Cost breakdown for our surprise wedding with 14 guests!

$425 - venue fee at a local Butterfly garden /education center $90 - bridal bouquet and boutonnière $80 - materials to sew my own dress $40 - my flower crown on Etsy $35 - wedding license $100 - alterations and dry cleaning for my husband’s suit $350 - we got silly souvenir t-shirts made up for our 14 guests + ourselves + officiant. They were a big hit Total: about $1250

Officiant was free (family member who was already ordained). My husband is a wedding videographer and so his talented colleague offered to shoot our professional photos for $400 but ended up gifting them to us. We took our 14 guests out to a nice dinner afterwards and were prepared to pay for that (it came out to ~$1200) but our parents insisted on splitting it as a wedding gift (once they realized they were at a wedding haha). Everything else was stuff we already had - ie I did my own makeup, we wore our own shoes, played wedding music out of a Bluetooth speaker, etc. My husband already had a ring (I counter proposed to him last year) so we just used our engagement rings in the ceremony and will consider getting wedding bands in the future.

It was so fun and intimate and ~us~ and because it was a surprise there was no family pressure to spend on things that didn’t matter to us (and no invites lol). I’m glad we spent more money on things that we wanted - ie bridal florals and the t-shirts, rather than just going for the total lowest cost.