If you want to feed your 40 guests all together, your best bet would be to book a big-enough restaurant for set courses or a buffet at around CHF50 per head, plus some bottles of bubbly or wine for the toast. (Ethnic rather than Swiss cuisine could be cheaper and exotic to boot.)
Do your own makeup or ask a skillful friend.
If you must have lots of flowers, make arrangements with a flower farmer and buy directly from him or her.
Most importantly, hope you and your other half enjoy yourselves. Congrats!
You see, if you do a standard timed wedding (i.e. 2pm ceremony / 6pm reception), you NEED to feed the guests. Trying to skimp on that results in guests leaving hungry and discontent. But if you make it original and unique, you can really avoid the meal times altogether.
Some couples opt for a 10am ceremony and 11am brunch (all photos afterwards) but my absolute favourite is the Dessert Soiree.
Ceremony - 7pm
Dessert & Champagne Reception to follow immediately
Desserts are far cheaper than real food and you can really do it up. I would use all sorts of cake platters, pedestals and fancy servingware to create different levels with the cakes, tortes, chocolates, squares, pies, cupcakes, fruit, and whatever else you desire. This transforms a few 8' buffet tables into a decadent masterpiece. Throw a chocolate fondue in the middle of it all and you're good to go!
Now, the only trick to this is that with an evening reception like that, you MUST do the photos beforehand. Some brides have a problem with that because they want their hubby to see them for the first time while they walk down the aisle but I'm telling you that you really miss out on the raw emotion by saving that first glance for the aisle. The couples I worked with would set up a special private meeting time for just them and the photographer a few hours before the ceremony. The photographer was able to capture the extremely emotional moment of your fiance seeing you for the first time...very intimate and way more personal than at a distant while the photographer is struggling to capture you walking down an aisle and your hubby's reaction at the same time (almost always gets missed). Plus, the walking down the aisle is STILL walking down the aisle!
Anyway, hope that gives you some ideas to play with. Good luck!
N.
I think pushing a reception into the 5 o'clock hour is dinner-ish but then again, we've all seen how little I know about when you crazies eat dinner!! LOL
N.
I recently organized a party in Zurich and spent some time looking into inexpensive venues.
Some ideas:
Some of the gemeinschaftszentrum (community centers) are nice http://www.gz-zh.ch/ . They are very cheap and have many different room styles (between 150-400 CHF).
Forest huts are cute, some you can even drive to. Very swiss, and super cheap!: http://www.sentiero.ch/de76_waldhuetten.htm Make all the noise you want, build a bonfire, etc. This is my idea of a fun wedding, but maybe not yours.
This website lists rooms to rent in CH: http://www.raum4you.ch/
I saw that this room (min 2,200 CHF) is available between now and December 2009: http://www.mobile-cuisine.ch/#101,19 . It is very pretty and central.
I looked into renting someplace like Les Halles ( http://www.les-halles.ch/pages/bankette.html ) and it was 11- 13,000 CHF... yikes.
We got yummy finger foods for 400 CHF from http://libanaise.ch/index.htm .
Easy place to order drinks from (they deliver and pick up the bottles): http://www.intercomestibles.ch/
Most importantly, have fun and save your money.
Congrats!
I have been to two parties here- its on a farm- in Zurich! Great for a kid's party or casual thing.
Don't buy a wedding dress, Do get something pretty and nice to wear again. (if you MUST have a wedding dress, get last year's model, cheaper and NO ONE will know.)
Do get a photographer
Don't cater ~ Do ask your friends to help you. (most people are really willing to help keep the wedding under budget. sandwiches are a fantastic way to feed a lot of people for a smaller budget. my husband and I had a little reception a few days ago and that's what we did, )
Don't serve alcohol ( or, do and don't bother with giving drunk people food )
Don't bother giving party favors, people always throw them away, and then not only is it just more garbage in the trash bins, but it's time and money tossed out.
Do be creative. Most weddings are the same, and everyone will remember YOURS if you and your sweetheart do something "out of the box".
Renting a room from the town sounds really nice, or perhaps you can get married in a park? No decorating, the trees are turning colors now and that's much nicer then anything in a building.
I can't help you with any real solid ideas because I don't know Basel. Sorry!!
We wanted a small, intimate, personal wedding which is informal, fun and one that we hope everyone will remember. We have only invited immediate family members and close friends (why would we want ppl we never see?). This has only been possible with the help of our friends and family, instead of buying gifts they have pitched in and helped. Also, i'm 6 months pregnant so everyone was willing to help
We've hired a cottage in a Swiss mountain village where everyone if they choose can sleep for a small cost which pretty much 20 guests have prefered over the hotel option. The night before the wedding we're having a fondue party (mainly for UK family and friends to experience a Swiss tradition) which my future mother in law is paying for, in the morning a brother in law will pick up croissants, bread etc from the local bakery for breakfast. The wedding is at the local registry office, after the ceremony a local cafe will serve a champagne lunch (finger foods) for 15F per person and then we head up to the cottage for a pig roast reception (pig is 300F).
Also in the price is our outfits, rings, 7 seater car hire, i'm going to buy a long smart dress maybe in white and my sister is bringing jewellery for me to borrow. I've bought new make-up which I will do myself with help from my sister and mum. A brother in law is a fantastic photographer with a professional camera, so he'll do the photographs. We've asked everyone who's drinking not to bring wedding presents but to bring alcohol instead. My Mum is baking and decorating the cake and a few family members are bringing salads to the pig roast.
I'll let you know if it's a disaster .........or success
BTW I should point out that this is a small, personal, budget wedding before the baby arrives and we're renewing our vows in a couple of yrs in either Switzerland or UK with a bigger wedding or another small one, we'll see.
Everyone loved the fact that it was unique, personal, informal with a holiday feel. Everyone helped out with the food, the weather was good and people bought far too much alcohol with them that we had to give it away at the end and it all came in at under 5000F.
We were very happy with it and are starting to wonder if we need our second wedding because we can't think of much we would have done differently
Congratulations! Great to hear that it all went so well.
one thing everyone loved was the favors we gave out- i loved them too!
we took the boat to evian one day and found a box full of post cards written back and forth between sweethearts from about 1915 and 1940. the pictures on them were beautfiul and the notes were really funny, sweet and touching. so i took them and made small notebooks out of them- everyone loved them and we liked it because it was like bringing a bit of switzerland back to all our friends and family! so many ways to save on a wedding and actually it ends up making the wedding more special because of it!