How to Have a Great Wedding For Under $100.00

Okay...I admit that my hubby and I got married almost 14 years ago, and that our wedding might actually cost about $150.00 if we did the same thing today.

Still we had a wonderful wedding and reception in 1995 for just under $100.00 total cost. Now if you have been dreaming of a big fairy tale princess wedding ever since you were 5 years old, then this probably isn't the right place for you.

But...If you need to throw a wedding with a hundred or more guests and want to have a really fun and beautiful wedding without breaking the bank...then you are definitely in the right place!

Would you wear a pre-owned wedding gown?

I write articles for a site called helium.com and one of the things they do is debate articles.

One of the debate issues was: would you wear a pre-owned wedding gown. Well, since I had worn one, I went ahead and wrote an article about it. That article has been # 1 in that category for a couple of months now...so, since it seems to be so popular, and I love squidoo...I said to myself, "Bambi...make a lens about it!"

Plus A lens can have photos and the photos of our wedding just make the story even better.

If you would like to read the original helium article, just click on the banner below and it will open in a new window!

A break-down of the cost of our wedding

I found my wedding dress at a garage sale and it cost $25.00, the original reciept for the dress was in the box...it had originally been purchased for $800.00. The woman who sold it to me assured me that it had been dry-cleaned...and it was spotless and in mint condition...and my size. Since I was much bigger then, than I am now...the extra large size mattered.

The wedding itself cost $40.00 for the license and the Justice of the Peace fee. I designed the wedding invitations myself and printed them up at a local copy shop. The invitations including postage cost about $25.00.

So total cost = 90.00

Not bad and I'm sure our type of wedding isn't perfect for everyone, but for a couple of old free-spirited hippies like us it was perfect!

They say that little girls start planning their weddings almost as soon as they learn to talk. Would a used wedding dress spoil the fairy tale? Or is the love and marriage more important that the dress? Or should the bride be able to have everything exactly the way she always dreamed? Lets debate it!

Would You Wear A Pre-Owned Wedding Gown?

Jojo And Mel-mel

We used this adorable photo of my youngest son Jojo with my Maid of honor's daughter Mel-mel.

These two were the most amazingly photogenic children together.

We actually used different photos of these two in their play wedding outfits, for all of the different cards, from the shower invite to the thank you cards.

We still think they perfectly represented our free-spirited hippie personalities.

Hidden Falls

On the day of our wedding we first went to our favorite nature spot here in the Highland Park area of St. Paul, Minnesota. It's a little hidden park on the Mississippi River called Hidden Falls.

We went with just my Mom and Dad as well as our best man and maid of honor. We took lots of really fun photos and had a really great time.

We also got a good head start on the party aspect of the wedding!

More Celebrating before the Ceremony

After taking photos at the park, we still had some time to kill before the ceremony.

So of course we went to the bar!

We played some pool and had a few beers to loosen up a bit before the actual wedding.

Mostly we just had a whole lot of fun!

Check out those snazzy Chucks Hightops the bride is sporting!

Where we actually Got Married!

We had fun everywhere we went!

Our little group met up with more of the family at the court house. Scott's parents, my brother Rock and my Grandma Murphy were among the guests at our small court room ceremony.

Scott of course turned the court room into party central, and was so funny that soon the Judge was joining in the fun.

After the ceremony Scott's Parents took us all out to dinner.

The party continued on long after the ceremony.

We all went to a fancy dinner and drinks, where a few more family members joined the party.

I really don't have a lot to say, because the photos remember more of it than I do.

By this point we had been partying all day long, all I know for sure is that it was a really good time!

We had the reception on a different day.

We actually had our wedding reception on a whole different day. It was a really fun potluck style picnic at a park in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, which is my hometown.

I come from a very large extended family, we had over 300 people at our last family reunion. So the big park with playground and swimming beach was perfect for our reception.

Lot of my friend and family are musicians, so there was even live music. That is me singing with Tommy on the bottom.

There was mountains of food and all of our friends and family came to play in the sunshine with us and celebrate our marriage.

Another party that we remember very little of, but we've been told that we had a great time, and people are still talking about our wedding almost 14 years later.

Not bad for spending less than a hundred bucks!