I'm in the process of organising my wedding, and although my parents wanted to pay top $ for us to get married (and all of the guests stay) at a Crowne Plaza, my fiance and I have stuck with what we wanted all along - a fun low cost wedding that we (and everyone else) can enjoy that is not stuffy in any way.

We have hired a local hall for $200 (luckily we live in the vineyards so it's a very picturesque old sandstone building surrounded by grapevines) it also means we don't get kicked out and the alcohol turned off at 11pm! We are having a main course buffet spit roast with silver service finger food whilst we have photos done for $27 p/h. We are buying wine and beer in bulk from local bottle shops. We are buying a slab caramel mudcake from Michel's for $100 and a friend is decorating it with white chocolate curls. Another friend is taking all of our photos and arranging them in album (he's got a pretty flash big camera) for $500. I bought my dress over the internet from the US for $750 (instead of $1100 off the rack here in Oz) and with it I also got a free bridesmaids dress (which was $400 to buy here) and free postage with insurance. My other two bridesmaids also got their dresses from the same website for $120 each (instead of $400 here). We are using 3 friends Ford Falcon XR6s for free, I have made my own centrepieces from cheap glass vases from the Reject Shop with a candle in them; then I got some beading wire and put some pearl beads on it and wound it around the vases each centrepiece cost $4.50. I have made some wine glass charms as bonboniere and we are burning CDs with songs from the wedding on them to give to guests too. To cut a long story short, our wedding is only costing between $3500 - $4000 (I have $500 left over for in case of emergency). Honestly it can be done!