Frugal Wedding Venue?

[akratic]

I'd like to solicit ideas for how to do a wedding reception frugally. My fiance prefers not to elope. We plan to have just 70 guests, limiting the invites to immediate family and our closest friends. The main thing we want to avoid is choosing a traditional venue that locks us into expensive food and alcohol. Spending four figures is fine, but not five.

We're going to streamline most of the drama and bullshit that's traditionally involved in a wedding by eliminating the bridal party, the bridal shower, the flowers, and the gifts. My brother will be the officiant. The main parts we want to keep are the party with friends and family, the toasts, the food, the open bar, and the dancing. We take inspiration from this $2,000 reception, which we think got all the big things right. Our guests will be coming roughly 1/3 from Boston, 1/3 from New York, and 1/3 on airplanes.

Here's some things we're considering:
1) rent out a campsite or small B&B between Boston/New York. If it's a campsite then ideally one with private cabins with electricity for our guests. Here's an example, although that place is booked until 2017.
2) rent out a huge airbnb/vrbo. Here's an example that sleeps 70 on the North Carolina coast for ~$3k/night.
3) destination wedding: here's an 11 bedroom villa in the Dominican Republic for $500/night. With a destination wedding we'll lose some guests like our grandparents, but keep most of the guest list since we're only inviting close friends/family. That said, we want to avoid forcing others to fly.
4) have the reception at my "family compound" on coastal Maine. Between all my Aunts/Uncles we have four total 4BR+ houses bordering each other on the coast of Maine. They'd be happy hosts and initially this was my favorite option, but we're encountering some obstacles: a) it's a 6.5 hour drive from New York, b) the weather is only reliably good in July/August on the ocean, and my fiance's sister is due with her first baby on July 30th. The sister doesn't want to commit to anything in July because her baby might come early, and doesn't want to commit to anything in August because she's afraid to leave the house with a newborn. Anyway, we need to pick a date she can attend.

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How do I decide between these good but not perfect options?

What are your own ideas for a frugal wedding reception?

[workathome]

We just got married at our house, but it sounds like the options you outlined are going to largely be down to personal preference.

[steveo73]

We had a medium sized wedding and I regret it. It was relatively cheap and I think it would have cost say $12-$15k. I regret spending that money. If I had my time again I'd just have people to our house.

[henrik]

I've been to three weddings, including my brother's and best friend's, at places similar to your [1)] and enjoyed them. In two of those cases, the guests (~100 of them) also paid for their own accommodations, with the hosts probably having negotiated the rate down by a bulk discount for everyone.

[chenda]

http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/home ... e-all.html

[jennypenny]

I wish we'd had our reception at home, so that would be my first choice. The Myrtle Beach place looks nice. It would be busier because high season there starts in early May. Nice golfing though if that matters. The DR destination wedding sounds fun, but I wouldn't assume that almost everyone would come. I've missed a couple for close family members because we just couldn't make it work for various reasons. It happens. If you did it in May it would still be off season for places like Cape Cod, etc, so maybe you could get a deal? Same with Saratoga Springs (I don't think races start there until late July IIRC).

All that said, I still think it's nice to get married somewhere that means something to you. If your family's place in Maine is special to you, then I hope you find a way to make that work.

[C40]

Congratulations WOO HOOOOO!

[Ego]

This would be cool if you could trim the list to 49 people.
http://www.argiamystic.com/Argia_PrivateCharters.aspx

BYOB and BYOFood.

Congratulations!

[Chris]

I went to a frugal wedding reception in central MA. About 60 people. It was held in a barn that was converted for events, such as weddings. The bride and groom did the decorating themselves; groom even built all ten tables himself! He sold them to offset cost of the food truck they brought in to provide the catering. They invited guests to camp out around the barn. Pretty cool... probably the best reception I've been to.

[GandK]

+1 to Chris. Best/prettiest/probably least expensive wedding I've attended was also outdoors on a farm. Took place at sunset. Music was a single violin. Sparklers for light in the wedding photos made them amazing. Reception was less dancing and more toasts and catching up, and it took place around a campfire. Low key, very comfortable, everyone really enjoyed themselves.

I'd probably do Maine and aim for late June.

[vexed87]

My SO and I are getting married at our local chapel this year and then holding our ceremony at SO's father's place of work which is keeping our expenses down.

My best advice to you is to avoid any company that specialises in weddings, the reason being that an extra digit seems to get added to everything they do. Keep the reason for the occasion on a need to know basis for the best deals.

I tried to talk SO out of flowers, too many bridesmaids and the wedding cars etc, but her parents have insisted on keeping these elements. SO's kicking herself for not putting her foot down, but her parents are footing the bill for the stuff we initially refused, so that worked out ok.

[jay]

Golf clubs sometimes have reception rooms/banquet halls to rent that are pretty cheap. They usually have mic/speaker setups, as well. Good luck!

[KevinW]

Ideas from recent memory:

- borrow someone's house / backyard
- rent a building on a fairgrounds
- reserve a building at a public park

[Papers of Indenture]

We did:

Courthouse
Party at relatives house/yard.

Cost: $150

[Spartan_Warrior]

What did you end up deciding to do? We would like to do something outdoors and have been looking at farms and state parks. So far this:

"My best advice to you is to avoid any company that specialises in weddings, the reason being that an extra digit seems to get added to everything they do. Keep the reason for the occasion on a need to know basis for the best deals."

...seems like very good advice!

[vezkor]

My wife and I just got married in July and we had ourselves the most frugal wedding possible whilst accommodating ~170 guests.
Location: grandparent's property in rural Michigan. Cost for venue $0

Food: Catered by a close friend who runs a kitchen in his 9-5. Cost for food $1000
Her father covered the cost of the Beer for the night, and two uncles of mine brew wine in their own winery. cost for alcohol: 0

tip: feed them lots of potatoes and pasta. You'll go broke feeding your guests extra servings of meat. Also put the drinks in coolers full of ice instead of getting fancy (DJ picture below has a bit of a view of the drink table). For hot food I bought 4 chafing dishes on amazon and gifted them to my chef friend afterwards.

Minister: Another friend who got licensed online (lots of Catholic relatives were very confused when I told them about our venue.. ). Cost for officiant $0

Photographer: bwagner (from the watermark above) is my uncle. Cost for photos $0

Music: The D.J. on the far right of this picture is my father's uncle. Please note our super awesome DJ setup complete with lights. Cost for DJ/music $0

Outhouses: rented from a local place. 2 outhouses and a sink cost $250

Rentals: The tent(40'x80'), chairs, plates, cups, dinnerware, dancefloor (15'x15'), 48" fans, tuxedoes and napkins were all rented. No way around this for 170 people. Cost of rentals ~$2800

decorations+invitations: all done by my wife, my two amazing sisters and her two amazing sisters. TOTAL cost of decorations, invitations and thank-you's $400

miscellaneous expenses over the year-and-a-half leading up to the wedding that were undocumented or poorly documented: $500

All said and done, we had a budget of $5000 for the wedding and we came in under budget. We had a TON of help from family and friends (obviously) and we are extremely grateful for them. After we were done counting the gifts of cash and checks, we ended up with net earnings of over $2000. Family is by far the most important thing in my life, and my wife's life, and we are very fortunate to have such generous relatives.

Good luck with your frugal wedding! This is, was, and probably always will be one of the happiest days of my life

[Spartan_Warrior]

Vezkor, that's awesome! Congrats, and thanks for sharing the details.

[Dragline]

Yes, you done good. Congratulations!

[vezkor]

Thanks, guys! I also just realized that the thread was started in February, and akratic is probably married by now based on the initially suggested timeframe.

I'd love to see an update so we can know how it went!