HELP! - August 2014 - NO money Eeek!

Evil_Olive

Heartbreak Star - lol - maybe it's just me - I bought a bottle from the tower of London once, drank it all, threw up - now can't drink more than one glass

Jinky - Oops! that did sound a bit grabby didn't it. In my defence he's actually been hinting that he wants to do this already but I think he likes to be asked - My stepdad is the same. Rest assured, I wouldn't ask for it free anyway - I'd ask him to give me a quote & see what he said but he's a very close friend and I genuinely think he'd feel insulted if we expected him to quote full rate especially as OHs band played a 3 hour set completely free (no expenses or anything) for his wedding a couple of years ago..... Full price for that would've been around £650 but OH didn't see it as getting him a wedding gift costing that much - he saw the cost of the gift as being whatever it *cost* the band themselves to play, in travel, equipment hire, insurance etc which was obviously a lot less.

I made a friends wedding dress for her a few years ago as a wedding gift - cost me around £100 in materials but if I added in the time it'd be more like £3000! Eeeek!

Hi Tillyenna, - that's what we're doing (see near the end of my original post)

I'll post here the results of all the research I did into this in case it's helpful to anyone else:
I'm still looking into this but from the information I have so far I believe the following is correct:

All we have to do for it to be legal is have the minimum basic registry office 'wedding' (usually called 'Registering a Marriage' by means of a 'Civil Ceremony') at some point before, after or even on the same day as our ceremony. It pretty much consists just of saying the minimum basic vows and doing the paperwork but it is a full, legal, normal marriage in the eyes of the law - just without all the fuss. It's what a lot of our grandmothers did in the 40s when they needed to get hitched in a hurry before their man went off to war

Up until fairly recently, these basic marriages included a reasonable ceremony with readings/music etc in the basic fee and you were allowed as many guests as could fit in the room set aside for that purpose - this type of basic ceremony was usually what was meant back in the 70s & 80s when people said they were having a registry office wedding. Now though, councils/registry offices have cottoned on to the fact that they can make a lot of money by offering 'wedding packages' with lots of extras.

All local authorities have to offer this basic option at at least one registry office in the local authority area and they cannot legally charge more than the statutory government-set fees (£35 each for giving notice, £45 for the 'wedding' and £4 for a copy of the certificate). Because the statutory fees are so low and to encourage take-up of their 'packages' a lot of councils now restrict the basic statutory marriage registration to a small office, on only a couple of days in the week with maximum 2 to 4 witnesses. There is often no ceremony to speak of at all nowadays - just "say this, Sign here, F** off!" but that suits us as this part to us is just the equivalent of popping into the vestry to sign the register really.

The part I'm still double-checking is that there's no loophole which would allow a greedy LA/registry office to charge any kind of extra (non-statutory) fee for the Civil 'Ceremony' vows part or make having a 'Ceremony' mandatory and charging for it separately to the £45 Marriage Registration fee, cos if they can get away with it, you can bet they will
However, judging from Kent Council's website this isn't allowed cos they sound pretty sour about it

We will be doing this part a few days after our actual wedding day. It's LOADS cheaper than paying an extortionate fee to the registrar to have them attend our actual wedding ceremony or paying to use the registry offices fancier facilities for the whole wedding. Traditional Handfastings should be held in the open air which we wouldn't be able to do if a registrar was attending and we don't have to worry about venues having to be licenced for marriages as the registry office bit takes care of all that part.

I'd recommend this approach to anyone - it means you can have exactly the kind of ceremony you want, where you want, when you want and don't have to pay through the nose for it.
There's more info here:
http://www.kent.gov.uk/community_and_living/births,_deaths_and_ceremonies/marriages/how_we_set_our_fees.aspx
and here
https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships//weddings-and-civil-partnership-ceremonies
if anyone's interested.....

Luella-14_2

EvilOlive- thanks for all that info re registry offices. If I had my way, OH and I would have the basic, signing name option then have a quiet meal together to celebrate. He wants his parents there and if his family are there I can't get away with not inviting mine etc. However if I show him the costs for the basic option he may well come around to my way of thinking.
Your day sounds lovely by the way, and I love the elderflower champagne idea.

Bex296

Hi! Your wedding sounds amazing, I don't really have any budget-friendly things I can add as it sounds like you're doing amazingly already!
I was wondering if you had found a wedding website called offbeat bride though, it's got tons of budget-friendly tips, stuff on crafting, dresses, everything weddingy really, and as the name suggests it's aimed at the less traditional amongst us. I've wasted a LOT of time on there!!

Evil_Olive

Luella-14 - maybe you could compromise along the lines of what I'm doing but smaller - do the legal bit as a basic registry office ceremony with just the 2 sets of parents as witnesses but have more than a meal afterwards for just the two of you - say a party or something that will involve the rest of those family/friends your H2B wants to be there? If you know someone who is a good speaker or actor or something, you could even ask them to perform a second ceremony at the party with vows you write yourself?

Bex-296 - thanks for the website suggestion. No, I hadn't heard of that one, sounds perfect - heading over there now....... if you never hear from me again, it's your fault

savvy

WOW Evil Olive, so weird that your story is very similar to ours, our date was provisional for 13.9.13..........but we had to cancel due to nowhere near enough money (and that was with a small modest affair too), and now we are even worse as I was made redundant on top of it all, we don't have family to back us either which is a bummer.

We also don't want to wait any longer, especially with fiance's health, but we have no choice and no idea when we will ever be able to do it. So I just wanted to say well done to you for going for it, and getting so much for free hope you have a great day

supersaverg

http://govillasandcottages.co.uk/special-offers

Loads of special offers here....have you considered a staycation?

They list both Uk & ABROAD, worth a look.

Maybe a free holiday and an article on their magazine if you play your cards right?

Hope you get away & good luck.

supersaverg

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Evil_Olive

Savvy - If you can manage to get together just a couple of hundred quid maybe you could do the registry office followed by meal/party thingy?.....
I wish you lots of luck and hope you are able to get wed soon

Supersaverg - Hmm - hire a holiday cottage with really nice garden for the ceremony venue - it's an idea, might be difficult to persuade them to hire it to me for just one day, at a weekend, in the busy season tho. On the other hand, judging from the prices charged by venues round here, it could still be cheaper even if we have to hire it for the whole weekend and it would serve as the wedding night hotel room as well. Off to look at local holiday lets now.....

savvy

Thanks Evil Olive - no matter how hard we try to save, something comes along and wipes us out again :rotfl::o This time it's keeping our home

How's it all going anyway?? Really excited to see if you come in on budget

krustylouise

Sorry if I'm totally wrong but I don't think you can have a ceremony in any random cottage garden, doesn't it have to be an approved venue and also doesn't it have to be indoors? x