Clueless about how to organise a low key, laid back wedding

RebelScorned · 14-04-2019 11:31am #1

I have perused this forum countless times for inspiration when it comes to planning our wedding but I am beginning to think that it is actually harder to organise a low key laid back wedding than it is to organise a big extravaganza in a hotel or country house. I'm feeling very overwhelmed and honestly don't know where to start. We are both from Cork so it makes sense to do something down there. What we think we would like is a civil ceremony and nice meal in the same place preferably.

I've been to loads of weddings before and we both know that we don't want a long drawn out fussy day with loads of downtime for guests in the middle. We both really want it to be really chilled and fun and easygoing for our guests and something a bit different to the usual church / hotel / country house wedding.

In terms of guest numbers - we haven't set a limit yet, we haven't ruled out inviting just close family or extending that to cousins, aunties and uncles, friends, work colleagues etc. I guess it depends on the venue that we go with.

We are not fixed on a particular time of year or month for the wedding but would prefer not to have a huge run in to it (engaged 18+ months already, together 10 years).

We also don't want to spend an absolute fortune as a wedding day is not that important to us really but at the same time, we don't want to scrimp as hopefully will only get hitched once.

I would be so SO grateful to hear any feedback at all from either couples who have recently held low key weddings or guests that have been to low key weddings and enjoyed or did not enjoy certain aspects.

Charles Ingles · 14-04-2019 11:32am

RebelScorned wrote: »

I have perused this forum countless times for inspiration when it comes to planning our wedding but I am beginning to think that it is actually harder to organise a low key laid back wedding than it is to organise a big extravaganza in a hotel or country house. I'm feeling very overwhelmed and honestly don't know where to start. We are both from Cork so it makes sense to do something down there. What we think we would like is a civil ceremony and nice meal in the same place preferably.

I've been to loads of weddings before and we both know that we don't want a long drawn out fussy day with loads of downtime for guests in the middle. We both really want it to be really chilled and fun and easygoing for our guests and something a bit different to the usual church / hotel / country house wedding.

In terms of guest numbers - we haven't set a limit yet, we haven't ruled out inviting just close family or extending that to cousins, aunties and uncles, friends, work colleagues etc. I guess it depends on the venue that we go with.

We are not fixed on a particular time of year or month for the wedding but would prefer not to have a huge run in to it (engaged 18+ months already, together 10 years).

We also don't want to spend an absolute fortune as a wedding day is not that important to us really but at the same time, we don't want to scrimp as hopefully will only get hitched once.

I would be so SO grateful to hear any feedback at all from either couples who have recently held low key weddings or guests that have been to low key weddings and enjoyed or did not enjoy certain aspects.

If you want a laid back wedding first thing you will have to be is laid-back.
All you need is love

Shelli2 · 14-04-2019 12:12pm

The best wedding I ever attended was a small relaxed affair in Cork.
The couple had 30 people attending, a quick service in Cork Registry office and then a meal and drinks in Middletown Park Hotel.
When booking they said it was a family reunion, no mention of wedding.
There was no band, just the couples friends who happened to play in trad bands brought along their own instruments and there was a brilliant session that lasted into the wee hours.
Best wedding ever.

looksee · 14-04-2019 12:23pm

Stop thinking 'wedding' and start thinking 'party'. Get a room in a community centre, or similar, or a pub or hotel and ask them to cater a buffet. Invite people who matter to you - its a party not a wedding so you don't have to be 'obliged' to people. Tell them you have been together forever so don't need presents and organise it for the evening so they don't have to take time off work. Arrange to go to a registry office (or wherever) with just immediate family/ a very few people who really matter to you earlier in the day.

Get married in a nice outfit you can wear in the evening, forget the white meringue and the bridesmaids, you can still carry some flowers if you wish. If you really, really find you want the white dress and all the trimmings then just accept you want a conventional wedding, but otherwise, that's it, there's your wedding!

This was pretty much my wedding 50 years ago.

pwurple · 15-04-2019 6:43am

Hello there, love this.
First you need an idea of numbers. Once you have that, everything else falls into place. Our immediate family plus aunties etc would run to nearly 100 people... how big is your family?

On places around cork, Blackrock castle frequently does small weddings, they have fab food and the venue is stunning. The top floor of the county hall is another one I have been to that’s great for weddings. The penthouse suite in the imperial... loads of places. There are a few great spots around Kinsale too.

We got married 4 months after getting engaged, so it can be done alright, but it takes some quick decisions.
Get numbers
pick venue and get their available dates
Get celebrant with matching dates ( or have separate civil bit and party bit)
and then give notice to marry (minimum 3 months)

That’s it! The rest is decoration really, and to be honest, the less time you have to think about it, the less extras like sweet carts get added, and you end up with the simple affair you wanted in the first place.

Good luck!

15-04-2019 7:51am

You’re right .......a low key laid back wedding is harder to organize than a wedding in a hotel which is more or less a one stop shop .

My daughter lives in Canada but got married here last Aug , 8 months after getting engaged ! I did most of it as she’s abroad. Barn style wedding then caterers . It was an awful lot of work . One thing we found is that there can be a gap between the venue and the caterers and who is responsible for what (Chairs,napkins, clearing dishes away, topping up wine). With a hotel they are responsible for everything. Then you need to get a registrar and plenty of time ahead to book one (or a humanist).

First thing first is numbers . After that you can plan a venue that holds that amount of people. Start at the beginning, make a plan , it’s a lot of work but worth it ! Good luck

baby and crumble · 15-04-2019 10:33am

You can have a laid back wedding in a hotel, and get married there too since you mention liking the whole all in one venue thing.

A lot of hotels will do a package that includes everything, and most will have recommended vendors for any of the extras you might like (photographer, cake, DJ etc) - although you really don't have to have them all.

I agree re: loads of downtime, we had a 4.30pm ceremony, got photos out of the way early, had a 1 hour turnaround from the end of ceremony to dinner, then into dancing. Not much faffing about.

I will say, if you want something 'different' from the usual wedding it won't be laid back for you to organise. We had great ideas to have a summer BBQ party wedding thing and we soon realised just how much work it would be. So we found the least 'irish hotel' type of hotel and just had everything there. Was really quite easy to manage.

You also have to remember that most people expect a certain 'flow' to a wedding, and for a lot of folks something different from that can also bring a lot of stress and questions for you.

CheerLouth · 15-04-2019 12:41pm

Plus one for what Baby & Crumble said! We are getting married in July and laid-back for me means having ceremony and the reception in the hotel. No moving from venue to venue, no hassle, I'm just going with the flow of whatever the hotel normally do. When I think of laid-back wedding, I mostly want myself and my husband to be stress-free

lazygal · 15-04-2019 2:51pm

Laid back could be going to the registry office on a day off and no fuss after, maybe a meal out.
IME planning a wedding that's 'different' can really add up cost wise. And can be a LOT more stressful to organise. A cousin of mine went for a low key wedding and had a marque in the garden. It was an insane amount of project management, they were both wrecked by the time the day rolled around. She wishes she'd thought about whether the hassle was worth it.

LirW · 15-04-2019 5:55pm

If laid back and low-key means informal to you you might think about a registry office wedding followed by a pub party, that is probably about the most laid back that requires little planning.
All actual "low key" venues out there know of their worth and charge a hefty premium.
It all really depends on your budget and how much effort you wanna put into the planning.

Unfortunately this isn't England where just about everything goes by now since they changed the rules and you can legally get married everywhere.

jesso22 · 15-04-2019 10:27pm

I was thinking along the exact same lines for our wedding, and my brain was fried trying to figure out different scenarios! I wanted to stay local so that the whole planning and the day itself would be simpler for us and the guests. But any smaller venue I enquired with wouldn't accommodate us, even though they would happily cater to christening, funerals, etc for 100 people. So frustrating!
We are together 10 years, have 2 children and just bought a house. So the wedding is not really a big deal for us at this stage in our life, we don't want to spend big bucks or waste our energy. We just want a nice day with our family and friends, treat them to a meal, and be husband and wife. And having the same surname as my children would be great.
Well we booked with a local hotel in the end. Here's how we hope it will go.
The 20 min civil ceremony will take place in the hotel at 2pm, and we will have the photographer for 1-2 hrs for a couple shots of the ceremony, some family ones and a group shot with guests. Meanwhile drinks reception is ongoing.
Then shortly after go in for the meal, then all free to relax and mingle.
I'm not having bridesmaid etc, not doing speaches, not having a band but a DJ. I won't be driving myself mad on decorations, the hotel will do a fine job with seat covers and table centerpieces. The room itself is decorated finely enough.
The hotels wedding planner is great, there will be very little for us to do and he will make sure everything runs along smoothly enough.
So now it's just the clothing and the makeup, my bouquet mainly

love_love · 16-04-2019 12:47pm

Our wedding was quite traditional and was still extremely laid back. A wedding can be whatever you want it to be. I'd love to offer some advice, can you be more specific about what you want vs what you don't want? And approximate numbers? The basics of a wedding are ceremony and food, so really it's about doing that and then building whatever else is important to you around it.

PinkLady2016 · 16-04-2019 3:53pm

jesso22 wrote: »

I was thinking along the exact same lines for our wedding, and my brain was fried trying to figure out different scenarios! I wanted to stay local so that the whole planning and the day itself would be simpler for us and the guests. But any smaller venue I enquired with wouldn't accommodate us, even though they would happily cater to christening, funerals, etc for 100 people. So frustrating!
We are together 10 years, have 2 children and just bought a house. So the wedding is not really a big deal for us at this stage in our life, we don't want to spend big bucks or waste our energy. We just want a nice day with our family and friends, treat them to a meal, and be husband and wife. And having the same surname as my children would be great.
Well we booked with a local hotel in the end. Here's how we hope it will go.
The 20 min civil ceremony will take place in the hotel at 2pm, and we will have the photographer for 1-2 hrs for a couple shots of the ceremony, some family ones and a group shot with guests. Meanwhile drinks reception is ongoing.
Then shortly after go in for the meal, then all free to relax and mingle.
I'm not having bridesmaid etc, not doing speaches, not having a band but a DJ. I won't be driving myself mad on decorations, the hotel will do a fine job with seat covers and table centerpieces. The room itself is decorated finely enough.
The hotels wedding planner is great, there will be very little for us to do and he will make sure everything runs along smoothly enough.
So now it's just the clothing and the makeup, my bouquet mainly

Im in the process or organising a small wedding too. Found it difficult to find a place and then if the guests were less then 80 they weren't interested. Eventually we got a small hotel and they waved the price of the ceremony as we are having it all there. Were hoping to have a less stressful day. Got the photographer booked. My fiancé has his suit bought and I got my dress. I want it to be a joyful day without stress. Hoping it continues on that way.

splinter65 · 16-04-2019 4:15pm

“Laid back” is as someone else said here only for “laid back” folk. Laid back would mean that you casually arranged a casual wedding ceremony be it in a church or a registry office or whatever, and invited 3 but (tops) 30 to a small celebration be it at someone’s house/garden or in a room above a pub or an ordinary restaurant and had food with lots of wine and some champagne and maybe cake.
Laid back means that the wedding caused nobody any stress at any stage.
The fact that the OP and OH is stressed about trying to be laid back disqualifies them from the laid back club!

antiskeptic · 16-04-2019 7:53pm

RebelScorned wrote: »

I have perused this forum countless times for inspiration when it comes to planning our wedding but I am beginning to think that it is actually harder to organise a low key laid back wedding than it is to organise a big extravaganza in a hotel or country house. I'm feeling very overwhelmed and honestly don't know where to start. We are both from Cork so it makes sense to do something down there. What we think we would like is a civil ceremony and nice meal in the same place preferably.

I've been to loads of weddings before and we both know that we don't want a long drawn out fussy day with loads of downtime for guests in the middle. We both really want it to be really chilled and fun and easygoing for our guests and something a bit different to the usual church / hotel / country house wedding.

In terms of guest numbers - we haven't set a limit yet, we haven't ruled out inviting just close family or extending that to cousins, aunties and uncles, friends, work colleagues etc. I guess it depends on the venue that we go with.

We are not fixed on a particular time of year or month for the wedding but would prefer not to have a huge run in to it (engaged 18+ months already, together 10 years).

We also don't want to spend an absolute fortune as a wedding day is not that important to us really but at the same time, we don't want to scrimp as hopefully will only get hitched once.

I would be so SO grateful to hear any feedback at all from either couples who have recently held low key weddings or guests that have been to low key weddings and enjoyed or did not enjoy certain aspects.

Best wedding I was at was in a restaurant. When you go to a wedding venue you enter the realm of industrial wedding: the kitchen will be designed for mass production and getting x number of heads served in y amount of time.

The reason why the restaurant was so good was that it was:

cosy (people closer together than usual making for lots of conversation (being able to turn in your chair and chat to the person behind you
your dealing with folk (the restauranteur) for whom this is a bit special. They are a bit buzzing rather than done it a million times.
it lends itself to informality more.

So much better than the run of the mill that we went the same route. We were able to bargain a Michelin star restaurant down to the kind of price you would pay per head if you went mainstream

If going this route, try find a restaurant that has a place for your guests to assemble (assuming you get married elsewhere and have to travel to the restaurant) before moving into the dining room. The place we had had a grand piano in that space and we hired a pianist to play gentle beforehand and had a bit of an afters sing song bash 'em out with the same fella playing.

Rubberchikken · 16-04-2019 7:58pm

my nephew is getting married next may.
itll be a civil ceremony in a local country house hotel, outside in the garden if weather is good, inside if not.
meal there after and music.
nice from a guests point of view that everthing is in one place:)

LirW · 17-04-2019 11:07am

If you go down the restaurant route I also made the experience that so many have a private function room that can be rented for quite little and they'd give you group menus for group prices.
When we were looking we contacted a few restaurants/ small boutique hotels and said that we're explicitly looking for dining for a small party, we're a wedding but we're not looking for a package and without exception every place got straight away what we wanted.
You'd be surprised how many places even have private bars in their function rooms that you can use fully staffed for just the room rent!

PhoenixParker · 18-04-2019 11:34am

RebelScorned wrote: »

I've been to loads of weddings before and we both know that we don't want a long drawn out fussy day with loads of downtime for guests in the middle. We both really want it to be really chilled and fun and easygoing for our guests and something a bit different to the usual church / hotel / country house wedding.

Others have given good comments, but on this point, one of the best ways to avoid a long drawn out day and lots of downtime for guests is to do most of your photos before the ceremony.

It’s not that common here yet but it’s very popular in the US and it leaves you far more flexible on the order of the reception element. With the couple and immediate family photos out of the way you can flow straight from ceremony to mingling and drinking with a very short pause to get any big group photos you want. The time from ceremony to real food can be an hour or, enough for people to chat and enjoy but not enough that they’re starving or bored.

Bannasidhe · 18-04-2019 11:47am

Cousin of mine had a very laid back wedding at Camden Fort Meagher in Cork.
They had a Humanist celebrant so the ceremony was done there, then around 60 guests.
Plus they had to organise it quickly as her mother had stage 4 cancer and not much time left.
They didn't do the whole wedding band thing. They had a string quartet playing during the meal and for a while afterwards so people could mingle and chat then a DJ.

JustAThought · 01-06-2019 5:58pm

+1 for the numbers - that will determine buffet/sit down meal/picnic/chartered boat etc.

Some great advice here.

Dosn't fota island do special group things for people & a meal and open bar somewhere after. Feed the giraffes & champagne picnic. Think family party or restaurant meal & you will be winning.once you mention wedding you will get sucked into formulae & big $ .

Rows Grower · 01-06-2019 6:18pm

JustAThought wrote: »

+1 for the numbers - that will determine buffet/sit down meal/picnic/chartered boat etc.

Some great advice here.

Dosn't fota island do special group things for people & a meal and open bar somewhere after. Feed the giraffes & champagne picnic. Think family party or restaurant meal & you will be winning.once you mention wedding you will get sucked into formulae & big $ .

"Low" key.

RebelScorned · 10-09-2019 10:29pm

Hi everyone,

I got some absolutely fantastic advice and pointers from folks on this thread - thank you so much for your input!

Just to follow up - we're going to have a autumnal/Christmas themed civil ceremony in a country house hotel in Cork at the very end of November. We're doing the ceremony / drinks reception / meal / entertainment all under one roof and I couldn't be any more relieved to be honest to have the day booked after 2 years of deliberating. We very kindly gave ourselves a lovely 3 month window to get ourselves organised.

We're keeping numbers quite small (40 max) so it will be quite an intimate day with close family and friends, and we both just want it to feel like a family party and not a formal wedding. Once you start adding in all the aunties and uncles and cousins and their children and plus ones and second cousins and neighbours and work colleagues, we were in the 200s territory.

We're just looking at finer details now that we have the ceremony/venue sorted - personalise the civil ceremony a bit, some sort of live music for the ceremony/ drinks reception and some novel entertainment idea for the evening that does not involve a band or dancing. We've decided on an autumnal/Christmas themed wedding - our favourite time of the year - as the venue will be covered in Christmas decorations anyway.

Just wondering if any of you have ever experienced some unique after dinner entertainment at a wedding - besides a band or DJ as we are not at all dancers. We will have a mix of ages from early 60s to early 20s. I was thinking maybe a magician or something along those lines - I've googled and there were some options but nothing beats a recommendation from personal experience if anybody has one.

Also - we would like some live music at the ceremony/drinks reception - I'd love contemporary songs and not fussed on a singer - but not very musical so not sure if I should be looking for a pianist or violinist or a string duo/trio/quartet - and i have to be realistic also about being lucky enough to find someone decent with availability for our date. Would anyone on this here thread have any guidance on that?

jellybear · 13-09-2019 11:36am

Andy James is an amazing magician. We had him on our wedding day and he went down a treat with our guests

Delighted you're having the day of your dreams. Sounds like a fabulous wedding

Clueless about how to organise a low key, laid back wedding

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