Cost of a celebrant, and advice for a low cost wedding please!

[Alatariel]

Hiya,
DP and i want to ger married. we arent even engaged, we would rather spend engagement ring money on a wedding! but money is tight and we are trying to work out when and how we can do it.
Can anyone tell me what a celebrant costs?
And any tips you have for a low cost wedding would be great. We want to get arried outside, and we have small families and not tht many friends so we would like to have aproper dinner for a reception, but again low budget!
any advice would be great!

[Lirael]

try http://directory.weddingcentral.com.au/sa/celebrants.htm

um, for your reception, maybe instead of giving gifts your guests could just pay for their main meal, you guys pay for(limited) alcohol and nibblies?? or is that way too cheap:o

[Kells]

Hi. Congrats on the decision to get married :smiliedance:

Our celebrant cost about $350, but that was 3 years ago, but that included payment for the registration of the marriage and all the official stuff like that.

Also, we had our reception at a 'bistro' in the pub!! They closed it off for us to use for the night, and once the decorations were on the table ($4 candlesticks from the cheap shop!) and they had set the cutlery/crockery/glasses etc, it looked really nice. It only cost us $18 a head for 2 courses, and we used our cake as dessert. :thumbsup: Much better pricing than the $50 plus you spend at reception centres. Our bar tab at the end of the night was $1100 - we had 89 people and the drinks were 'free' for 5 hours.

Good luck planning. Remember to enjoy the ride and only stress over the BIG things!!!

[cheezelkat]

Hiya,

We are hiring a hall for the night at $60 an hour. Its airconditioned, tables and chairs included and it even has a parents room. Its going to cost us about $300 for that. Contact your local council and see what they have.

Our catering is costing $900 or so for 60 people. Thats savouries, roast buffet, dessert, coffee and chocolates. and staff to serve.

We're doing our own decorations and will be buying fresh flowers from a flower wholesaler for decorating the reception hall. We'll be having the ceremony at DP's mums garden, but local parks are often free for use for weddings.

For the cake, I'm making it myself. I'm making a traditional fruit cake (small), then baking cupcakes for the guests to take home.

For the dress, check the clearance outlets of bridal stores, Lots of them have 75% or more taken off the price! Anothe roption is a preloved gown, which can also be a bargain.

Hope that helps!

Edit: quotes from celebrants range from 350 - 500 dollars.

[dani775]

Hi Alatariel,

Congradulations!

Me and my man r planning our wedding too set for january 2008! We want a cheap wedding and a long holiday for our honeymoon.

To cut costs for us we r having our ceremony on the beach/park reserve (if u do this though, check wif ur local council to book the park/reserve and pay about $60), and having our reception at a local restaurant (in which they r cooking us a big BBQ under a marquee for about $30per head).

My man's grandma is making my dream dress:D We have brought most of the supplies for it already which has so far come to just under $100. Her partner will be our photogropher (as a wedding present from him). I will be making our own invitations. Oh and today i just brought some cheap but gorgeous candles from the bargin store!

Hope that gave u some good ideas anyways! It will be saving us a lot of money! Goodluck!

[*Chels*]

Hi
My celebrant is like $400 I think?Thats including petrol money
My advice would be to find someone you get along with and can relate to-dont skimp on that!!Also I have a good but cheap photographer-do not skimp on that coz at the end of the day,you will have all the pics as a memory!!
Im going cheap on flowers and cake coz **** like that isnt important to me,whereas having good pics of the day is!!
Where are u in oz?
I think hiring a hall is good,but then u have to fork out alot for decorations!!PM me,let me know where u are-I could help!

[suemp]

we are lucky to have lots of parks around us and beaches which dont cost a thing to get married at you just have to book in with the local council. our friends want to do it on the cheap so they asked a local pub which too is on the water with a big balcony over the water. they said they would do it for nothing as long as guests bought their grog from the bar. they would supply platters of food for guests at about 80 bucks each but they were huge platters and our friends were told they'd only need 3 max for 50 guests. im with you . why spend a fortune, its only one day:cool:

[mum2bubba]

Grant and I aren't married yet but I really want a small wedding, I was thinking maybe only 20 of our closest friends and family (we'd rather use the money for our own home) and instead of hiring out a hall or restaraunt we are only going to book one table (somewhere where there is a band and dancing) we are hopefully only going to have one bridesmaid and one groomsmen each I will probably buy a cheap (but nice) dress off the rack, it doesn't even have to be a wedding dress. I don't want any cars etc and if we DO use cars we might get friends to drive us there and just get one of those ribbons. I'm not sure how much a celebrant is but I heard they are around $250 to $350 but what you save on some things you can spend more on others iykwim. Hope it all works out.

[Sholmes]

Hi there, we had a smallish beach wedding in 2005 on a beach at the Sunshine Coast with about 55 people.

celebrant $350
Surf club hire $350
Flowers $260
Cake $150
Beer on tab came to about $900
bought our own wine and champagne, about 6 or 7 cases not all drunk
Food were on platters, cocktail style and were about $40 a platter, one platter for about 4-6 people.
Other costs including dress, suit, rings, honeymoon - I can't remember and don't want to count it!
Handmade sweets as bomboniere $120

My folks contributed $5k and DH's parents paid for beer tab and all alcohol. We paid for our own honeymoon, rings, suit, half of my wedding dress cost.

Hope you have the wedding you want!! Good luck!

[Niki]

i just called up a celebrant today and its gonna cost $400 which includes all the paper work and things like that and two meetings prior to the wedding

goodluck with getting it all sorted

[bekkyboo]

We got married at the registry.

It was really nice, seated 50, aircon, etc - All under 200.

We had nibbles in the botanical gardens.... The everyone payed for own dinner at the restuarant.;

[Becteria]

We got married in Coffs harbour last month on my partners parents farm. It was such a perfect setting! So we saved on reception hall costs.

Celebrant $500 but money well sepnt she was amazing! She gave us a book she had written on how to write your own ceremony which was so useful... www.wendyhaynes.com (http://www.wendyhaynes.com)

Catering $1500 for 120 people including staff - my hubbys good mate is a local chef and did an amazing job of passed platters. HTings like spring rolls, sword fish skewers, sushi, lamb kofta, chicken wings, spinach and ricotta parcels etc. We had a huge grazing table beautifully decorated with two big hams that had been prepared and bbq'ed, rounds of cheese, salads, breads and fruit which everyone helped themselves to throughout the day.
Desert was delicious chocolate cake with white choc icing made by my mil. And cheesecakes by the chef!

GROG If we paid for this ourselves it would have broken our back because all our firends are **** heads. Instead that was our wedding gift from the inlaws, they stocked up for six months on good quality stuff. We planned cocktails but the weather ruined that and we ended up with a shooters bar , very messy!

DRESS My dress was so cheap its ridiculous i got it custom made in china from ebay for $150. Then my friend made me a little late bolero from collette dinnigan lace for $50. My shoes where sandals $70. Hopefully I will make a profit on the dress when I resell! Hee hee hee

FLOWER GIRL DRESSES Got them at Birkenhead point DJ's for $30 each, Their shoes from target.

Hair My cousin did my hair i did my own makeup

SUITS Boys wore their own suits

PHOTOS No photographer, everyone took photos and have burnt us discs or emailed them plus we did hte disposable thing.

FLOWERs $150 I bought them from a local florist and we made the bouquets our selves and hte button holes. We bought potted colour for the tables.

RINGS $300 Again ebay and i love my ring it has .5 carat of diamond in five stones set in white gold, partners is white gold also Got them valued at over $4k combined!

INVITES Designed them ourselves and got a printer to do for $100

MUSIC Free loaded up our Ipod with fave songs and everyone had a ball!

GIFTS We had beer coolers made they are so cool everyone loved them $350 well spent.

All up we spent $7k mum gave us $1500 and dad gave us $1000. So under 5k from our pockets.

Things that cost are the little extras - becasue we had guests up from syd we arranged transport for them ($500) and the place i stayed the night before to get away from the farm was $500 also. The bridal party gifts were $350. Thats coz we had 8 people!