It only costs $239.00 to get married.
I squawk you not.
To get hitched (legally) you generally only need to pay for a marriage license and the services of a marriage commissioner. In British Columbia, Canada, a marriage license plus commissioner cost just $239.00.
That’s it.
Everything else is just pomp and circumstance.
Did you hear me?
The flowers, the dress, the guests, the food, the bubble machine, and the horse drawn carriage won’t do a thing to get you hitched. Sorry to burst your wedded blissdom bubble, but it’s true. Getting married is pretty cheap. It’s all the other $hit the wedding industry sells that’ll cost ya.
Did you hear me?
The wedding industry — a massive money machine looking to part you from your cash by tying emotional strings around every purchase — will pitch wedding products you don’t actually need to tie the knot. Family and friends may also stick their noses into your wedding plans, and do their bit to inflate the cost, intentionally or not.
I should know. I just got married (to Carl). And I (well, we) managed to get hitched without a whole lotta hoopla, cost, and emotional downtime.
How did we do it?
We started with the premise that it only costs $239.00 to get married — everything else is extra. Yes, we threw in a bit of pomp and circumstance for fun. Here’s where we spent the biggest bucks, cut the biggest costs, and got hitched for hundreds, not thousands, of dollars.
1. The Wedding Attire.
Some women go wonky over the wedding dress. I don’t get it. But the number of reality TV programs documenting brides who scour the Earth in search of the ‘perfect wedding dress’ shows there is a market for white dress insanity. It’s JUST a white dress, people. Get over it.
My take? Skip the insanity, bridal stores, and fancy shops — there’s no such thing as perfect. Get real with your budget and check out the HUGE underground market of used wedding gowns online — perfect for those with the sense to save some big bucks.
Since many brides are desperate to sell their ‘worn only once’ wedding gowns to recoup some of the cost, it’s possible to score a designer gown for cheap. Sites like PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com, RecycledBride.com, and eBay.com boast bargain dresses in all sizes for all bust lines.
I bought my used Nicole Miller wedding dress for $100 on eBay (price included shipping and dry cleaning). Retail price for this 100% silk, fully lined, ivory dress is around $750 new. Silly.
What about tuxes, cummerbunds, and bow ties? Nope. Carl wore the one suit that’s been hanging in his closet for the last ten years. I’m not adding his suit cost to our wedding tab since it’s reused, and I’ve long lost the receipt.
Carl did buy a teal silk tie though for $50.40. He needed the tie, badly.
And that funky handmade silk flower on my head? That’s a fascinator. For $31.32 I stuck a fun hat on my noggin, covered a thinning hair spot (hair loss happens), and saved a bundle of bucks by opting out of the expensive veil action. Later in the day I wore a little teal bolero jacket that cost $10 on sale.
We wore the shoes sitting in our closets. Both the bride and groom wore Fluevogs, of course. 
Bottom Line: By reusing our clothing and buying a second hand dress, we managed to spend just $191.72 on our wedding attire.
2. Cut the guest list. Be ruthless.
Nothing inflates your wedding costs more than guests. The venue, food, and decorations all need to grow bigger to accommodate a larger audience. Inviting more people also spawns the strange phenomenon of growing the size (and cost) of ‘The Wedding Dress’ — apparently, a big audience and venue require a bigger, showier gown.
Few couples can downsize a wedding guest list without worry and heartache. I hear ya. But we (Carl and I) did it without batting an eyelash. We had two simple rules for building our wedding guest list. You probably won’t like them.
Wedding Guest List Rules:
- Guests must be local.
- Guests must have invited us for dinner over the last year.
Do you hate me? Are we arguing?
The rationale for these rules is simple. Carl and I wanted a simple, afternoon wedding on the family farm. Inviting out-of-town guests meant we couldn’t fit everyone together at the kitchen table.
Also, inviting out-of-town guests requires accommodations, travel, and time. Your out-of-towners will likely have to take time off work and spend some cash to get to your nuptials. An inflated out-of-town guest list also spawns the strange phenomenon of growing the size (and cost) of your wedding — apparently, you may feel obligated to give your distant guests a bigger, showier wedding.
The second rule is fun, ’cause really, why would you invite someone to your wedding dinner if you haven’t dined with them over the course of a year?
Download my Free Wedding Budget Planner Spreadsheet — it’s an all-in-one guest list worksheet and budgeting tool.
Bottom Line: We invited four friends and four family members to our wedding. Everyone was local and had invited us over for a nosh in the previous 12 months.
3. Say ‘I Do’ with Digital Invitations.
We didn’t hire a printer, pay for acid-free paper, or write an elaborate scripty message using romantic tear-based ink. Formal invitations and postage can be pretty darn expensive, and it’s not really my style. I mean, who wants to spend the time, effort, and cost to write, proof, and edit freaking wedding invitations? I don’t.
So I invited the guests to our wedding on Facebook.
Bottom Line: A digital invitation is free on Facebook. Responses can be immediate. Just be sure invitees don’t forward the invite to everyone on the planet.
4. Get hitched at home.
Venues can cost big cash. Time of year, location, and room size absolutely play a role in price too. Plus, you may need to rent tables, chairs, linens, china, and other stuff.
I wanted to get married in front of the family barn.
Our barn is a great back-drop for photos, a warm place for a gathering, and a happy spot where I normally hang out with family and friends. Besides, getting hitched at home is free.
Bottom Line: By hosting the nuptials in our backyard we spent zero bucks on the venue. We also used our everyday tables, chairs, table cloths, and china to save money.
5. Skip the florist.
I bought all my flowers at Costco. A mixed bouquet of seasonal flowers costs between $9.99 and $15.99 at my favorite club store, so I picked up four bunches to arrange my own fall wedding centerpieces.
But that’s not all. I snipped a sunflower from one arrangement and fashioned myself a homemade bridal bouquet.
Finish the stem with a little ribbon and a clear hair elastic and you’ve got a flower bouquet that costs pennies.
Just be sure to make the bouquet the night before your wedding. Refrigerate the bouquet in water over night. The milk is optional.
Bottom Line: We shopped and Costco and spent just $51.96 on four mixed bouquets of fresh seasonal flowers. This cost includes my bridal bouquet.
But wait, there’s more! Check out Part Two: How to get married for $239.00 for the final wedding tab.
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Your Two Cents:
Nice work.
I don’t like the “local” rule though. It’s not fair to close relatives/friends who happen to live in a different city.
When/if my kids get married, I (assuming I’m still around) want to be there. I don’t care if it’s a casual ceremony on a front lawn or at the top of Mt. Everest – I want to be there.
Kerry, I love this.
Sorry to be random, but you are first Canadian I know who doesn’t have milk in a bag.
Well done
It really doesn’t have to be something that puts you into debt, does it? I know a gal who spent $80K on her wedding and ended up getting an annulment a couple of months afterward. Simply INSANE!
@Mike
@Emily I grew up in Ontario where milk in a bag is common. I’ve never seen bagged milk in British Columbia.
@Tanya 80K? Insane. That’s a down payment on a house.
Well, if all you paid for was a marriage license and a minister, you got ripped off.
My marriage license was $80. My priest was free because I go to church.
My white dress was perfect and it is a big deal to 99.99% of women because the sacrament of matrimony is the biggest day of your life.
Excellent. Not that I ever intend to get married, of course, but you seem to have trimmed it down to what matters. I’ve seen too many weddings that were a colossal waste of money. At least half of which ended in divorce anyway.
I agree with Mike – everything is a great idea but the ‘local’ rule. Neither my nor my boyfriend’s families live in our city… or anywhere close to our city. It seems a bit harsh to exclude my mother and father because they live in another province =)
Fluevogs and vows in front of a log cabin? I didn’t know you were a British Columbian before but one look at the photos and I knew…
Congratulations, Kerry! Your wedding looks like it was very you – frugal, honest, cute, creative and sassy.
For the other readers who are taking your advice and planning an inexpensive wedding, here are two more fantastic resources:
-http://apracticalwedding.com/
-http://2000dollarwedding.com/
I’m not affiliated with either site; I’m just an appreciative married lady.
Wow, good for you seriously… this is hard to accomplish and stand your ground. In the end, it’s the marriage that counts and being surrounded by the people who love you.
We got a lot of gifts/help that really helped our budget – my aunt does flowers so she did ours as a gift, my uncle bottles wine for fun, so he made it for our wedding, my mom and mil are great sewers, so they sewed the girls’ dresses (less than $30/each), I’m crafty so I did the invitations for 0.33/each (without stamp) and had a party where my friends helped me put them all together, my sister helped with the decor. I did a lot of research and got things at a rock bottom price.
All in all, it’s your day – you can spend $230 or you can spend $80K and have everyone you have ever known there. It’s up to you!
Love your flowers and your shoes.
Best wedding invite ever. Period.
Kerry~ you are a breath of fresh air! I love all of it! (however, my family is a big deal to me and I would want them there… and with that said- if they couldn’t make it, I totally understand as a typical wedding costs the guest up to $1000.00 just to attend. I wouldn’t hold it against them.) Thanks for you frugal tips!
Amazing! Yes, it doesn’t have to break the bank. My son got married at City Hall. The bride had a $50 dress, he wore his one and only suit, she carried a few gerberas, a friend made them a cake, another friend took the photos. They told no-one about this except for the half dozen people who attended and helped them out. We found out a couple of weeks later. Not only did they save money, they also saved everyone from a whole bunch of stressing out.
Love it! We spent $10k on our wedding, but it was 15 years ago before I started reading Squawkfox and the like.
A lot of my friends have gotten married recently and have done it your way. I’ve been invited to some and not others (be ruthless on your guest list!)
One of my oldest friends (I’ve known her 19 years) married her boyfriend of 11 years by eloping to Hawaii. So yeah, not terribly cheap, but it was just them and their 4 best friends and the groom wore pants and an Hawaiian shirt. Way cheaper than a big old party.
I love it! You didn’t do “elaborate on a budget”, you did a wedding on a budget. And coming from someone who bought her wedding dressing at a big box store (it wasn’t even a wedding dress), who wore shoes from her closet, had her friends fix her hair and a local restaurant do the “catering” (read: we all went out to eat afterward), I think I probably spent no more than $300 total (and that includes the honeymoon – weekend getaway at the beach, less than an hour away). And for the naysayers who say you need all the pomp and circumstance in order to be happy – my husband and I have been together for 14 years. The nuptials are all that matter in my opinion.
I love this! You look great, and more importantly, happy! I have been with my boyfriend for almost 7 years and we are getting a lot of pressure from some family and friends to get hitched and throw a big wedding. When I complain about the ridiculous cost they throw out the “it’s the most important day of your life” BS. It is nice to see someone taking a sane approach to what is a special moment for a couple. It’s about love and happiness, not showing off for others. I can’t wait for part 2!
Kerry, you are AWESOME. If more people had your common sense, this would be a much better world. I am constantly looking for ways to be more minimalist, and just when I think I’ve found them all, you show me another! The invite was great. Love your sense of humor. Oh, and 80k? for me that’s no down payment, that’s more than my entire mortgage!
But why spend only $239 when you could spend $30,000? The amount equivalent to the downpayment on your first house. Or a yearlong honeymoon travelling around the world. Or two really fantastic lightly used cars.
My contribution…When we got married, my wife carried a bouquet down the aisle, which was a head of broccoli, with a few flowers added. Few of the guests, heck even the groom, barely noticed that she spent closer to $3.00 on flowers. Also this makes for a good story afterwards.
Spend the money on important things, the ones you like and will remember.
fabulous. thrift shopped my wedding dress (and then recycled it to another thrift shop afterwards) for $25. City hall wedding was some ridiculously cheap amount like $50 (all included). Lunch with immediate family was parents’ treat (probably came to about $400 for the family total, and then party in a friend’s backyard. We picked up baguettes and flowers at safeway on the morning of, and had picked up fruits and veggies the day before. Friend’s wedding present to us was taking photos. Another friend made a bouquet. Witnesses wore their own clothes. husband wore his own suit.
And here we are, still together, 16 years later. It’s not a fancy dress that makes a day special; it’s making a public commitment to one another. And that doesn’t need a church or a white dress or 40K.
Beautiful– well done! My wife and I have been married for 19 years. We managed to keep the cost for our wedding under about $2000 with about 100 guests. Great memories and no long-term debt following us after the wedding. And the dress was also purchased second hand. Great lesson for your readers!
interesting take on a deeply personal (and often controversial) decision, great to see a refreshing take on it. i find wedding blogs often overwhelming in the amount of time, energy, and money they expect and encourage people not to mention how hypergendered they are, and the assumption that the bride takes on the vast majority of the planning.
personally, my partner and i got married this past summer for a little over four thousand dollars. the main expense, of course, was housing and hosting our guests who came from out of town. but the thing is, part of the reason we decided to have a wedding in the first place was because most of our friends and even our fathers had never met, even though we were together for four years. it was such a central part of our wedding that the four friends and four family members simply would not have worked for us. our families live a 9 hour drive apart, and we even had friends fly in from as far west as kelowna, b.c. and as far east as addis, ethiopia to join us for our celebration. it’s part of what made the day so incredibly special. we rented out a motel for all of our guests, and the location doubled as our wedding site. even so, the cost was more than reasonable – $1,700 for the weekend, to house fifty guests.
but we cut corners where it didn’t really matter – for example, no flowers, no deejay, etc. we got married in august outdoors so it just wasn’t really necessary. friends picked wild flowers from around the island and made me the most beautiful bouquet… all for free. our musician friends played beautiful songs for us.
sorry to ramble on like this! i just wanted to say it’s great to see how people can personalize their celebration to suit their needs and their budgets.
I don’t know how I found your blog/article, but this is the most common sense and level-headed approach I’ve seen for a wedding. I like it!!
you’re a lucky man, Carl ‘cuz they don’t make them like that anymore.
Congrats on having the wedding you wanted. I think that’s the most important thing, whether it costs $200 or $20,000. It’s your special day and you can choose to spend a little or alot.
Thanks for sharing your wedding experience! I’d hoped my fiance would just want to elope and tell everyone after the fact, but your article gives me reassurance that I can have something small and private – that won’t break the bank!
I agree with the others that I would have used different rules for inviting wedding guests. (There are people in my life that I am very close to who neither live locally or have invited me for dinner in the last year. Or ever. Entertaining just isn’t their thing.)
But I think the moral of this story is that you had rules at all. By all means, create your own guidelines for guests, but make sure you have them. Because as you pointed out, the number of guests affects costs in all kinds of areas.
Great post!
Kerry,
I applaud you because mynhusban and I didthe same thing. We held the wedding in our own backyard and invited friends and family in town which totaled about 20 including my husband and our daughter. My dress, I paid $80 because I don’t have any dresses, it was a white summer dress with a little black bolero jacket, it was that expensive only because I’m a big gal. For food we had cubed cheese, rolled deli meats, cut up fruit, cookies, veggies and dip. We got out cake for $40 at the Safeway I work at. My husband wore a dress shirt, pants and a tie that he always has owned. My bouquet was a little bundle of multi colored mini carnations and a little sprig in my hair. So in total we spent about $400 on our wedding and it was perfect <3
Yay, you two! Congratulations and happily ever after!
We got married in the Oak Bay Rose Garden at Windsor Park here in Victoria in July of 1983. The roses were in full bloom and gorgeous! I bought a white Mexican cotton wedding dress on sale for $50(which has since been used by a dear friend who had even less money than we did)and my husband had his one suit. Our Marriage Commissioner was a very sweet man who had us facing the ‘audience’ over a sundial. Afterwards we went to my mum’s house and had the best potluck ever! Everyone tried to outdo everyone else so the food was sublime. It was SO much fun. Our plans were to head to Botswana as volunteer teachers (sponsored by WUSC) within 6 months so we carefully and politely as we could asked for money, not gifts. We ended up being away for 3 years…what a honeymoon.
Thrifty, but so much fun.
Congrats on a frugal but fabulous wedding! For a great selection of pre-owned and used wedding dresses in Canada, check out SmartBrideBoutique.com.
Wow! Great post…thanks for the tips…love the added photos… I will definitely do this. What is crazy to me are the really expensive rings the couple buys (who then can’t pay for a house)…no wonder!!
If I ever marry, I can cut wedding costs by having a clergyman perform the ceremony. My Dad and his four brothers are all ordained ministers, as well as 3 of my cousins. Any of them would be happy to do the ceremony for free as a wedding present.
Dear Kerry,
You two are a beautiful couple!
If I ever get married again, that would be my dream wedding!!
Great post! My SO and I talk about how keep people from feeling obligated to give gifts without being rude or making it sound as though we just mean we want cash. Was your “NO GIFTS” request effective?
Good for you 2 and congrats! We got married 3 years ago and we paid cash. We had our service at a Heritage Listed house and gardens for $500.
Then of course you have to pay for marriage licence and in Australia the couple must do pre-marriage counselling. Probably to better prepare couples.
It went pear shapped for us because I was hoping for a nice family and friends wedding but my husbands family has major ‘issues’ shall we say.
In the end we were out of pocket over $5,ooo cash.
We ended up with only siblings, parents and witness’ due to the dramas.
My take on the whole thing was if I knew all this before hand I would have taken my money and eloped on the honeymoon instead.
So great idea your way keep it simple and enjoy the day debt free, minimum to pay.
I think a wedding like that is fabulous! Maybe I’m a buzzkill but the whole show of a wedding is mighty silly. What you did Kerry is real and touching. And for those who feel it’s not “fair” to not invite relatives or friends who live out of town (parents and siblings excluded) don’t kid yourself. No one wants to drive/fly/train 5 hours to your wedding, buy you gifts you will probably return or regift, take off of work, and buy new clothes. And I think the dinner rule is great.
The exception I would make to the in town rule are my parents and my best friend. Unfortunately my friends and family are so spread out throughout the midwest of the U.S.A. that getting very many together would be a huge expense. There must be over a hundred people in my extended family now on my father’s side. My BFL lives in Ohio and is thinking of moving further east.
This is blog is two years too late for me. Considering that the precedent set for us was elope or go all out, I think my husband and I did pretty well.
We found bargains for:
venues – 2 fun locations, so no regrets
dresses – bridesmaid dresses can also be worn to parties; I donated mine
suits – comfortable, breathable attire that could double as business clothes for the men
and we had a dry wedding. Neither of us drink, and we didn’t feel like babysitting.
However, I wish I’d had a precedent to go smaller and even simpler. We’d have received indignant sniffs from THOSE relatives (we all have them), but the rest of us would still have had a great time.
I’d also like to add that we fed our bouquets to my guinea pigs, so it was a good day for everyone!
Dear Kerry:
I feel vindicated! My wedding dress was made by my mother: a floral print on a black background wouldn’t be the thing for everyone, but it worked for me, and I got to wear it on several other occasions. The bride wore black was a movie title way back when…My husband wore a new pair of tweedy pants with a V neck wool sweater and an open collar shirt. This made his mother cried: “Oh, no! no necktie!” But then, my spouse never wore a tie and didn’t care for one (now did I). I borrowed my sister’s shoes. I did my hair. We didn’t care for rings so didn’t get any. Louis is the youngest of a family of 10 kids, so we invited only those living in Montreal, by phone, about one week ahead of the wedding. My father insisted that the wedding party of 11 would eat in a restaurant: we chose a vegetarian restaurant, economic because there is no meat served. (OK, my father almost had a heart attack over it but he recovered). It was winter in MOntreal: I didn’t even think of flowers. The reception: I cook a salmon for friends and served it in my brother’s apartment with a poppy seed homemade cake for dessert. I still make this cake occasionally for our great enjoyment.
All in all, I don’t remember how much it cost, but it was minimal, absolute minimal (I had just finished my last undergrad exam 3 days before). That was on December 27, 1977. It’s been 34 years of bliss (and a few fights) since. Proof that an expensive wedding doesn’t buy happiness, but a cheap one might just do it.