Rae, I just want to offer my sympathy. Weddings should be fun to plan, not make your life harder. I hope you manage to have the day you want and deserve.

Here in Alaska anyone can be a justice of the peace for a day and lots of weddings are performed in people's houses, yards, or mountaintops. I did the wedding ceremony for my best friend on a frozen lake - we skied out to the middle and stood there freezing with just two witnesses. Cheapest wedding EVER. (Of course, we had a huge party afterward!)

Oh hun I'm SO SO sorry of your experiences - that is AWFUL.
I'm literally typing and running but we renewed our vows at xmas and I was doing it on a shoe string. We had no money and I made the bits and we found a 5 star hotel who rented us out a conference room - it was all amazing.
We were meant to be having the ceremony in a church and then the night before my son was really ill so we had to cancel so we brought the ceremony to him - collected the decorations from the church - lit the room with candles etc it was magical - then did the 2nd half a week later. The whole thing cost us almost nothing. We didn't invite anyone so that was easy but it all worked out well. All my decorations were things like twigs from the woods near us etc. I kept emailing hotels, restaurants etc about private dining rooms and the prices varied between 150 - 2000 for EXACTLY the same thing!!! We went for the 150 pounds and it was INCREDIBLE!!!! and they treated us like stars and even bought us a bouquet of exotic flowers worth about 100 pounds to congratulate us!!! I revamped up my old dress but I would have bought off ebay if not xxx

I'm of the opinion that it's not the wedding but the marriage that counts. I would have married Ben in a bin bag in a carpark so long as we were married by the end of the day. Mine and Ben's family plus some close friends all travelled to vegas from the UK for less than half the price of the average Britiah wedding. You will get the day you and your hubby to be wish for and you will be so happy you did not compromise along the way.

Hey Rae- I also did a small wedding too. We had 25 people total- so a little larger than yours. We found a restaurant that was really cool. It was an old train station that had been renovated. It was fun and different- and CHEAP!

If you keep running into wedding fees- maybe try a different approach. Tell them you are renewing your vows with your parents. Maybe that would avoid fee police if you get caught in a park or something? I don't think most reasonable people would hassle 6 folks in a park. The fees are designed for the hassle associated with 100 people tramping through.

Best of luck and congratulations!

I'm not married but I wanted to chime in and say that there are LOTS of blogs out there about getting married for cheap. The first that comes to mind is http://2000dollarwedding.com/, and there's some cheap-ish wedding stuff here http://www.younghouselove.com/wedding-album/.

Rae... if you are in LA.. There is this "bridal street" on Las Tunas in Arcadia. The section is full of shops for wedding related stuff. There is a huge wedding dress shop (I think was 2000 dreams or something), you can try on. They even allow you to RENT a wedding dress, and may even tailor it as well. They cater to chinese community around there, so lots of petite options as well.

Oh, to commiserate with you, my friend who is getting married next month, says the same as you do. what a scam! Any place for a meeting would cost for $100, as soon as they hear the word "wedding", another 0 gets added...

Wow, I am really grateful for all of your experience and suggestions! And I am so happy to see that so many of you were able to hold fabulous weddings within a realistic budget. I am taking so many notes!

Rae: I have nothing to add to this engrossing thread but to wish you all that's wonderful in the years ahead. In the end, it is your commitment to one another - everything else is just trappings.

Very best wishes, and a wedding ((hug)).

I also found this to be very frustrating. The book Bridal Bargains was pretty good. I had two weddings (different continents) and two dresses. One was a cream cocktail dress from Macy's (ordered on the internet), kind of 60s style. Actually my aunt told me it looked just like her wedding dress. The second one was mail-order J. Crew fitted by my trusty local dry cleaner lady.