Ceremony ideas please! we are stumped!

fupduck

ok, myself and my partner are together almost two years. I have grown children and have a full legal Irish divorce . He is not religious and has no children.

Truth is , we are stony broke but want to get married, we are also not really into the hotel , massive reception and posing thing . We just want to share a special day with our closest family, have a party with our mates and really enjoy the day.

The actual marriage and commitment means more to us than a 'wedding' .

We really would like something intimate and different, something unique, but when you search online 'unique' only throws up small venues that may have a stove or a laurel tree! Maybe a local who plays the spoons!

We both feel that there are only 5 people who absolutely HAVE to be at the ceremony , but a couple of hundred who we want to party with us!
A party venue is no problem , but we are stumped when it comes to the intimate ceremony part .
We have knocked around a few ideas (including one which involved getting married on stage at a rock gig, but they never got back to us)

We dont want a religious ceremony , what do we do???!!! We like the idea of getting hitched at a bike rally or a gig but its Ireland ! is this possible?!! All feedback appreciated!

Peregrinus

Well, you can always have a low-key registry office ceremony for the legal part, plus a small but meaningful (to you) ceremony with your close friends. That gets around the question of whether it's "possible" to get married at a bike rally or a gig or whatever; if your special ceremony doesn't have to be legally binding then pretty well anything is possible.

If you want a legally valid ceremony, you're going to have to be married by a registered celebrant - HSE, civil or religious. If it's a religious celebrant, the question of where your ceremony can be and what form it must take are to a large extent government by the rules and practices of the church/denomination to which the celebrant belongs, and some churches are known to be very flexible about this - especially the Spiritualists. But I realise you don't want a religious ceremony, but they can be quite flexible about whether it's necessary to mention God at all in the ceremony. It might be worth exploring, anyway.

If you have a HSE celebrant, it has to be Monday to Friday, and the ceremony must be either at the HSE offices or an an approved venue. If the venue you want isn't already approved, you (or the venue owner) will have to get it approved. Venues have to be public so you can't get married in e.g. your living room, your back garden.

If you have a Humanist celebrant the wedding can be celebrated on any day of the week but, again, you need an approved venue.

As for getting married on stage at a rock gig, or similar, provided the venue is approved, and provided the ceremony includes at least what is legally necessary - basically, a short statement by the celebrant followed by an exchange of vows - this is legally possible. Strictly speaking, it's not a problem that there's a gig in progress immediately before, and again immediately after, the ceremony. In practice I can't think the HSE registrars will go for this (and you can't force them to) and the Humanists might want to talk to you about exactly how you see this playing out.

Neyite

Civil ceremony + a nice early bird meal in a restaurant with your 5 guests.

Then go to your favourite bar and invite everyone you want for the party - if you are bringing them a heap of customers then they might offer the finger food for free.

hotmatottie10

You could always get a friend to perform the ceremony and do the legal bit beforehand. A friend of mine did that and it was beautiful!
They had a friend who was a poet do the ceremony and literally they could do it anywhere or do anything they wanted and it was free as they didnt have to pay the celebrant. The only thing was the legal bit obviously. But its a nice option to try perhaps

Robineen

OP, I too am broke and my recent wedding was ten people including the bride and groom. It was a civil ceremony and cost us €2,400 for everything including the marriage licence, meal at a lovely restaurant, rings, suit hire for the huz, photographer, venue, invites and thank you cards and decorations. Everything. Both our parents gifted us €500, so it cost us €1,400 of our own money. We piled into a nearby pub afterwards.

I wore a lovely bridesmaid dress I wore to a friend's wedding (never wanted a white wedding dress anyway) and had nice shoes that suited so there was no expenditure there. Did my own make up and did a damn fine job if I do say so. :P My mother treated me to a haircut on the day and my sister treated me to shellac. But they would have only added another €100 max anyway.

And you know what? It was great! Meaningful, intimate, the photos looked great, the meal was in a restaurant with a full menu. I loved it.

You are so right that the marriage is the important thing and you can definitely do it cheaply. We hired a room in a hotel for the ceremony as we didn't want to do it in the registry office but you could do it in the registry office and that would make it even cheaper again. And if you did it in the registry office, you wouldn't be having decorations so that's another big saving.

Be creative and maybe restrict the numbers at the ceremony and after party and you have a lovely wedding for very little.

Good luck!