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Our Wedding Ceremony in Switzerland on a Budget!

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)

No, I am not writing the same post twice! You may remember that we got married in Switzerland in May. At that time, we did a small civil wedding with my close family, followed by a small party at our place, joined by some of my friends. We did not have much time, so we decided to do something really simple.

However, many of our friends and family could not come. So we decided to throw a bigger party to have more people join us. In this article, I share what we did for our wedding. It was a great time for our guests and us!

On a boat!

We started our wedding only the two us with the photograph for some pictures next to a lake.

Pictures of The Poor Swiss Couple next to the lake
Pictures of The Poor Swiss Couple next to the lake

The photograph took quite a few nice pictures from there.

The Poor Swiss couple
The Poor Swiss couple

We rented a boat from the restaurant to take us from one side of the lake to the other. The boat driver came to pick us. He made a small tour with the photograph as well before we left again alone with the driver.

Mrs The Poor Swiss on a boat
Mrs. The Poor Swiss on a boat

We had quite a nice view from the boat on the mountains. It was a beautiful day to take pictures :)

Beautiful view from the boat on our wedding
Beautiful view from the boat on our wedding

We made a nice entrance at the wedding.

Arriving on a boat at our wedding
Arriving on a boat at our wedding

From there, we went directly to the restaurant.

Our ceremony

Our best man and maid of honor prepared us a small ceremony. It was very funny and informal. With a talk from people from my family.

Arrival at the ceremony
Arrival at the ceremony

We had a Star Trek ceremony :P

Our wedding ceremony
Our wedding ceremony

We exchanged our vows and rings again.

Mr and Mrs The Poor Swiss exchanging vows
Mr. and Mrs. The Poor Swiss exchanging vows

After around 20 minutes of a nice ceremony, we went back through the aisle under a rain of flower petals.

Walking back through the aisle
Walking back through the aisle

Overall, it was a very nice ceremony. Even though it was organized in a small time, it was really good and people seemed to like it :)

Wedding aperitif

We then on to have a wedding aperitif with our guests.

Our wedding aperitif
Our wedding aperitif

There was some nice drinks, soft drinks, and alcohol. And some nice food as well. It was quite good!

Our wedding aperitif food
Our wedding aperitif food

We also took the opportunity to take group pictures with all the people from our guests.

Group picture of our wedding
Group picture of our wedding

We had quite a lot of pictures and we are quite happy with the pictures our photographer took.

Our wedding dinner

After the aperitif, we continued with the dinner. Everything was organized by the restaurant, we did not have to plan for the service. We chose and tasted the entire dinner before of course. Since we only took the photograph for the first part of the ceremony, the quality of the picture is decreasing ;)

Our wedding dinner main dish
Our wedding dinner main dish

The dinner was really good. After the starter and the main dish, some of my friends and family did some animation. Then, the restaurant served our dessert.

Our wedding dessert
Our wedding dessert

It was really a good dinner and the dessert was excellent.

After-dinner party

After the party, we had a small dance. First me and Mrs. The Poor Swiss. Let’s be honest, especially her and I was just helping a bit :P And then, a few people joined us. Unfortunately, the pictures at this time are getting worse. It seems even Chinese cannot take good pictures after midnight :P

Dancing at our wedding
Dancing at our wedding

After 1am, the first people started to leave. We then went on until 3 am, at which point the restaurant was closing. We took back our stuff and went back home with our driver (my brother :P).

How much did we pay for our wedding?

On average, Swiss couples spend between 30’000 CHF and 40’000 CHF on their wedding. That number is absolutely nuts for me. Before researching it, I would never have thought it would be that high.

Personally, we spent much less than the average. We spend 5500 CHF for this wedding ceremony. It is less than one-sixth of the average for a couple. We chose a restaurant instead of renting a full venue. And we also took a hobby photographer instead of a professional one. Finally, we organized the ceremony ourselves with two friends. And Mrs. The Poor Swiss did most of the decorations herself. When we put all this together, it is quite a lot of money that we saved. Even if 5500 is not very frugal, for the ceremony that we did, it is great :) Entirely worth it!

Most of our cost was for drinks and food. We spent 5200 CHF in the restaurant. This includes aperitif and dinner. All the drinks are also included in the bill. That makes quite a few liters of beer ;) The boat tour cost us 250 CHF, included in the same bill since the boat belongs to the restaurant. I think it was a great decision to do it in a restaurant. They left us a lot of liberty to use the outside for the ceremony. And they also made a lot of room inside the restaurant once the other guests left. It really did not bother us to have other persons in the restaurant. For about 50 guests, this account to around 100 CHF per person. But, for the dinner that we had and all the drinks and aperitif, I think it is a good price.

We did not pay anything for the ceremony. We organized it with our best man and maid of honor. They did a great job. When we searched for organizers, we found out that a ceremony would be around 1000 CHF. Then we decided to do it ourselves.

We paid 200 CHF for a photographer. We found out a hobby photographer that did a great job for the pictures. Paying a professional photographer would have cost us close to 1000 CHF for the time we took it.

Wedding decorations by Mrs The Poor Swiss
Wedding decorations by Mrs. The Poor Swiss

We paid only about 100 CHF for the decorations. Indeed, all the decorations were hand-made by Mrs. Poor Swiss that did a wonderful job. Her maid of honor also helped in providing some flowers and some extra decorations. This saved a lot of money. And the result is great :)

Wedding decoration names
Wedding decoration names

Conclusion

Overall, it was a great day. And we really had a lot of fun. Since there was not too many people we had time to discuss with many people there. It was a great idea for us to make a simple funny ceremony with our best man and maid of honor instead of a complicated, and expensive, ceremony. We had very good feedback from our guests and they seemed to have fun :)

Moreover, we did manage to keep it under a manageable budget. We spend around 5500 CHF for our wedding. Which is way below the national average. We could have spent even less probably, but we are more than happy with the day. And that is what counts!

I am a bit ashamed to say that I did not do enough of the planning. Indeed, Mrs. Poor Swiss can confirm that my motivation for planning was not the best. She did more than me, bringing in new ideas and improving the party. She is much better at this than me!

If you want to organize a wedding on a budget, here are 11 tips to make an awesome wedding with a low budget.

How was your wedding? What would you have done differently?

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Baptiste Wicht started thepoorswiss.com in 2017. He realized that he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. This blog is relating his story and findings. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. You can send Mr. The Poor Swiss a message here.

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12 thoughts on “Our Wedding Ceremony in Switzerland on a Budget!”

  1. I was able to do my wedding for 1100 CHF. We rented a refuge and prepared the food with the help of our families. All food was from Leader Price from France, but we celebrated in Lausanne. I guess because we did the shopping in France (mind you, it was two full caddies and a half), that we managed to stay on sucj a very tight budget!

    1. Hi TR,

      Congratulations on keeping it your wedding so frugal! 1100 CHF is a great price for a wedding. And congratulations on organized all the cooking and groceries yourself! This is impressive!

      Thanks for sharing!

  2. Congratulations with the great celebration. if your guests and most importantly your wife is happy, there’s nothing to complain about. The money spend is quickly forgotten. You made the right choices. it’s better to spend more money on a great honeymoon. Wish you all the best as a couple and will keep on following.

  3. Mr.Poor Swiss has done the most important part! And Mrs.Poor just doing some dumb little things. And we make it together perfect 👏👏👏👏

      1. Hi Mr.Poor Swiss, you had a beautiful wedding, would you mind sharing the name of the restaurant?
        Thanks
        MD

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