I SAID I DO ON A BUDGET – WEDDING CEREMONY & VENUE

Once you have your budget in mind and an idea of how many guests you think you’ll have at your wedding, the first thing you’ll need to figure out is the location of the venue and ceremony.

First of all, decide what style of wedding you’d like to have. Are you more of an intimate style? In this case, you could simply have a small reception in a restaurant and the ceremony at the town hall. If you are more of the flamboyant style you can do it in a hotel reception hall or better yet, on a more interesting site.

Here are some examples in the Montreal/ Quebec region:

• State of the art Wood cabins of Lac Fiddler.
• Enchanting stay surrounded by the forest at Auberge du Lac Taureau.
• Keep the mosquitoes away in the Lavender fields of Bleu Lavande.
• The historic Crystal Palace in Picton, Ontario.  (I know it’s far from Montreal, but the Sand Banks are so close)
• The beautiful setting of Les Jardins de Métis with it’s ‘small’ mansion overlooking the Saint-Laurent.
• The elegant setting of Stonefields Estate.
• No need to go down South when you can go to L’Ile Navark.
• Live your fairytale at Manoir Rouville Campbell.

The choice of the location of the wedding ceremony and venue is extremely important depending on the type and style of wedding you wish to have.

If you are planning a wedding on a budget, save yourself extra costs by having your wedding ceremony and venue at the same location.

Rent a house for your ceremony and venue

We opted to rent a huge house where the majority of our guests could sleep. The reason being that I wanted to be able to enjoy the time with everyone. My family lives in France and some of my friends in the United States. In addition, we needed a place that allowed dogs, real size. Have you seen my dog? He takes up space!

The advantage of renting a house for your wedding ceremony and venue is that you can do as you please. You are not limited by schedules and you can bring your own food, your own caterer, and your own alcohol.

Read our article on food and alcohol for budget-friendly ideas.

The kids loved playing a game of hide-and-seek in the Manoir we had rented. I don’t think we forgot one, but I confess I didn’t check.

Another way of reducing the cost of a venue is to have the wedding on a Sunday or offseason. This is especially cost-efficient if you want to have your wedding during the summer. It can be convenient if your guests come from far away. Since they’ll be on vacation anyway, a Saturday or Sunday wedding won’t make much difference to them.

If you’re looking for something special, especially for a summer wedding, it’s best to book the venue a good 2 years in advance.

Our wedding venue: Le Manoir Sainte-Anne

Since our first plan had fallen through, a year before the wedding, we needed a Plan B. You can’t even imagine the stress! At that point, my choices were limited and far too expensive.

We fell under the spell of the Manoir Sainte-Anne in Sainte-Anne de Beaupré, 3 hours from Montreal. It was twice as long to get there than the other place from Montreal. Since half of our guests were coming from abroad, we could make the effort in driving 3 hours.

The Manoir can accommodate for sleep up to 80 people which was perfect for us. Our guests each paid for their own room which was cheaper than other hotel options we had seen. Not all the rooms were occupied, so it may have come back to cost us 1400$.

This is not as bad considering we did everything on-site and slept there. Therefore, there were no travel expenses or special car rentals. We didn’t have to book a hotel room for us to get ready in. Furthermore, there were enough dishes, tables, and chairs on-site to accommodate everyone.

Not far from the Manoir, there is an outdoor and indoor swimming pool where our young guests could go for a refreshing dip while the older guests slaved away for the wedding preparations. This is another reason why we picked this place. We wanted our guests to be able to enjoy themselves outside without costing them an arm and a leg to do so.

We were able to do the ceremony, cocktail, meal and some dancing outside in the garden before a big storm hit us.

Then, we danced on the terrace which was partly covered. I didn’t have a Plan B. If we had had to do everything inside, there would have been the space for it.

Another bonus in renting the Manoir: an elevator! Handy when your big dog is afraid of stairs or for grand-parents.

A wedding ceremony that is you

A wedding ceremony can cost you a couple hundred dollars whether it’s in a church or elsewhere. Some places where you’ll have your venue will charge you extra so that you can have your wedding ceremony there. Also, this does not include flowers, music, etc.

The advantage of renting a house for your wedding venue is that you can have your own wedding ceremony at no extra charge and to your liking.

However, make sure that there are enough chairs on-site to do so. Otherwise, you can rent benches, cushions, haystacks and reuse them afterward for the cocktail, the meal or the dancing part of the evening.

The small details

Lucky for us, there were lawn chairs we could use at the Manoir. I had spotted a retro red velvet couch in the house, so we put it in the backyard for the ceremony. A nice little touch.

We rented a little Arch from Le Coeur Bohême, that we forgot to move to the reception afterward. For the ceremony aisle, I bought metal planters from Ikéa that I now reuse in my yard or as trash cans.

You can also see if you can find pots in flea markets or collect buckets in maple groves. The flowers from the ceremony were later reused for the cocktail and the meal.

In order to create a little more privacy because of the road close to the ceremony site, we tried to install fabric panels. It was a total fiasco!

First of all, we received the fabric 3 days before the big day, so there was no time to sew.

Secondly, the fabric was not pre-cut, so we had to do it on the big day.

Finally, there was a lot of wind and we didn’t have enough logs to hold the fabric down.

In short, it was not the desired effect, but it was better than nothing. I still felt like I was getting married surrounded by clean laundry.

We replaced the rice throwing ( I didn’t want to waste food) by dried rose petals. We had brought them back from our trip to Rabat in Morocco that cost next to nothing.

Another alternative is to use bird seeds.

The wedding officiant

We asked one of our friends to officiate our wedding. It cost nothing. Did you know that in Canada, anyone who is a Canadian citizen 18 years and older can officiate a wedding at the most 3 times? This is a good way to save money and make the ceremony more memorable.

My brother and uncle each read a text personally written by them and our officiant cracked some jokes before the ceremony officially started.

Planning a wedding ceremony is one of the easiest things to do, or so I thought.  I had totally disregarded that aspect of the planning. However, it wasn’t half bad considering my lack of preparation. I did manage though to come out the wrong way as I was trying to avoid a big hole in the ground. Nouki got stage fright and didn’t do the only thing he was brought here to do: carry the rings!

Do you need more budget tips to save money on your Wedding planning?  Read our 13 Tips to save money on your wedding.