Just engaged? Have you considered a micro wedding or elopement as the best way to bring all of your wedding daydreams to life?
If you just got engaged, huge congratulations! You’ll want to enjoy that magical “just engaged” feeling, revelling in your love and commitment to one another at this special time. We’re sure that your thoughts are already turning towards your wedding day dreams and how to make them a reality. Much as starting to think about your wedding plans is super-exciting, we understand that it can be quite daunting when you start investigating all the different options available for your special day. There’s a plethora of information from social media, wedding websites, magazines, podcasts and not to mention advice and recommendations from friends and family.
There’s also so many things to consider – What style dress will you choose? Will you have bridesmaids, and if so, who will they be? What is your idea of the perfect wedding venue setting? Do you want a cool modern vibe or a country chic vibe? Will you have a decadent 5-course wedding meal and wine flight culminating in the cutting of an Instagram-able cake? Or a more relaxed BBQ style feast al fresco, followed by dancing in bare feet round a fire pit into the small hours?
With seemingly unending sources of wedding day inspiration and ideas, and so many decisions to make, knowing where to start can be challenging. We recommend that a good place to start, and to bear in mind throughout your wedding journey, is to remember it’s your day, no one else’s. Keeping this focus will help the two of you to clarify your thoughts and ideas in terms of how you want your wedding experience to look and feel and, just as importantly, how much you want to spend.
Let’s acknowledge up front that money is by no means romantic, but with that said, getting into debt or struggling to pay for something big only stores up stress for the two of you down the line which is far from the ideal start in married life. Checking the facts, we found that the average wedding in the UK costs around £32,000 (Source: Hitched.co.uk 2019), that’s more that the average annual wage in the UK which was £31,461pa for a similar time period (Source: gq-magazine.co.uk April 2020). It’s little wonder that an increasing number of couples in the UK are seeking alternatives to a traditional 100-200 guest wedding, a move that heralds the rise of the micro-wedding and the re-imagining of elopement weddings.
The appealing draw of micro-weddings and elopements
Never have micro weddings and elopements been so popular, and for good reason. But is this trend driven purely by money, or is there more to it than that? What is it that’s so appealing about these smaller weddings for the couples who choose them?
Let’s start by defining terms:
A micro-wedding is a wedding ceremony and celebration with a smaller number of guests than you might expect to see at a traditional wedding, typically this can be anything from 10 – 40 people. The smaller guest list allows every guest to feel fully involved and invested in the wedding day, creating a beautifully supportive environment where couples have the luxury of time to speak to all their guests and enjoy everyone’s company on their special day.
A modern-day elopement wedding is very different to the furtive dashes across the border to Scotland that historically allowed couples to get married without their parents’ permission. Romantic and daring as it sounds, these old-style elopements bear little resemblance to the beautifully intimate, carefully thought through and always emotionally charged elopement-style weddings we see couples who marry at Brickhouse Vineyard creating. Some couples choose to come on their own and we are honoured to act as their witnesses, others bring 2–4 guests who act as witnesses and join them in celebrating their wedding.
Micro-weddings and elopements have one very important feature in common – both provide cost effective ways to achieve your perfect wedding day without compromising on the quality or scope of your wedding experience or memories.
We’d like to let you in on a secret – the cost of a wedding is pretty much based on the number of guests you have. This is because it determines all the largest cost considerations i.e. size and type of venue you need and how much food and drink you’ll need, as well as adding incremental costs in for things like invitations, favours, table and chair rental, transport, slices of cake and accommodation if you’re planning on providing this for your guests. The reality is that you can enjoy a significantly more luxurious, unique, personal and decadent experience in a smaller wedding celebration for say for 10, with a budget of £5000 (£500 per head) than you could for a wedding for 200 with a budget of £30,000 (£150 per head). Why not forget life-changing sums of money being spent on your wedding, and think about a wedding-improving reduction in numbers instead?
Micro-weddings and elopements are never a compromise in our experience. In fact, we see the couples choosing this route as a trade up and benefiting from:
- Reduced stress as a smaller wedding means that logistics are simpler, and this saves time and reduces risks of things going wrong.
- No agonising or arguing over the guest list and feeling duty bound to invite (and pay for!) long lost relatives to attend and likely never be seen again. We suggest inviting your immediate family and best friends. Everyone else will understand as you are having a micro-wedding.
- Dream wedding day styling becomes a reality as there are smaller spaces and fewer tables to decorate. So, go ahead, message the awesome florist you spotted on Instagram and hire those quirky props you both loved in a magazine shoot. A little goes a long way in making a style statement at a small wedding or elopement!
- Break with tradition without fear of criticism. It’ll be just you two of you or you and your inner circle so you can feel confident that doing things your way will be embraced, be this dress code, styling choice, music or the structure of your day.
- No compromises. If you want an incredible cake, a show-stopping dress, outrageously wild floral designs you’ve seen on Pinterest or a particularly scrummy menu you want re-created for your wedding celebration then these are all likely to be possible when you celebrate on a smaller scale. In essence, fewer guests means you can spend your budget on the things you care about without breaking the bank.
Guests may be limited, but when it comes to your wedding day dreams, the sky’s the limit and the whole experience is set up to be more enjoyable from start to finish.
Micro weddings and elopements at Brickhouse Vineyard
We’d love to help you bring your wedding daydreams to life at Brickhouse Vineyard, and to that end we’ve created two very special packages for smaller scale weddings that are big on style:
Micro Weddings
Brickhouse Vineyard has always had micro-weddings at its heart. With this package you’ll have exclusive use of the two gorgeous and unique wedding spaces we’ve renovated with micro weddings in mind: the Round House and Barn, as well as the terrace with those stunning views and unique photography opportunities. These spaces work equally well for 10–40 people and provide a decadent and luxurious, yet relaxed backdrop to the perfect intimate wedding day.
Our six-hour exclusive hire micro-wedding package allows time for your legal wedding ceremony to be held in the Round House, celebration drinks with your guests on the terrace taking in the views, photography around the unique setting of the vineyard, your choice of wedding meal served in the Barn, followed by speeches, cutting the cake and your first dance, before carriages at 8pm. You can find out more here.
With both options you have free rein to decorate the Round House and Barn as you wish using your favourite florist and /or stylist, choose a live artist to play music for your ceremony or bring your own hand-picked playlist, and you’ll definitely want to ensure you have a fabulous photographer and videographer to capture your special day to remember forever and share with those you love afterwards. Let your imaginations run riot and bring your own special touches to your wedding and we’ll do all we can to help and support you on your journey.
Just because you choose a small wedding don’t feel you cannot go large. In fact, choosing a smaller wedding may be exactly the way to make your wedding daydreams come true.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss our range of wedding options suitable for smaller groups, or if you would like to visit us in person, feel free to book a viewing. We’d love to hear from you!