**Marrin713** (or other courthouse brides)

teacherbride7

Would you mind sharing a little bit about your day?  How it went, etc...
We are planning on a courthouse wedding and a reception (cake and drinks only) later on. 
Any suggestions/tips appreciated.
Thanks ladies.  :O)

AbbeyS2011

I did not have a courthouse wedding the first time, but it was simple - it a barn in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa, thrown together in two days!  We had a friend make the cake, and my bouquet and they made some food and we had a nice reception.

A few suggestions for you:

Since it sounds like you are inviting most/all guests to the reception, go with a reception invite - "We invite you to celebrate our marriage at a reception at XYZ place on this day at this time".  If there are some you want to invite to the wedding itself, enclose a smaller wedding ceremony invite.

You can have a nice wedding cake that is not terribly pricey if you go with one from a local grocer instead of a "fancy" bakery.

JCPenney and Nordstorm have some lovely dresses you could wear that are simple and elegant and not too pricey.  David's Bridal also has a nice selection online of informal wedding gowns.  You can wear whatever you like - there are no rules with weddings, first, second or otherwise IMO.

If you want some pics, contact some photographers and see if you can get them to modify a package for you - some have al a carte offerings for budget consicous brides.

Have a wonderful time on your wedding day!

Marrin713

Hey teach!  In our county, weddings are done on Fridays (barring court holidays) and they begin with a sign in at 10 AM.  It's first come/first served and we were allowed to bring any and all whom we wanted.  Normally cameras and video are not allowed in the courthouse but for weddings they are.

After we signed in and presented our marriage license, we waited.  The people ran the gamut of girls glammed up in bridal gowns to couples in Cubs jerseys and flip-flops.  But most were business casual - men in suits or dockers and golf shirts, and the women in dresses or nice slacks.

We were able to have witnesses - my H chose his son and I chose my best friend.  We could either have the judge hold the wedding rings and our witnesses.  It was about 10 minutes of the standard vows - we could have said our own if we wished.  And it was over!

We ended up having an cocktail party reception at a local golf club on Sunday evening.  We had a hosted bar and heavy apps along with cake.  We had about 16 family members witness the ceremony on Friday and then about 50 or so came to the reception.  It was a nice way to do it because it gave us Saturday to decompress and hang out with our out-of-towners.  Then on Sunday, H and his guys went to play a round of golf.  It was a wonderful week end!

Any other questions, let me know.