Hello everyone; first post from a long-time lurker. Been having a little look around the site and message boards since I got engaged several years ago, and as things are finally starting to get underway now, I thought I'd post my ideas and see if anyone had any bright ideas or suggestions to add. I've gotten some good ideas from here, so I figured this would be a good idea to fish for some more.
My relationship with my FH is rather unusual and it looks set that our wedding will be also. I am English, and he is American, live in different countries and we've been together for over 7 years. We both got together in our teens, and a combination of further education and a hard recession has made the long-distance part of this relationship lengthy, but things are starting to get underway.
We have played with the idea of marrying in England for a long time, but realising that the visa we require for me to be allowed to live in the US means we have to marry in the US. This presented us with some problems but my mum suggested "eloping" to somewhere "nice with a beach", and just spend the money on ourselves. Here is our plan.
We're eloping to Mission Bay, San Diego. I have been before; its a lovely location, a little quieter than the main city, with both the bay and seafront. Also, we're considering relocating to Oregon so this may well be very convenient for us, travel wise (its convenient when you normally have to travel 4000 miles over the Atlantic just to go on a date :P ).
Why elope? FH's current location is in Ohio, and he has quite some extended family- a lot of whom neither us like much. But sadly, a lot of them are the sort who would gate-crash a wedding they felt "entitled" to attend, some are racist (I'm foreign and some of our wanted guests are of ethnic minorities) or just plain not nice. To get around this, we have decided to just "elope" but invite our parents and close friends/loved ones (we are aware not everyone will be able to make it, but they are welcome if they can). This way, should snarky members of the family then demand to know why they didn't get an invite, we can lie and say "well, due to the visa, we had to get things done very quickly (partly true) and we didn't want you to feel obligated to travel across the country at such short notice and such expense!" />:3
Both our parents will come, but as for other people, well, we'll see. We'll invite them but being as it will be expensive we understand not many will come. We will be planning a farewell party shortly before my departure for the US.
We're going to hire a minister and just get married on the beach. Not that unusual you say? Well, here's the funny part- the bride is a Goth! :P So I will be in a black and white wedding dress and corset, clutching a frilly black parasol to keep out of the California sun. That could well be a sight!
We have worked very hard to get where we are, and its been insanely difficult...so we have decided that instead of paying to put up a lot of people (some of whom we dont want there) and give them all a free meal, that we should spend the small amount of money we've managed to save on the visa process, and then just ourselves. Our hotel costs, flights, spending, wedding lisence etc. My dress won't be a wedding dress per-say as it will come from Gothic fashion retailers- I estimate under £300 for everything including a steel-boned corset and boots. We won't have bouquets/flowers (due to travel/short notice), but I'm hoping to handmake a little lantern with fake roses twined around it to carry it across the sand but it could double up as a "centre piece". We're going to have a dinner afterwards, although not a reception, hopefully just at our hotel, and place the lantern in the centre of the table. We'll make up a playlist with an IPod. I'm intending to make the invitations (if we choose to bother with them) myself, as I am an artist...and also (this may sound tacky but hear it out)...you know those kid's birthday cakes you can get where they "print" a photo or cartoon design on the icing? I'm thinking of drawing up a cool design and having that done XD I'm also going to see if I can "audition" photography students locally to see if they can do the photos for a more affordable fee.
It is very much a budget wedding, as our visa will be very expensive, but I do believe this could be a genuinely lovely wedding. What more could we ask then to have the most important people on our lives, hang out with us on a beach in California and watch us make our vows by the sunset? Then we can have an immediate honeymoon hehe!
(We have no date set as of yet due to the fact that we have to wait for the approval, but I would like to see if we can time it near to Bat's Day at Disney, as this may persuade some of my Goth friends to come to California
hehe).
So, a slightly self-indulgent wedding perhaps, but we also want it to be our "reward" in a way, for working so bloomin' hard over the last few years. Anyone who has been in an LDR will know what I mean. What I'd like to ask is if anyone has any clever little money saving tips or ideas they could impart? It may sound like we're just stingy, but the truth is, the two of us are not at all well off, and we always stretch our pounds...or dollars...as far as we can
Thank you everyone