A backyard wedding looks like the cheapest option and frequently is not. The venue is free; the plumbing, power, flooring, lighting, parking and shelter are not. Done with clear eyes it is the most personal wedding there is — done naively it is a very expensive lesson in generator hire.
In this guide
- The real cost of a free venue
- Infrastructure, in the order you should book it
- The garden itself needs a schedule
- Decor that suits a garden
- Rain, and the decision you must make in advance
- The neighbourly details
The real cost of a free venue
Budget $4,000 to $9,000 for infrastructure at fifty to eighty guests: marquee or tent, flooring, tables, chairs, linen, glassware, lighting, a generator, and portable bathrooms. That is before food. Compare it honestly against a venue quote — sometimes the backyard wins, often it ties, occasionally it loses.
Where it always wins is control. Your timeline, your music, your end time, your dog in the photographs.
Infrastructure, in the order you should book it
- Marquee or tent — book first, they sell out in summer
- Bathrooms — one unit per 40 guests, and pay for the good ones
- Power — total the caterer's, band's and lighting draw before hiring a generator
- Flooring — grass ruins heels and turns to mud after rain
- Parking or a shuttle — and warn the neighbours in writing
The garden itself needs a schedule
Mow four days before, not the day before — fresh cuttings stain hems. Start any planting two months ahead so it looks established. Trim anything overhanging where guests will sit, and deal with wasps' nests a fortnight out.
Walk the space at your ceremony time of day and note where the sun actually is. Guests should never face into it, and neither should you.
Decor that suits a garden
Work with what is already there. Festoon lights overhead do more than any centrepiece. Long trestle tables with linen runners, greenery down the middle, mismatched candles in hurricane jars, and a welcome sign at the gate so nobody wanders into the wrong garden.
Keep signage weatherproof — acrylic and dibond survive dew and a shower; paper on an easel does not.
Rain, and the decision you must make in advance
Set a decision time — usually 9am on the day — and a named person who makes the call. Have the wet plan drawn: which room hosts the ceremony, where the marquee sides go, who moves the chairs. Hire tent sides even in July; the cost is small and the alternative is a hundred people under a gazebo.
The neighbourly details
Tell neighbours the date and the end time weeks ahead, and check your local noise ordinance rather than guessing. Hire a clean-up crew for the following morning — nobody wants to strip a marquee hungover. Budget for the lawn to need reseeding afterwards.
From Sagevow
Everything on this list that gets printed — invitations, welcome sign, menus, place cards, seating chart — can be ordered in one matched palette so nothing clashes on the day.
