I got married 4 and a bit years ago... It was the best day of my life!!
We did it on a major budget, i didn't ask for any financial help from my dad, coz then he would have to have a say in what i did, so we did it all ourselves.

We got married in a local park - i arranged to have it mowed and looking nice the weekend before, we did nothing else to it, it was pretty enough, flowers were on the trees....
I hired my dress- i got to wear a very expensive dress for a cheap price,
the boys hired suits, my bridesmaids bought their own from a regular shop, they just all got the same one, only like $50 which they all paid as they got to keep it,
my sisters friend (a hair dresser) did our hair, not for free, but pretty cheap. Same with the make up lady. they all came to my house for us

One of my hubby's groomsmen is a gardener at the local university, so they day before the wedding they all went there and picked our native bouquets, arranged them and presented them to us the next day.....

We arrived in my dads car, and one we borrowed from a friend of my brothers who had the same exact statesmen as my dad, so we matched.....

We hired a celebrant (who used to live up the road from me when i was a kid- mates rates on what we could)

Once the short and sweet ceremony was done, my friend from high school (an award winning photographer) took all our photos at the park while the guests made there way to the pub where shane and i met. They stayed in the front bar until the bridal party arrived to greet them at the night club area which we had booked out for the day.

I had spent the day before with my bridesmaids organising platters of finger food and nibblies, and we had a banquet of sandwiches as well. Then as the night club was open that night, and i was a bit busy, the publican (who is a party planning fanatic) had set up the nite club with balloons and our table decos and put on champagne and strawberries

My step MIL made our wedding cake- a yummy chocolate mud cake and my guests paid their own alcohol tab (i had only one friend who came to the wedding but not the reception as i wasn't putting anything on the bar- and she could have had champagne)

The DJ pumped out the tunes, we danced the afternoon away and all the official stuff finished at about 5pm- we had to be out so it could become the night club again that night.
Reception only cost us $500- that was for the room for 5 hours, DJ, bar staff, decorations and a room for shane and i for two nights up stairs.
We had met at the pub and the publican liked us alot!!!!

After all the official family stuff ended, and they all headed home, Shane and i and our true party going friends headed around the corner for our "Rightoff Reception" a lot of our "not so upper class family friendly friends" had all planned a second reception for us at another pub. We got trashed and partied very hard until the wee hours of the next day.
I can still remember one friends quote "I cant beleive its 4am and i am still drinking with the bride and groom!! Usually at weddings they are long gone by now. This is the best wedding i have ever been to!!!!"

I thought so to!! We had the best day we could have hoped for and managed to keep all of our respective friends and family happy. And most importantly ourselves.

Quick run down
dress- 150
suit -200
hair/makeup 100
celebrant 250
food 350
reception 500
photos- cost of printing 100
total 1650

Very cheap, very fun, everything we wanted. wouldn't change any of it for a second. Each to their own though, alot of other people would not have been as happy with the amount of work i had to put in (with help from friends), but for me it was worth it to have everything how we wanted it. I could have asked my dad for thousands of dollars like my sisters did, but then he would have a right to tell me that it is tacky to have a reception in a night club.