GRM Style Wedding Ideas

So I may have gotten engaged over the weekend. I was instructing with the Rally Sport Region PCA at Grattan and popped the question during the lunch time parade laps. I had to borrow my Dad's car so she could hear me since my track rat Miata decided to melt it's exhaust. I wanted to do it during a hot lap session, but she wouldn't have heard me and I didn't want to get distracted when braking for the next turn.

She has a huge family. I can count mine on two hands not including spouses or kids. She has more family that lives in her town than I do total.

We have one idea for a venue but haven't visited or priced it yet. The old Ford Model T plant. Her idea! (See why I'm keeping her? She also loves Porsches, drives stick, has done a couple of track days herself in her Dad's Boxster.)

So what are some ideas for a large-ish wedding on a GRM Challenge budget?

Thanks!

Congratulations (if it happens)!

If you can find an old classic to borrow- say a 356 vert- it would be a pretty cool car to go from one place to another in your wedding clothes. We thought about getting a Giulietta Spider for ours, but didn't. Not that we regret it, but it was an interesting idea. Or whatever really nice roadster you can get. (so not one of your ratty Miata racers.. )

Any chance you can elope for the wedding and make it somewhere special but low key. Then have a big backyard pig roast reception/party when you get back?

And congratulations!! She sounds way too good for you.

Tiny wedding, huge reception.

I once attended a pot-luck BYO wedding for two recent college grads. Everyone knew the deal, why it was low key, and it was awesome. It was a huge BBQ in their parents back yard. They had a pergola decorated for the ceremony and they rented a bunch of white folding chairs. None of it screamed "DIY cheap wedding". It was just tasteful.

Or you can do like I did and just nod while letting your future in-laws write large checks. Either way works.

Congratulations. I see you want a big wedding, so this may not work for you, but like slefain said, tiny wedding, huge reception.

I got married in a park with two other people there. Then a big reception a year later. I could mention that most didn't know we were married for the full year before we had the reception, but that is beside the point.

GOOD LUCK!

Congratulations!!! Really happy for you. I'm getting married in September, and couldn't be more excited. That isn't sarcasm either. I just hated the wedding planning process. Wedding planning. Fun. Take all common sense, throw it in a car, get that car up to 75MPH on the interstate, and then chuck the steering wheel out the window. Oh, and double the price for everything.

Make sure your expectations are set clearly and far in advance, along with your parents, her expectations, and her parents expectations. If asked, have an opinion ready for everything. "I don't care" is not an acceptable answer to anything, even if it is the truth. Honestly, I have never noticed a single center piece at any wedding I have ever been to. The single exception was the one I moved off of the table because it was tall and hindering conversation.

I could go on for a lot longer here, but I won't. I'll just say that if I could do it again, I'd say that I (meaning mtn) am paying for everything, whatever you (meaning parents of both mtn and the bride) want to contribute, please do so in the form of a check as a gift on our wedding day--there will be no judgements or hard feelings if that check is $50, and there will be no judgements or anything if that check is $15,000. Would have been a LOT cheaper, with better food, and about the same guest list, without hardly any of the fights. No, there wouldn't have been crystal chandeliers, but who the berkeley cares? Seriously, the closest we have ever gotten in 6.5 years to breaking up was during the wedding planning.

FWIW, my only needs in the whole damn thing were:

• Catholic ceremony (since we're both practicing Catholics)
• my family and friends (and there are a lot)
• Chicagoland (since that is where the bride and groom grew up, and where the bride and groom live, and where the bride and grooms families live--why in the world would you have it anywhere else???)
• Free beer for the guests

So don't do what I did. Of course, my situation is far from normal, since there is no such thing as normal, but there were probably more factors at play.

Congrats.

mtn wrote: If asked, have an opinion ready for everything. "I don't care" is not an acceptable answer to anything, even if it is the truth.

This above can not be stressed enough. Give a answer/opinion but don't think that the opinion given will matter that much since it can be easily overridden.

I did one thing right at my wedding and did not even realize it. I used my Miata as the car to leave the church from and had a spare bouquet staged in the car for her to throw to the crowd as we left.

A buddy at the wedding had an absolutely mint FD RX7 that he had bought new, when still single. He now had 3 kids and his wife was always on his case to get ride of that car.
He came up to me at the reception and commended me on the wisdom of using the Miata stating, "now that it was part of your wedding, you'll never have to sell it." He continued, "any time the topic comes up just say, but honey, it was part of our wedding day." "Besides, she's going to keep that dress forever for the same reason."

CGLockRacer wrote: So I may have gotten engaged over the weekend. I was instructing with the Rally Sport Region PCA at Grattan and popped the question during the lunch time parade laps. I had to borrow my Dad's car so she could hear me since my track rat Miata decided to melt it's exhaust. I wanted to do it during a hot lap session, but she wouldn't have heard me and I didn't want to get distracted when braking for the next turn. She has a huge family. I can count mine on two hands not including spouses or kids. She has more family that lives in her town than I do total. We have one idea for a venue but haven't visited or priced it yet. The old Ford Model T plant. Her idea! (See why I'm keeping her? She also loves Porsches, drives stick, has done a couple of track days herself in her Dad's Boxster.) So what are some ideas for a large-ish wedding on a GRM Challenge budget? Thanks!

Your job at this point is to pretend to care deeply about any ideas she has and stay out of the way. By "She" I mean her and her whole extended family that is going to have their two cents worth. The grooms function in a wedding plan is second from the bottom right after the Mother in-laws where she need only shut up, show up and wear beige.

You have no idea of the machinery that you have let loose by proposing matrimony.

The secret to survival at this point in your life is sincerity, learn to fake it well and you will survive.

Vaya con Dios

Ours was under challenge budget. For ceremony we did 50 closest family/friends, borrowed chairs from church, in Carli's mom's garden. From there we took the Belair and Chevelle to my parents place after everyone left. There we had 2 rented tents, tables, chairs. I built a bar, had a bar tender and we had a pig roast catered by local guy with brisket and such. My friend is a baker and she made the cake for our present. The reception was about 175 people deep and mostly a big party. Borrowed sound equipment and a playlist we made the night before on a netbook provided music.

First off conga rats!

My wedding was probably no more than a few grand total cost. Ceremony was at our church and was a thirty minute ceremony. You take him, you take her married done. The ceremony was at a fire hall and the theme was picnic themed. All food was stuff you would have at a picnic and all beer was in a can (all beer was from Trader Joe's and Yuengling was provided for other people). All in all, I think the total cost was a couple grand. I just requested to be told when and where to show up.

I would just say keep it simple.

Ours was as grassroots as it gets. We had floated the idea of getting married at the event celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the original Mini. The event organizer practically jumped through the phone lines in his excitement about the idea. Since the event was at a KOA campground, we had use of the amphitheater and picnic shelter. Most of our friends were already there for the event, and we just had to get family there. One of the guys who is a regular at the classic mini events offered to make some custom t shirts for us, so instead of a gown, she hemmed an extra long white shirt with lace trim. My Dad was kind enough to back her down the aisle in the back of our wagon, and the vows were read out of a Haynes manual (divorce is the reverse of assembly except as noted). All in all a great day, and well within our nonexistent budget.

You can probably be a bit more refined than that and still have a good time, but keep in mind:

Don't pay too much

We just bought a good color laser printer and designed/printed our own invites. Might have only broken even, but we got to keep a great printer.

We did our own invitations and it was part of the fun. It's a low-stress way to get into the mood.

The ceremony took place in our back yard, under what will now always be known as "the wedding tree". There was a brisket and a tenderloin on the smoker, so it was the best smelling wedding ever. Only real friends and family were invited, nobody that "had" to be there. We stayed at our house that night as did the best man. It was excellent.

Of course a couple of little things went wrong. But my wife made the choice to shrug it off and not make a big deal out of it, and that made all the difference to the day.

My sister-in-law had a future mother-in-law who wanted the whole big wedding thing. They ended up with two ceremonies, a rolling train of cars moving people and things about, stress over catering problems, a stiff atmosphere due to assigned seating and a list of things that "had" to be done, etc, etc. On top of that, the photography was done by a friend of the family and he did a pretty crappy job. The Wedding Industry is a terrible thing, worse even than Realtors (tm).

The two tips I'd give:

• take the photos before the wedding. Yeah, it's non-traditional, but it gets rid of that big awkward break in the festivities so you can jump right into celebration after the vows. Makes for a much better flow during the day and it's a good way to get rid of the jitters if you're nervous. Which you shouldn't be.

• if you're going to spend money on anything, spend it on the photographer. The only thing you'll have afterwards is your photos, and the difference between and enthusiastic amateur and a pro is huge. Ours handed over full rights to the pictures (!!!) so we printed our own albums afterwards.

Congratulations!

My wife and I had a very low budget wedding. Here are some of the things we did to save costs (besides keeping the guest list small by making it family only).

First is with the catering. We priced out some places that normally did receptions and the prices were way more than dinner in a pretty decent restaurant. So we found a hibachi place that had a big enough room for the whole party and had the reception there. One of my cousins' methods of dealing with this was to have a backyard wedding and reception using prepackaged party food trays from Sam's Club. (The most memorable thing about that wedding was that it was at a lake house and the groom arrived in a canoe. Awesome.)

Our wedding was pretty low key so we didn't bother with matching clothes for the attendants. I just asked my brother (who was serving as the best man) to wear a gray suit (I may have bought him a specific tie, but that's it) and the two bridesmaids wore purple.

Lots of grocery store bakeries can do fairly competent wedding cakes if you don't get too fancy - we got one from Publix with buttercream icing that cost about a quarter of what a specialty bakery would have charged, and looked great. And it didn't taste like sugared Crisco.

I designed the invitations myself (used POVRAY / Morray to put some ray-traced flowers on them) and had them printed by a local printing shop.

POVRAY... hadn't heard that in a long time. Does that still exist?

Carry on.

We did ours on the cheap also. My Dad did the ceremony, it was in my parents back yard, people from the church did all the food gratis. But the best part was that I was at Ft Polk LA for all of the planning while my wife was in Ohio. All I had to do was provide a tux size and show up.

Congratulations, it is a pain in the butt sometimes but if you picked the right person totally worth the aggravation.

My son got married last year. They wanted a nice wedding at a very nice venue (which is booked 3 years in advance) so they did it in January. Everything was less than half price, being off season, and exceptionally well done because they were the only customers for the services they used.

Step 1- Remember, this is FOR YOU. I have seen entirely too many weddings for too many people get ridiculously out of control because someone not actually getting married that day tried to get in on the koolaid. They want xxx at your wedding, either they pay for it, or they berkeley off. Or maybe they just berkeley off if it's really stupid.

Step 2- LOCAL BUSINESS IS THE JAM. Cases in point- we cooked for our own wedding. I think we fed something like 250 people for around a buck each. We got all our supplies locally. I went to a butcher and bought turkey by the case off of him. We used side of the road garden shops for veggies and whatnot. And the dress. There's plenty of national chains that will fleece you for a dress. You know who won't? The little local dress shop. They like making deals. My wifes dress was originally like.....2 grand. My cost? (well, nothing her grandparents ended up gifting it to her, but I still count it in the total) 350$. How'd we do that? Local shop. They had a dress that was AMAZING. it was originally a demo of some fashion like... 5 years before we found it. Since local shops can't really afford to LOSE stock, they just mothballed it in a corner. We dug it out, and we got it CHEAP. Rings too. My wife found some crazy assed little jeweler (Think jewelry row in NYC, but in MN) and we went there. He didn't have a storefront. I had to be buzzed in. If you ever see the CF/Tungsten Carbide ring that has the beveled edges, I own the prototype. He bought it directly from the manufacturer in...wherever. Sold it to me for 85$. My wife- strangely didn't want a diamond. She picked out a ruby/gold number. Lab created gem. 85$. My tux, E36 M3 I even got a deal on that. Typical rental, but I used my own shoes because I wanted a little flava with it. Got a deal because I didn't have to get someone elses foot fungus.

Venue- think about what you want. I'll be honest, receptions that take place in a hall are kiiiinda boring. Sure you can have a good time with the right crowd, but it's all the same chicken dance/electric slide with a DJ in a can. Boring. I got lucky and my inlaws own 40 acres. You can throw a big berkeleying party on 40 acres. We had our wedding on Halloween, just to add to the fun. We actually did most of the prep work ourselves, with my FIL throwing in on stuff like a two story bonfire, and other fun things. (Yes, it was as tall as the barn.) we were able to repurpose a lot of what was already there for things like tables, signs, and whatnot. Our cake was made by one of my wifes cousins- but I could have made it. We didn't have booze at the wedding (on our dime), because neither of us drank at the time and it would have been ludicrous to pay for someone elses buzz. We called it BYOB, and boy they didn't disappoint. My brother puked in the bushes outside the hotel after my FIL conned him into drinking some E36 M3ty blue vodka.

Ceremony itself? Meh, it's all legal paperwork to me. We did an in and out at the local constabulary/courthouse. MIL worked there in the ticket dept. We actually got $$$ from the ladies that worked there with her! It was rad. All in all, dress, tux, food, legal mumbo jumbo, the rings...1000$. After all the wedding cash was counted, we actually MADE a profit.

All in all, remember, it's for you. You're inviting other people to share it with you, but it's yours. No one else has the right to tell you what they want. It's like inviting someone over for beer, and them complaining you don't have what they drink. berkeley you drink water then in my motto. Seems to apply here as well.

I went to the Piquette Avenue plant on a Saturday and they were setting up for a wedding. Wedding and reception were both there. I thought it was the neatest place to have a "different" style of nuptials. No idea on costs, but it would be memorable if you can swing it.

Oh.....it'll be memorable for all the females, you'll hardly remember it.

travellering wrote: the vows were read out of a Haynes manual (divorce is the reverse of assembly except as noted).

This is the best thing is read in a looooooong time!

Road trip in a fun car to Vegas, get married at a drive through chapel by a fake Elvis.

Had the huge wedding, and survived. Driving my 280zx was the only time during the day that we had time alone as just the two of us. So, +1 to the car idea.

Congratulations!

Keith Tanner wrote: We stayed at our house that night as did the best man. It was excellent.

giggity giggity goo.