A wedding at home is one of the coziest wedding styles ever. Whether in your living space, backyard, pool area, or other properties; you control your space. And with the ability to control your space comes the highest form of intimacy.
Your guest attendance is strict, your wedding is more meaningful, and you save more! However, this comes with a lot of consideration. Planning a home wedding involves logistics like transport, neighbors, photos, toilets, weather, and more. You want to ensure that everything is well sorted out to pull off a magnificent home wedding.
This post aims to answer all your questions and show you the ropes to planning weddings at home. Read on to find the best ideas for weddings at home.
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Brides Often Ask
Can I get married at my house?
Yes, you can. However, to hold civil weddings at home, you must complete the paperwork at the registry beforehand. Then a celebrant can join you in an intimate ceremony at home. Alternatively, your home can become a legal wedding venue if you’re granted a temporary license to wed there.
What is the cheapest way to do a wedding?
You can have the cheapest weddings at home or virtually. This way, the money for the venue is either conserved or put to good use. A home or virtual wedding saves you from a bloated guest list. You can also skip the wedding party, expensive decor, food, and floral arrangements.
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Main Things To Consider
Like we said earlier, there are things to consider before hosting small weddings at home. We’ve discussed the most important factors below.
Will your whole wedding take place at home?
This will depend on your preference and budget. You can choose to have your ceremony and reception in one place or separately.
If you’re having everything in one place, section your home to accommodate activities. Map out the dressing room, photo spot, ceremony, reception, cocktail areas, and everything else. If you’ll have the ceremony elsewhere, set up the reception before leaving.
Guest list
Avoid a bloated guest list and invite only people who truly mean the most to you. If you love pet animals, have the guests bring theirs to make a colorful wedding. Adopt family-style dining if you’ve got the space.
Serve homemade food or you can have a caterer deliver finger foods to go with drinks from your bar.
You can also check this FREE Download: Guest Checklist
Transport
Inform your guests in the invites about car parking spaces. This will help them decide whether to drive or not. If there’s no parking space, make provision for transport and tell them of the location. The transport mode could be taxis, coaches, limos, or anything fancy. It should be able to take them from their homes to the venue, and back.
The Neighbors
There’ll be new faces and noise in your neighborhood, so courtesy demands you notify neighbors. If you’re close to them and can accommodate, invite them to the wedding. If you aren’t close or can’t accommodate, send polite notes, good drinks, and contact numbers of someone to call.
Expert tips: Send thank-you notes and some homemade cookies to them after the wedding.
Weather
The seasons of the year greatly impact weddings at home, so be well prepared. For outdoor weddings in the wet months, have tents, heaters blankets, and umbrellas ready. For the hot months, hire fans and air-conditioners.
Expert tips: The natural air is also very essential at this time to cool guests. Purchase sunscreen and insect repellents if you have gardens in your home.
The photos
Home photoshoot differs from conventional venues. The photographer must be conversant with the home shooting. You know your house better, so show them the best places. Tell them why the photo spots in your home are significant to your family.
Expert tips: Tell the photographer what look you’re trying to achieve in your pictures. All of this information will help enhance the photographer’s creativity.
The Entertainment
Choose a soundproofed area in your home for music and dance, or handout earpieces. This will cut down noise pollution. Entertain guests with board games, table tennis, and card games. Choose a theme for your photo booth where guests can have a swell time.
Expert tips: Hire acrobats, magicians, or have your guests join the fun activity of planting flowers in your garden.
The Ceremony
For your marriage to be legally binding, you must complete the paperwork at the registry before the wedding. When you’ve done this, an officiant can join you in a private home ceremony.
Expert tips: Alternatively, if your home structure can accommodate at least six people, you can file for a temporary wedding license. This makes your home a temporary legal wedding venue.
The Hair and Makeup
Contact your glam squad and ask for their requirements to turn you into a vision. Chances are that they will require natural or steady lighting, sockets, and plugs for their machines. They will need high chairs and makeshift wardrobes, space, and more. For these reasons, convert one of your rooms into a dressing you, and allow only authorized-person entry.
The Toilets
If your guest count is above ten, hire mobile toilets. This will save you the stress of cleaning up a messy home post-wedding. Equip the toilets with water, air fresheners, toilet soaps, hand-wash basins, mirrors, and tissues.
Expert tips: For more guest convenience, include emergency kits, body sprays, tampons, combs, lip gloss, lipsticks, and towels.
Pros And Cons
While it’s fun to host indoor or outdoor weddings at home, they’re not without their pros and cons. To prepare you better, check out the listed advantages and disadvantages below.
Pros
- More relaxed celebration
Hosting a wedding celebration at home is relaxing for the host because they’re in their space. Again, there’s no restriction on how much personal touch or change that the host chooses to leave on their homes. - Frees Up Budget
After food, the venue takes the biggest chunk of the budget. Getting married in your home saves you the venue money. You can save it, channel it to giving the guests a good time, or go on your dream honeymoon. - Meaningful location
Our homes hold memories, good or bad. Choosing to marry in your home means that you love it. A wedding in your home puts you in the warm embrace of a family who has been and who is with you. This may also mark the beginning of ancestral homes. - You can rent everything
Practically everything is available for rent from tables to linens, flowers, speakers, and more. You don’t have to buy or keep things that you don’t need.
Cons
- Permits
In a real sense, private homes are not legalized wedding venues either for ceremonies or reception. So you must consult your local government council, know what gives and complete the necessary paperwork. - Property Damaged
Homes are private properties that contain personal items. In the event of a wedding, things are bound to get lost or damaged. Consult your home insurance to see how much it covers and review it if necessary. - Clean up
While the wedding is ongoing, deposit waste bins strategically around the house. However, your home will still be a mess. So put some money away to hire a cleaning company after the wedding.
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Decor Ideas
Having a wedding at home requires a total house retouch. Discover decor ideas that can help you pull off a beautiful home venue.
Floral strings
Floral strings are beautiful flowers lined on strings for aesthetic decor appeal. They can be artificial or real flowers; bought or DIY.
You can fix these colorful floral strings at your entrance, arch, bar areas, or photo booth.
Expert tips: If you opt for real flowers, choose orchids and roses for fall and winter. For summer and spring, Gerber daisies and dahlias are best.
Chair Tags
Adorn your chairs with handmade chair tags, a complete fun DIY task. The purchase card stock that matches your color scheme and has them calligraphed with your initials and wedding date.
Expert tips: Another great material is plywood from which you can carve letters representing your initials. Make them more colorful with garlands of ferns, eucalyptus, and baby’s breath.
Green And Plants
For rustic, country, tropical, and farm style weddings, green and plants are great decor additions.
Expert tips: Get pots of cactus, pampas, and palms for your lounge, living area, and patio.
If you have a backyard, then there’s no limit to how much it can take. Supplement them with vases of fern, pampas, and marigolds to give a colorful wedding backdrop.
Boxes and rustic items
Bring the cozy rustic vibe into your home with cedarwood boxes and rustic items. These rustic items include wooden slabs, lace and hessian, greenery and foliage, lanterns, and more.
Expert tips: Set your boxes at the gift tables for guests to drop their good wishes. If it waxes, keep another at the toilet entrance loaded with essentials. Cover your tables in lace and use foliage as tall centerpieces surrounded by lanterns.
Cushion And Seating Decor
For laid back minimalist or modern industrial chic weddings, it doesn’t get cuter than cushion decor.
Expert tips: Buy crepe and make them into cushions and seating covers. Design them with lace, ruffles, or sequins at the edges. If you’re very artsy, your initials on them inside a heart sign. These cushion covers will become keepsakes because they’re priceless.
Centerpieces
- For a rustic wedding, create centerpieces out of tall creeping greens and candle lighted mason jars.
- Light up a bohemian wedding with succulent filled terrarium centerpieces.
- For country styled weddings, strategically place your vintage teacups and saucers rose-filled vases. These little additions bring warmth to the ambiance around your home.
Candles
Candles bring warmth and beauty to the wedding ambiance. There are different types of candles like a votive, tart, pillar, tea light, tapered, and container candles. Place them along the aisle for your ceremony. For the reception, put them at the entrance, lounge, dessert, and dinner table.
Expert tips: If you intend for your guests to relax, purchase scented ones. Options include Citron Blossom Cassis, Huckleberry Sugar Blossom, Water Lily, and more. These are especially perfect for intimate whimsical weddings.
Dreamcatchers
For the classic boho or whimsical vibe, hang up dreamcatchers to give the intimate feel. This is best for outdoor weddings in your backyard, lawn, and garden, or pool area. If you’re having your ceremony at home, even better.
Expert tips: Hang them over your wedding arch and bring alive the free spirit. The look is ethereal and fulfilling.
Glass And Bottles For Photobooth
Create a stunning photo backdrop with floating glasses and bottles. Sort out all those mismatched wine bottles in your kitchen or storage. You don’t have to buy them and their diverse colors serve your purpose.
Expert tips: Fill these bottles and glasses with stemmed flowers, succulents, and plants. Hang these items above your photo booth but low enough for them to show in pictures. They lend a stunning background to modern weddings.
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Virtually Wedding Plan (live stream)
For a more intimate setting, couples have adopted virtual home weddings without guests. If you’re going to have a virtual wedding, consider the following.
- Use good equipment
To successfully host a virtual home wedding, you have to make sure your equipment is correct. Get a new device with great photo and video quality. Make sure the battery is charged fully. Purchase a tripod stand to place the phone or use shelves and tables. Practice days before the wedding so that there’d be no hitch. - Think about light
Be informed that social media apps will distort your video quality. For daylight weddings, have your ceremony in a well-lit room. Set your spot across the window, never backing it. This casts a bright, soft glow on you. If you’re a wedding at night, use floor lamps to cast a warm glow. Another lighting option is the professional ring light to help you get stunning pictures. - Think about the time zone
Your sleep time is another person’s work time. For this reason, consider the time zones when choosing the time for your wedding. If your guests will be attending the virtual wedding from around the world, including a time that works for your invites. - Send instruction for your Guests
The truth is that a lot of people are not tech-savvy, especially the older generation. So, whether you’d use Instagram, Google hangout, stack, skype, Facebook, or WhatsApp; instruct them. They’ll need to learn how to turn on the video, switch to landscape, mute, or turn on their mics and all that. Remind them to practice. - Save the record
Recording and saving your wedding video is a memorable keepsake. Also, it serves as a beautiful e-thankyou gift to everyone who tuned in. If anyone missed your wedding, they also get the privilege of watching it.
Having a wedding at home is both intimate and budget-friendly. Couples want to spend less while sharing the day with themselves or their best persons. So they opt for small weddings at home or go fully virtual. But there are things to consider, and we’ve discussed the most important factors. From guests to transport, decor, pros, cons, and virtual guidelines; we’ve got you covered.
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