As I’m in the midst of helping a very wonderful friend make her way down the aisle toward wedded bliss, I’ve been privvy to a few exclamations of, “That costs how much?*” It’s an expensive endeavor, to be sure: the average cost of a wedding in the United States was a whopping $28,400. Take heart, then, that a couple in Scotland managed to pull off a wedding and invite 70 guests for the low low price of £1, or about $1.56.

You’re probably thinking you could totally get married on such a tight budget — but the marvelous part of this story is that they managed to throw a party on the cheap. It’d be hard to throw a dinner party for a couple pals for that amount.

So how did they do it? Metro News in Scotland says the bride and groom made the party a potluck affair, asking guests to bring homemade dishes and their own personal booze stash.

It also helped that they had a giant barn in the backyard, so cross off “venue” from the list of expenses, and the bride’s mom officiated the ceremony. An aunt baked the wedding cake and also served as the photographer, the father of the bride played the jazz saxophone to entertain everyone, and the bride herself made the couple’s rings from antlers she found in the garden. Flowers? Picked in the countryside.

But what about The Dress? That’s where the £1 comes in: The bride bought her white gown off Freecycle.org. The groom wore an old tweed suit he already owned.

Of course, that’s how much the actual party cost — but of course you can’t just have a party and call it a wedding, so the couple had to shell out £70 for the marriage license. Still, £71 for a wedding ain’t shabby.

“The day is supposed to be about marrying the person you love. For us, that was all that mattered. We didn’t want or need a big, fancy affair,” explained the bride.

No explanation needed for deciding against spending thousands of dollars on one party.

*She actually is prone to spewing a series of expletives not fit for eyes, gentle readers.

Couple on a budget manage to organise £1 wedding [Metro News]

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