Get married at the same location as the reception. I don't see the point of paying money to rent a chapel for a 10 minute (or less) ceremony only to get in a car and drive to another paid-for location for the reception.

Better yet, if you own your home and have a large enough yard, get married there and spend the money you would have paid for a chapel, reception, flowers, etc. on landscaping. You can continue to enjoy the landscaping long after the wedding.

Getting married is a significant project... when shopping for clothing, cars, venues - do NOT tell anyone it is for a wedding.www.ycdress.com

It is possible to cut deals... I found a string quartet busking in a mall... offered them $400, and a month later we had them dressed in formal wear and playing for 3 hours !

Same deal with venue, leverage your contacts, I managed to secure an 80% discount at a 5 star+ Hotel ballroom...

I swapped my car (high end Audi) for a an SL500 Mercedes sedan for a weekend... ;-} we were both very happy - just had to re-fill the car..

You have a very understanding and thoughtful fiance, Zach. I was married a month ago and my wife and I went through the same thing.

We also needed to buy a house prior to the marriage, so we were very cost conscious.www.ycdress.com

We put together our guest list and then priced it out with some halls. Originally it was 135 people and the cost was growing to 30k. That was a hefty downpayment for the house, and both of us had problems parting with that kind of money for a 4 hour party.

What we actually did was cut all the guests out. Including us, the priest, and the photographer, we wound up being 42 people. Both my wife and I were tired of all the family and friends obligations. My parents wanted to invite some of their friends. And if we invited one couple, we'd have to invite 5. We dicided that it was our wedding. And since we were paying for it, we just wanted our closest family and friends to attend.

So basically here is how we got 30k down to 7k

- Got married on a Sunday (an off-day)
- Culled the guest list down to just our closest friends (the others fully understood)
- We bought the wine, champagne and beer ourselves
- We had our reception in a cozy restaurant. No band. Just a cozy atmosphere where you could actually sit down, talk and enjoy everybody's company.