As soon as we decided we were going to get married, we talked about how much we wanted to spend. It’s not in Chris’ and my nature to have a giant, fancy party – we’re more, backyard BBQ people, so that’s exactly what we did (and you can see all the fun we had here). We wanted to keep things fun and affordable. We didn’t want to spend a giant amount of money on one day – it’s just not our bag. I have certainly participated in fun, wedding blowouts, but it’s just not our personal style. We also decided that we didn’t want our families paying for it. Because we’d been together for so long it felt inappropriate to make our families pay for a wedding that was more of a formality. They kept insisting, so we let them pay for select things (dad and step mom = food, mom = dessert, step dad = wine, Chris’ mom = drinks). They loved being able to contribute and we felt like it was a small enough amount that we didn’t feel like we were taking advantage.
Possibly the biggest money saver was that we did it in our backyard. We didn’t have to pay a rental fee, didn’t have to worry about transporting everything or any of those other fun logistics. It made sense for us because we love this house so much and so many people hadn’t ever seen it or hadn’t seen it for a very long time, so it was a wonderful way to share all of the hard work we had done to make it our wonderful home.