units in the same block as us and we paid for MIL and GMIL to fly over from NZ. (But if I remeber rightly BIL paid us half back). My MIL made my wedding cake. Photography was cheap too, again another dear dear friend whose sideline is photography. He didn't ask for any money but we gave him a gift of $500 as a thank you.

No honeymoon as we were moving to Sydney a month later and still no honeymoon nearly 3 years later! I'm OK with that and can wait.

All up about $8k ish.....

My first wedding we spent $5K all up including a $2500 dress and a fantastic buffet dinner for 80 guests at the reception including alcohol.

The second we spent $7K with 40 guests...go figure!!! Both were fantastic.

Thanks for your replies girls re our Las Vegas nuptials! I think part of what made it such a happy day were the super-friendly people in Las Vegas - It was the best! We had a honeymoon travelling to the Grand Canyon on a tourist bus, and a week in the New Orleans French Quarter.

We spent $10 000 all up on our wedding.

We spent a bit under 10k for our wedding this year. We were planning on having a bigger wedding and going to LA for our honeymoon until we found out that I was pregnant! So we brought the wedding forward and cut numbers and changed a few things to save $$ for our baby! We found the perfect venue right on the Geelong Waterfront and it was magical. Our friend is a dressmaker who made my dress as our wedding gift so we saved $$ there and ended up going on a houseboat for a week in Echuca (nice and relaxing!). We only had 40 guests but it was fantastic... they were all of our closest friends and family. It was the best day of our lives and wouldn't change it for a thing. I don't think it matters if you spend 2k, 10k, 20k, 50k or 100k on your wedding... the day is all about you and what you want. If you want to spend the money then I say go for it.... it can be a lot of money for one day but the amount of fun we had and what it meant to us to be able to bring all of our friends and family together to share this special day with us meant so much...

I think we spent about $7000 - $8000 on our wedding. The photography was the most expensive thing as that was something we were picky about so wanted a really good photographer. I did get an expensive silk dress which was a bit dumb because where the heck am I going to store it and its not really something I'll wear again in a hurry! Apart from that, we hired a hall, had the ceremony outside with a celebrant, and got a catering company to bring their food van and feed everyone. We also made all our invitations and bomboniere which saved us a bucketload. We put the bomboniere together two days before we got married, lol.

I hear you , I did my own bouquet at 11pm the night before...

I agree that the type of wedding you want reflects the type of people you want. We wnted a very small classic wedding that looked elegant. We had sold our first home so we had quite a nice profit so spending wasn't really an issue however we as a couple aren't into spending unnecessarily. We had a beautiful breakfast reception with 40 close friends and family, we had one wedding car that picked up the bridesmaids from a nearby park where we had pre-wedding photos then came back to pick up me, we had my sister take photos (regret this as the photos weren't what we really wanted) All up this cost $7000, reception, dresses, suit, flowers, car

We then spent about $4000 on our honeymoon (on whch we took our 6mth old DS) which we still talk fondly of, the best holiday ever!

Depending on what you include, we spent less than $1000, even though it was a "church wedding". My dress was $100 (not a typical "wedding dress"), we had one attendant each & told them to wear whatever they wanted. We gave the celebrant $100 and had the reception at my parents' house--about 50 people came for sandwiches & cake. I organized 2 friends of my teenage sister to set up the food whilst we were at the ceremony. They loved it and felt important. The mother of my brother's gf made the cakes (we had 5 normal-sized ones, all the same, and PLAIN no icing!!). She knew I loved her cake and when I said 'I wish I could have it for a wedding cake' she offered to make 5 as a present for us. The one expensive item was the photographer. I think we spent about $400 on photos. I thought they were quite average to be honest. My brother advertised for a photography student to do his wedding, & had fab photos for cheap, PLUS got to keep the negatives.
We hand-wrote all our invitations on beautiful cards from an art museum.
We walked to and from the church (from my parents' house) and people in the area still remember seeing the 'wedding procession', and all the guests said how much they enjoyed walking back to the reception. It was not far, about 1 km.
We got married on Saturday of a long weekend and went to a B&B for 2 nights, then back to work on Tuesday!! I too have had pangs sometimes, wondering if we should have done it 'bigger and better', but I was very happy with it, and everyone said how elegant and simple it was.

we had a wedding that was exactly right for us - we'd been to hell and back with family issues in the six months before the big day (to the point that no one from DH's family was invited, and even then, they tried to sabotage - but that's another story!) - and our wedding was the day we put all that BS behind us and move forward - having a kick @ss party with it!

i had the princess dress - not because it's what i'd always dreamed of, but because i fell in love with it in the shop. we got married in DH's best mates (and best man's) back yard where we met. we had our reception catered at a footy club, and kicked on all night. the food was delish, we ended up putting less than $800 for drinks for 130 people - and all up, it cost us about $7500

i did all the invitations myself (was a great distraction from all the issues going on) - got mates rates on photos, decorated the hall ourselves the night before - and our thankyou gift to everyone who helped was a cleanskin bottle of wine with a thankyou message that we'd created on it.

wouldn't change our day for anything - we get comments regularly about how relaxed it was, how perfect for who we were - and when are we getting hitched again so we can have another night like that?!

great thread! thanks suga for reinvigorating it.

i never dreamed or planned on getting married. my DH is a romantic and wanted to get married but he respected my view and was very happy that we would forever be life partners.

then one day i changed my mind. my friends reminded me that i hadn't given them an opportunity to celebrate in our love and then DH went away on a holiday and i unexpectedly blurted out on his return "i missed you so much i could marry you" and he jumped on the idea!

i wouldn't change a thing about the actual day except i had lost my voice which i would have liked to have had so people could hear my vows and i could talk to them :doh:. it ended up being about $15K but we had the most sustainable wedding we could. had it in a public garden, locally made dress that i wear now as a ball gown, home grown produce for the food (including all the meat), local wines at a locally owned country hotel, hired buses to and from venue for guests, local flowers. local band, made our own invitations etc. we have even offset the carbon emissions of our guests that flew from overseas and interstate.

i could have done it a lot cheaper but we were unexpectedly given some money and we really wanted to give everyone a party to remember that was also very ''us".

dusty

WOW... what a variety of experiences... I will definitely be keeping some of these ideas in mind if DP and I ever get married.

All DP wants is to go to the registry office, which I might agree too. Otherwise it will be tiny affair with just family as guests, and I will probably just buy a nice dress - maybe one of those medieval style ones from a gothic shop, or Tree of Life etc... and I am pretty happy with that. However afterwards I would like to have some sort of reception celebration, maybe at someone's house, with lots of family and friends.

I've been married twice.

The first one was with all the bells and whistles including 130 guests,in the church where my parents and grandparents were married, the big white dress, honeymoon in Hawaii, 3 brides maids 2 flowergirls the whole shebang! It lasted 2 years.

My second wedding was in Scotland on the edge of a Loch overlooking a ruined castle, I arrived in an Austin Martin (my Husbands favourite car from the Bond movies),I arrived to be greeted by a lone piper, we had just 20 guests including family,the wedding "reception" was held in a 15th century pub on the banks of the Spey River in Aviemore, we had a celtic band danced till dawn and had the time of our lives! We've been married 9 years have a precious son and a little princess on the way. Our wedding and it was the best party ever and I am lucky to say I married my best friend and a man who is the most wonderful father I could have asked for.

Lots of money spent and a big fancy wedding doesn't make a marriage...

As a little girl I always wanted "The Big Wedding", as I got older I wanted something small. When DH proposed we decided we wanted to elope (even planned how to get our best friends to the venue without telling them why ;) ). Unfortunately our families had other ideas. Both sets of parents threatened to disown us should we elope. My Father because he wanted to share my day. IL's because of their religion. So, we organised a wedding back home which was small and intimate with about 20 or so people. Total cost was less than $5k including travelling from Vic to SA and back - but no honeymoon as MIL was having major surgery the following day and we needed "to be available". Still haven't been on that honeymoon :rolleyes:. Even though I had a great day - I wish we had eloped. I'm not one for fuss over me (but love to fuss over everyone else) and hated being the centre of attention.

I'm not sure what was spent on our wedding, my parents paid for just about all of it, the IL's paid the tab on the bar, which would've been quite a bit considering who we had there drinking LOL!

We got my dress on sale, so we saved quite a few hundred there.

Our photo and video package we also got a few hundred off as it was a family member, but still paid somewhere around 2-3000 for them, and worth every penny too!

The stretch limo was a friend of my dad's so we got that for next to nothing, and if fitted all our bridal party in it after DH and groomsmen arrived on the back of Harley's.

We got the invitations printed up, but we put them all together and the chocolates for the guests we did ourselves as well.

Part of our photo/video package was free music for the night as well.

For our flowers we went to the best shop in town, only to be told they weren't doing wedding's anymore, but they referred us onto someone who had just opened up. I had a bourquet of gerbera's and something really simple for my bridesmaids, as they aren't really girly.

We didn't have a honeymoon, we couldn't afford to at the time. DH says we will have one for our 10th wedding anniversary, which is only 3 years away. I found a place up in north Qld, but can't find it now when I go searching for it. It was kind of like the Treehouse's, but it was on an island, had to take a plane and boat to get to it, no more than 24 people at a time, sounded perfect, but I can't find any info on it anymore! :(

Nic