A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Ok so I'm newly engaged and the date is set for early 2014, after my fiance graduates from university. My problem is that my mom who would be paying for the wedding cannot afford it. Both me and my finance don't have our careers started yet, so paying for the wedding ourselves (which would be ideal) is impossible. I've always been the type for a wedding, and never really considered eloping til recently. I know I'll end up regretting it if we never have a wedding, but for now it seems to be our only option. :( I want to include my close family at the very least, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Any aunts have any advice for me?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 September 2012): i think stayc has good advice.
The nicest and simplest wedding i heard about was from a work colleague who wore a simple dress from monsoon, no bouquet but flowers in her hair and they walked hand in hand to their local church with close family and friends only attending. They lived in a village and it did sound idyllic!
they had a small simple wedding using flowers from the previous wedding in the church and walked to the local pub afterwards for a meal. they had stainless steel wedding rings made for themselves and had a party at home for friends at a later date. they had a friend who had a good camera take all the photos for them.
it sounded to me as one of the most beautiful and intimate weddings ive heard of which purposefully cost very little!
My neice is in your situation and ive suggested a marquee in my parents big garden for just family and a few close friends. if you have a friend or relative with a bigish garden, could you ask them if you could use it as your wedding venue?
Over here ive heard of several friends of people i know marrying for £20,000 upwards to about £70,000 +! it seems its the norm! I married 25 years ago but now i wish i'd spent money on a more intimate wedding and a more comfortable start to married life than feeding half of the family who i hardly saw again!
I think it can cost as much or as little as you want it to.
best wishes for your future
A
female
reader, Stayc63088 +, writes (20 September 2012):
 You have a lot of advice suggesting you postpone this wedding. I'll tell you what me and my husband did instead since I'm sure you now are aware of the ability to wait to get married.
We wanted a small wedding with only immediate family members. We also didn't have a lot of money, virtually no help from our parents because both of our fathers lost their jobs years ago, and we didn't want to spend a whole lot anyway because we are frugal. When pricing wedding things and finding out all of the hassle, invitations and whatnot, I suggested we to to Vegas. I didn't want a cheap, sleazy drive through or Elvis wedding though. So I looked into and found one chapel, literally only one in Vegas that isn't cheap looking. We chose that chapel. You can pick packages to suit your needs, what you want included in your wedding etc. For instance number of photos or if you want a limo. They range in price from a couple hundred to thousands. You have a wedding planner who contacts you quite a bit up until your big day and plans it all out with you.
It doesn't have to be a cheap elopement to save money and have a nice wedding. You just need to look into a bunch of options. Hell you can get married in a backyard for close to nothing and have your family there. We were able to have our family join us in Vegas for our wedding. Only parents and siblings and they paid for themselves. You have a lot of time from now so start saving like crazy. Don't go overboard on things like a wedding dress, it isn't worth it. I spent around 800 for the dress, shoes, undergarments, veil... I thought that was too much. Especially afterwards when the wedding was done. I wore it for a few hours and that's it.
Anyway just be savvy. Research all your options for wedding venues and package deals to save you money. I wouldn't advise eloping because you want your family there. And you mentioned eloping and then having a proper wedding later, in that case you could just hold off on all of it. But if you wanted to know more about how our wedding worked or the chapel you can message me. It was a beautiful wedding, cost affective, and relatively easy.
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A
female
reader, Ciar  + ♥, writes (20 September 2012):
 Some good ideas here. You can delay the wedding, or keep it simple and within your budget.
The thing about these so called 'traditional' weddings is they aren't traditional at all. Back in the day few people could afford an elaborate lacy, white dress, a train of bridesmaids and best men, hundreds of guests and a huge banquet. Most weddings were very modest events. What people are doing now is immitating wealthy aristocrats of bygone days.
My advice is to have something simple, inexpensive and dignified. You can enjoy the day and still have money left over to start your new lives together.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (20 September 2012):
 you have over a year to save.
you have several options:
1. get a part time job and devote the funds to saving for the wedding
2. have a small destination wedding and then at home later on a reception (we are going to vegas in two weeks and we invited folks and those who could afford to go are going and those who are not able to afford it are not going) we will cover their DINNER after the wedding but not their transportation or hotels) and then the following month we are having an open house at our home to celebrate with all who could not make the nuptials...
3. put the wedding off longer
4. downsize the wedding plans in general
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 September 2012): My advice is what's the hurry?
You have about two years to save up for it, you're going to spend the rest of your lives together so why not just wait another year or two until you have both settled down into your careers?
What's the hurry to have a ring on your finger?
You say you'll regret not having the wedding you always dreamed of, you want to include your family and have a great couple of days, so just wait and save up.
Why is being husband and wife something you have to do so soon as to just rush it?
Do you think you will suddenly love him more? Do you just want to be called Mrs.?
Just wait OP, a wedding is supposed to be a beautiful thing, you only get one with this guy and seeing as you have the next 50+ years together then wait until the moment is perfect.
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A
female
reader, k_c100  +, writes (20 September 2012):
 Why not put the wedding on hold until you can afford it? I appreciate you want to get married as soon as you can, but you are very young and there is no rush. I've never heard of anyone saying "I wish I had gotten married younger", you only ever hear of people saying "I wish I had waited until I was older to get married".
Push the wedding back until 2015, that gives you a good amount of time to save up then you can have the wedding of your dreams. I think you will regret eloping, you will always wish you had waited until you had more money rather than getting married just for the sake of it. If you manage to get a reasonable sum of money saved up for 2015 then you can always get a small bank loan to cover the rest of the costs, many people take out small loans for their weddings as they are inevitably expensive.
Me and my boyfriend would love to get married, I am 25 and he is 29 but we simply cant afford it for the foreseeable future so we are not even getting engaged until we know we can afford a wedding. Sometimes you just have to wait, as much as you want to get married you cant have everything you want in life right away.
Put a savings plan together between now and 2015, see how much you can save between now and then and make up the shortfall with a small loan if needs be. There are many ways to cut costs for weddings so do some research online into making your wedding cheaper. You can make your own wedding cake (my friend just did this and it was amazing, only cost her £100 instead of the usual £600-£1000 you pay here in the UK) and it was 5 tiers, it looked great. You can make your own invites, placeholders, wedding favours etc. Have a buffet for the wedding breakfast instead of a sit down dinner. See if you can find a venue that allows you to take your own alcohol - here in the UK you can go to certain wine merchants, buy all your alcohol from there and then if you dont use all of it they will buy it back from you.
There are loads of ways to cut costs, you just have to spend time researching and be prepared to do a lot of the hard work yourself. But dont elope, it sounds like this is not something you want to do and you have always wanted a proper wedding, so you will regret it in the long run. Just find a way to save some money first, maybe by pushing the wedding back a year, then look at cost cutting exercises for the actual day.
I hope this helps and good luck!
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A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (20 September 2012):
 But, does it have to be a big, expensive,la-dee-da wedding ? ... Because to 2014 there's over one year, and it sounds strange to me that, if you both have jobs, in 15-16 months you would not be able, maybe tightening your belt a bit, to save up enough for a small ( family and witnesses only ) yet proper , tasteful, " comme il faut " wedding .
Maybe I got it wrong,in assuming that you are working or will be soon , but to me one thing is " not having our career started yet " and another being completely unemployed. In which case , planning to get married is ... well, let's say a very bizarre idea in itself.
Anyway, does it HAVE to be in 2014 ? for any particular reason ? Why not in 2015 ? Why not give yourself time to put together some money ?
If you know that having a formal wedding is important to you, and if you know that you'll end up regretting you did not have one- then make sure you won't regret anything, and just postpone the date . You are 22-25 !, what's the rush ?
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (20 September 2012):
 Hi
if you can gain the co-operation of friends, relatives and neighbors you should be able to create a lovely and memorable wedding celebration without the ruinous expense that so many people choose to spend. A really nice wedding does not have to cost as much as many people spend today.
I went to a wedding not that long ago that was completely over the top as far as expense. I have never seen anything like it. It was spectacular in every respect. The marriage lasted 12 months.
The wedding day is not as important as the committed respect and love that exists between the two of you.
However you can create a wedding on a budget.
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A
female
reader, nat1972  +, writes (20 September 2012):
 Hi,
My advice for you is to get a part time job. Both of you. And save towards the marriage. 2014 is a fear while away and if you start now and put some money into savings for the wedding you'll be on your way. Weddings are very expensive. So try and save money for yourself. Or if you cannot save money, do not elope, but just have a few friends and family and celebrate within your means. Weddings don't need to be expensive and if thought well in advance you can still have a lovely wedding without it costing the earth. Do some of your own investigations and work it all out.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 September 2012): You can postpone it, that way you can fulfill what you really want. My mom got engaged and had the wedding planned a year ahead, she ended up getting pregnant with my two youngest siblings. She finally married my step dad six years later cause she didn't want to enter a marriage in stress, cause those two rascals are a pain:)
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