Couples getting married on August 5, 2022 in Ontario

Hello Caterina,
We did a small wedding (assuming small is a grand total of about 56-60 people at the venue). Haha. We had 1 venue where we did the ceremony and reception. I personally find it cheaper, we rented it for an entire day for $2,500 which included kitchen (for our caterer to use), tables and chairs. For our caterer we had a 3-course seated dinner along with table linens, 2 rectangular table for wedding party, plates and utensils was approximately $3,000. Floral was small and only paid $137 or something along that line where we made the bouquets. Table centrepieces were DIYed. I understand the fact of not wanting to put a lot of money into wedding. We definitely had trouble with our guest list but we still kept it small and Covid helped with it too. So it all worked out.

How many people are you planning to have? What are your ideas that you WANT to have?

I’m doing a small reception at someone’s house! And usually churches are cheaper if you want a church wedding they include the musician and the minister and the venue. We are united church of Canada and it’s absolitely wonderful and good price. Keep your guest list small. Another idea is maybe just doing appitzers and dancing! Having a later reception. These are just some ideas I have

My fiance and I are only having 66 people at our wedding next year. We decided on only having immediate family members and very close friends who we see the most often (not including covid times) that way we keep our guest count low. We've decided not to give out favors and decided against a videographer since we have our photographer for 12 hours and two shooters. We're also having our wedding now on a Sunday after having to postpone twice because of covid. We're saving 2 grand for switching to a Sunday instead of a Saturday. Sometimes you gotta set yourself a number that you and your fiance and comfortable spending and not to go over that. Our biggest expense is our venue/ceremony and food/alcohol (which is provided/cooked at our venue) which be around $12k once the final bill is in. Other then that my fiance and I spent countless hours on google and researching tons and tons of vendors until we found the right fit and the right price.

Anyone who doesn’t bring me joy isn’t coming if we can’t agree on a guest the are automatically a no we also chose a venue that only holds 160 people
Max yo help in keeping things on the smaller
Side

Oh by the way we are one day apart from our wedding date!🤗😍 August 4 2022

Hi Caterina, maybe pick a non traditional day such as weekday instead of Saturday. I chose St. Elias banquet in ottawa I went from paying 80$ per person on a Saturday to $47 per person on a Thursday with a buffet style. However I don’t have open bar but I can have $20 per table for a bottle of wine. I only need to guarantee the venue 70 people. I tried to do my budget and now I’ll ended up with 15000. I planned to go with Costco flowers for centerpieces but maybe for my bridal bouquet I’ll order front the florist. I hope that helps 😁🤗

We are having an evening wedding so there will be no supper and we opted to have no cake, no limo, no save the date, however, there will be food stations and the venue said I could make my own deserts which is perfect because I bake! As for transportation, we have a family member's Palissade and we personally found that save the date is not necessary so these save us quite a bit of money.

Hi Caterina,
Have you checked out At the School House in Ottawa? It looks like a beautiful affordable venue for smaller weddings of up to 50 people. https://www.attheschoolhouse.ca/

View quoted message It's Calamus Winery. We signed our contract back in January 2020 (shortly before covid hit North America). So their prices might be higher now but likely still in that range. And if your someone who's easily overwhelmed (like me 🙋‍♀️) it's been so great having a venue that does most of the things for you. Our package price also includes an open bar.

View quoted message That is amazing! Can I ask what and where your venue is?

We're having just under 50 people. Originally it was hard to keep the guest list down but the more I let it percolate in my brain, the easier it was to cut people. Sounds harsh I guess but your intuition will tell you who's most important to you. We're having ours on a Sunday and it cut the cost in half. Our venue basically does everything (ceremony, food, dj, etc), and it's cost $10k for 50 people on a Sunday. Other things were doing to cut costs are DIY decor and minimal flowers.

I think if I have to postpone again we will more than likely do a microwedding rather than the full wedding. It is only a few hours and the cost is crazy cheaper than a full wedding plus it looks pretty and at the end of the day you are married. My venue has one they have been offering for around $3000 up to 50 people. It isn't open bar but they have wine, beer and non alcohol drinks. They serve crepes, fruit and some other appetizers. They do all the decorating, they provide officiant and photographer for that price. You only need license, your clothes, rings and flowers if you want. I think you get about 100 photos I'm sure you could probably work out more if you are willing to pay more. I've seen lots of the microweddings at wineries as well that look beautiful. Just a thought.

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A friend of mine got married in his condo party room. I think there was around 30 people at the party? He rented the rooftop patio for the ceremony and had a caterer provide hors d'oeuvres throughout the night. Even though they were bite sized foods, they came in enough frequency that it can fill like a meal for guests.

We are planning a 50-60 person wedding and our budget is around $7000. I am DIYing most of the decor. Our biggest expense we've come across so far was catering which is just under $2000. The hall for the reception only cost us $360 which includes tables and chairs!

Thanks, folks! I appreciate your insight and suggestions. I feel like I’m more-so wondering what small wedding non-traditional alternatives people are doing instead of having a big traditional wedding. I’m looking for some creative ideas

We were originally planning to have a 50 person guest list before covid, and that was going to run us about $20k. This was just family and our closest friends, no co-workers or acquaintances or anyone like that. In the end though we had a 14 person wedding since we didn't want to postpone a second time and it came out to about 1/3 of the original cost.
The ways that we decided to save money were by doing all our stationery ourselves, I got a dress from an online retailer, we had our ceremony/reception in my in-laws backyard, we bought planters and made them up ourselves so no money on florists and we had the natural beauty of the yard. We got an amazing deal on catering as my mother in law had the resources, and we used Spotify and a Bluetooth speaker for our music instead of hiring a DJ. We didn't bother with favours. But we did shell out for a photographer and a planner though which is where most of the money went, but we felt it was money well spent. Particularly for the photographer. In the end, it really depends how small is small and what you're willing to compromise on.

Not sure if this helps as the situation is not the same but when we had to limit our guestlist to 50 because of covid, thankfully many people made the choice for us, but we would ask ourselves, "would we have dinner with JUST ____", if it was a no, they were off the list. We also thought about if we think the person would still be in our lives in 5 or 10 years, or in some cases, if we didn't work with them. I agree there are other ways to save but food and alcohol certainly are the biggest (which often means the venue) - so your location is probably the biggest factor to look at! Places that don't need a lot of decor will help too. Restaurant venues often come out at a lower cost (depending of course). Our wedding ended up being half of the expected cost when we went from 120 to 50 and food and drink was really the only place that decrease came from. Florals actually cost us more 😆 and we still wanted the big cake 😍. Half was still ~21k though just for point of reference and we felt everything was very reasonably priced (specially talking venue). The wedding industry is certainly wild!

Even though a larger party will typically mean more spending in a traditional wedding, the guest list isn't the only thing that eats up your wedding budget. Depending on what you want or what you're willing to settle with, you can certainly stretch your budget even with a bigger guest if you're willing to make adjustments. But even weddings with just 50 people can easily surpass $30K in some areas. There are a lot of hard costs not associated with the guest count and while they're not as pricey as the multi-course reception meal and open bar, it does add up. For example, in some areas it'll cost you almost $10K just to get a good photographer, a DJ, and a florist regardless if you're hosting 20 or 200.

What kind of a party were you looking to have and how many people are you struggling to fit?