Ahhh.....the "joys" of planning a wedding!! In regards to inviting or not inviting certain people, I wish you a LOT of luck in that department!! I don't envy you! What happens when mom also says Aunt Jenny just HAS to be invited as well. And if we invite Aunt Jenny, we CAN'T forget Aunt Flo!!

Yes, absolutely.

Many good suggestions here. Especially like the one Go Travel had about a morning/daytime event.

We did it once. One of my daughter-in-laws parents had a wedding for their daughter/my son in a barn. It was more than 12 years old now and people are still talking about how much fun that wedding was.

You are just having family and much smaller so you can definitely (by thinking original /outside of the box)have a marvelous wedding for that sum.

These posters have given you some wonderful ideas. And so unique, and romantic- as well.

Around Boston you must have many old churches. We have a very small historical district in our little town which includes a church dating back to the early 1800's. It's very small and quaint(ofcourse!) but the historical society which manages the park makes it available for weddings for a nominal fee. I think it would be a beautiful place for a small intimate wedding.

Relatives that had a small destination wedding rented a house (suggested by the wedding planner). They all stayed there and had the wedding and reception in the yard overlooking the ocean. They liked how it worked out so well they recommend it.

One price for two needs.

In regards to a morning wedding, just keep in mind what time you'll have to get going in the morning. Our ceremony was at 12:30, which meant arriving early for photos (as to not have to do the formal photos when guests were there..), leaving enough time to get the dress on (which can take awhile), getting hair and make-up done, etc, etc. So for a 12:30 ceremony I ended up having to get up around 5 or 5:30 (there was moderate driving to be done as well). Also - if you plan on having your hair and/or makeup done at a salon keep in mind that many of them don't open as early as you might need for an early wedding and they will charge a fee to open up early.
I think a day time wedding is great and it saves money too.

The price tag can also be reduced by choosing a season other than summer to get married. As an example, September on the Cape is lovely and the rental house prices drop dramatically after Labor Day, and there's more availability. Some of the properties specifically cater to larger parties (family reunions, weddings, etc) and may have good setup for a small wedding.

We had a destination wedding with 4 guests (paid for airfare and lodging for 1 guest only) in Scotland and then had a restaurant reception in Boston's North End for 50 people, with a price tag (not counting honeymoon expenses) about what you have in mind. The GBP/USD exchange rate was not as brutal in 2002, but even so I found the prices for site rental, photography, videography, flowers and cake significantly less that what I would have spent in Boston area. I wanted to elope to begin with (or continue to live in sin), but between my romantically inclined fiance and emotional blackmail from parental units, I ended up doing what I love (travel) and calling it a wedding ;) Allegedly it was a very memorable event (reported by my mother, so it's not an unbiased source).

Dress - Filene's Basement in downton Boston has this famous bridal gown sale once a year, but I think it may have already taken place this year. I can't stand the insane crowds so didn't go that route - bought a gorgeous antique ivory beaded gown from a regular store ($200 on sale) and lent one of my designer gowns (TJMaxx) to my sister for a bridesmaid's dress. It was black so that should tell you how traditional I am ;)

Certainly a wedding can be had for less than five grand. My wife and I entertained 100 guests in rural Ohio for less than two grand for food and DJ. As my late mother-in-law was an expert seamstress, the wedding gown was free.

You can do it, although I think paying full travel expenses for 4 people is a stretch. You should definitely try to get those costs down as much as possible.

Next will be location. Destination or fairly local? There may be good packages for that many people for a destination wedding. If local, you can have people stay in a rental apartment or house to save costs. You could rent a house on the Cape and do a simple ceremony out back.

As for reception, you could have a small catered affair at the ceremony site, or get a room at a local nice restaurant. Don't tell them it's for a wedding, and it'll keep the prices lower. You should be able to do this for under $100 a head.

As for dresses, besides J.Crew's new line (catalog/internet only) BridePower.com is based out of Boston. They have a lot of designer gowns at great prices.

A church ceremony should be pretty inexpensive. A civil will be even cheaper, but then you'll have to have a ceremony site.

Flowers and photography can add up, so be sure to look around for the best deals you can find. Flowers that are in season (or use a well-decorated ceremony site, so you don't need to add that much in the way of flowers). Use a talented assistant to the head photographer.

Have a wedding off-season and off-time (Sunday? Thursday?).

We got married by a JOP on the balcony of a nice hotel, so the "ceremony" fee was just the room rental.

There are many options for 10-12 people.

My SIL got married a few years back in her own backyard - she already owned a home by the time she found the guy for it. If your parents have a nice yard, you could rent a tent, have an early afternoon in-the-yard ceremony, then have catered hot and cold hors'dourves.
We went to a few weddings around that time and this one stands out for having been simple yet elegant. You wouldn't need to rent many tables for your small number of attendees, and the caterer could also provide a bartender. If you plan for late summer, you have the whole summer to get some beautiful flowers growing!

My own wedding was held in a church, and the reception was in our new apartment, family only that day. My wedding dress was a left-over white prom dress, $29, quite perfect. Hubby had a new Sy Sims suit. My family hung out in the kitchen, his in the living room. We had booze and coldcuts. The next day we had a keg and invited our friends. That was almost 29 years ago! We have very few pictures but lots of good memories!

Back when I was planning my wedding, I was active on the Ivillage wedding message boards. Go to love.ivillage.com/messageboards and scroll down to 2005 Weddings and 2006 Weddings. Keeping the wedding small and under budget was a big topic of conversation, and the women on there will have a lot of good ideas. It is also a good place to exchange ideas and commiserate with people who are planning their weddings. :)

As someone else mentioned, theknot.com is another excellent resource for wedding planning. Their message boards are at weddings.theknot.com/talk/talk.aspx

Congratulations!! Best of luck with the planning.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for wonderful suggestions! I wish I had asked this question last year when a friend of mine was planning for her wedding. She wanted to keep the cost down, but didn't really know how, so ended up spending a lot of money.

I saw an interesting article today on CNN about the high cost of saying "I do".
http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/27/pf/b...0505/index.htm

starrsville, that house in Truro looks so pretty! I like the idea of renting a B&B or inn near water for the whole group.

Yes, I'm going to avoid the summer tourist season to keep the cost down. The morning wedding ideas are great, too.

Connie, what was the location of your relative's destination wedding? Like kasperdoggie, I too love traveling (I guess so does everyone else on this board!) and would like to have a destination wedding, especially since all of the guests will be traveling. Just not sure if it will complicate things in terms of planning. I'll leave my options open for now.

allisonm, "simple" and "elegant" are two of my favorite words, and that's the way I want my wedding to be! I'll sit down with my fiance soon and go over all the options and run some numbers and make a decision (although we've pretty much happily agreed that I'm in charge of the wedding planning.) :)

THANK YOU ALL!!

Enough about the wedding plans! Let's tak about paying for some guests' travel expenses. I see a bombshell in that one.

First, you say you're going to pay because you know they're in dire financial straits. How do you know that all the other guests aren't having similar problems? Looks can be deceiving.

Plus, imagine how others who pay full freight will feel if they find out you paid the expenses for other guests and not for them. You could be creating a problem for yourself that will last long after the wedding's over.

My relative's wedding was in Hawaii but I didn't mention it because that doesn't jive with low cost!!

The same could be done anywhere, whether on a beach or in any other beautiful setting.

They dressed there and didn't have to drive anywhere. Afterward, they had a buffet lunch there. So there was no renting extra lodging, venues, banquet facilities, limos, etc. Everything was in one place. Most of all, they enjoyed all staying together for a few days. Everyone was relaxed and had a great time.

I forgot to mention, the least expensive wedding I ever attended was a couple who got married at City Hall, and then all of us (about 6) went for lunch at a restaurant in Little Italy. We all split the bill.

I got married on a Sunday. I don't know if this helped with costs, but it was easier to get my date because everyone wants to get married on a Saturday.

At one point when we were getting frustrated with trying to find a venue, we almost got married out in Vegas, but not at a wedding chapel - we wanted to get married in Red Rock Canyon. It is beautiful out there, if you like the outdoors. I found a few companies that would provide a limo, officiant, and photographer (and perhaps more, I forget) for $500. This was a couple of years ago, though. Red Rock is only about 20 miles outside of Vegas, so your guests could stay there for cheap and just drive out to the site. Just a thought.

I like the house-renting idea if you are young enough or have the energy for that degree of do-it-yourself-ness.

The destination idea is nice but it does become expensive for guests, if not for you.

The people who need to be looked after financially - between you and your fiance are you sure you can't come up with friends who'll put them up for a night or two?

I suppose it's tricky if you aren't inviting the friends to the wedding - but often there really are people who like to help you with such a special event.

My hubby & I just got married in Washington DC last fall, small beautiful wedding, 34 guests, and the bill was well under $5,000 (not including the honeymoon in Thailand). We did it at a small historic inn here in DC that has an outstanding restaurant -- maybe you can find something similar in Boston. If you were having it in DC I'd definitely recommend the place where I had it -- big fireplaces, unusual woodwork and other architectural details which look terrific in our photographs. One key hint for saving some money is to have an afternoon luncheon rather than dinner. We did it Sunday at noon. We rented two adjoining rooms, one for the ceremony and one for the reception. We had amazing food -- assorted passed hors d'oeuvres, plus 3 courses (choice of filet mignon or roasted chicken) including an incredible cake (dark chocolate with hazelnut dacquoise...mmmm) -- for about $30/person -- plus champagne, wine, etc. They had a florist in-house who did unique floral arrangements for about $25-35 each. It was so lovely and memorable. Small can be beautiful! We wouldn't do anything differently. I am not the big poufy white dress type so that helped too.

Once you have a short list of 2-3 places you are considering, ask them if they will offer a tasting for you of their food, wine, and champagne to help you select the menu. We did this and it really cemented our first choice in every way, from the service to the decor to the food and the wine list and the cake. It gives you a preview of what your guests will experience.

Good luck!

Those small, historic, charming inns book quickly and some as far out as 18 months in advance for April, May, June, September, and October weddings.

Here is what you do...

run away just prior to the wedding, toast a couple pieces of bread...cheap white is fine and:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...%3AIT&rd=1

I would elope, spend the 5K on a fabulous honeymoon in Italy, and send my 6 friends some great photos, along with a bottle of Vin Santo and a tin of biscotti.

In the area where I live big overblown affairs are the norm, and not just for weddings either. Baptism, first Communion, sweet sixteen, you name it, rates a huge catered affair for scores of guests. When my husband and I got married we bucked the trend. Hubby bought a nice suit, I bought a dress off the rack for about $100, and my sister made me a nice veil. We got married under a pretty gazebo in a nearby park by a friend who happened to be mayor of a nearby town. Afterwards, we had a nice dinner in a local restaurant. We had about a dozen close family members and no angst over which cousins and friends to invite. We did splurge on professional pictures and a nice honeymoon to Hawaii.

We moved into a new home immediately and we've never regretted our decision. Good luck and congratulations.