Diy wedding - where to start?!

[GingerRodgers]

I'd love to have a late afternoon/ early evening wedding preferably in a barn style building doing decorations/ organising food myself but where the hell do I start?! What do I google? Everything costs so much and I don't want fancy, I want to just celebrate us being married.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
We don't have much money and the venues all seem to be in excess of 5000 which I can't justify (and don't have!).
Thanks.

[hippoesque]

We're doing the same. Biggest coat I'm finding is hiring the bloody furniture! Just get the essentials sorted- in our case: food, drink, music and a nice dress Not bothering with favours, colour scheme's, champagne, pricey extras.

[scaevola]

Church hall or Scout hut are the places that spring to mind the would have a good size main room, a kitchen, enough loos, and possibly smaller side rooms. Plus likely to have a decent number of chairs and tables.

[RevealTheHiddenBeach]

Literally just google "village hall lincoln" or wherever you want to get married. There will be loads there, and then have a copy and paste email you can send to venues to ask about having a look, prices etc. Be prepared to pick up the phone (esp in devon/cornwall) as many of the more traditional halls check their email once a month, if ever, in my experience!

A village hall won't look quite as lovely as a barn, but it will be so much cheaper. We were quoted £2,500 for a barn, where we'd still need to hire the furniture. Instead, we're now hiring a not-exactly-pretty-but-nice-views-and-very-useable village hall, for £200, including all chairs and tables. For us, that was a no brainer, as even with spending another £600 to get the hall draped beautifully, it's still loads less than a barn.

[HelloDoris]

We're using the village hall in the next village along from us, as we're not residents in the village we pay £600 for Friday 6pm through to Sunday 12 noon. We have hired a caterer as we decided we didn't want the hassle of sorting food our ourselves. Drink we are providing and asking family and friends to help themselves. A good friend is doing our pictures as our wedding gift and a family member is doing the music.

only 5 weeks to go.. can't wait!

[GingerRodgers]

Brilliant idea about village hall! Hadn't thought of that so thank you.

[CatherineHMumsnet]

Just popping in to point you in the direction of our DIY wedding checklist

[Heels99]

Well worth hiring a wedding planner even if doing it yourself. For a relatively small fee they will take a lot of the stress off you they also have good contacts, can negotiate lower rates and may be able to lend you some decor at no or low cost

[GingerRodgers]

Thanks CatherineH, I'd never even thought to look there!