We told nobody. Booked a ticket to Hawaii, found a non-religous person who could officiate, hired a photographer, and had a little ceremony on the beach just for us two.
10/10, good memories, no regrets.
Still wasn't free though; creating an event even for just the two of us required money.
Our friends did a basic courthouse ceremony in town with a restaurant party afterwards, and they spent less than we did (if you count in the cost of of flight and hotel into it). Me and another friend did their wedding shots though.
My point is that even when you're not doing for others, weddings cost money for the same reasons that vacations do. Setting aside time and space for a group of people to have a good time together is very hard to do without running into expenses.
People in this thread saying they spent next to nothing on their wedding are like those who boast that their staycation cost $12 for the bottle of wine.
Saying that they decided not to celebrate getting married is a more straightforward way to say the same thing, which is fine.
But the "hurr durr you don't need all those expenses, my wedding cost $3.50 in court fees" signaling isn't any better than "We had to cut on everything and had a cheap wedding, in the $30,000-40,000 range". The latter isn't cheap, the former isn't what people would call having a wedding, and in both cases there's a surprise about other people not wanting the same thing as you do (whereas you, of course, did it the right way).
In the end of the day, if you want to spend a day in a certain way, and you spend your money to do it, then it's the right way for you to have a wedding and the right amount to spend on it.
The only important thing to not leave out is to have space, respect, and care for you and your own happiness in your own wedding, and have agency in how it all happens (you as in you AND your partner in all of the above).
And looks like that's exactly what you're doing with your plan. Congratulations on your marriage!
We did just that. Went to Vegas and got a city hall thing done. 25 years later, no one gives a toss about us not blowing $10k on a wedding. We bought a house with that money as a down payment.
>We did just that. Went to Vegas and got a city hall thing done. 25 years later, no one gives a toss about us not blowing $10k on a wedding. We bought a house with that money as a down payment.
Yeah, we had to put 10x as much for a downpayment for a townhouse in the Bay Area two years ago.
Let's say, saving on wedding to buy a house ain't working no more in this economy.
Our idea is to do the whole celebration thing in a few years. We'll renew our vows for an anniversary and do all the planning then.