"Husband" and I decided to make it legal after living together for 5 years. Strict wedding budget of $1000. Pointers appreciated.

Good luck! We had a low-cost wedding, it can be done!

Just throwing out ideas:

Fhe food sounds great but 3 entrees from different themes is kind of overkill, maybe simplify the menu a little, meatballs are kind of a winter thing. And does the groom really want to spend the day grilling or can he delegate that to a buddy who would otherwise be bored?

Using all bottled drinks may not be the most cost-effective thing, and hand-mixed punch and lemonade would be more festive for a special occasion, but your mileage may vary.

I went to an elaborate wedding recently where no one except the bridal party realized the photographer flaked out at the last minute and so there were almost no really good shots of the thing. For heaven's sake, have a "Plan B" friend or family amateur lined up to pinch-hit or take extra shots in case of any problem with the photographer.

Rain plan: What is plan B if it rains, what is plan C is it storms really badly.

The bride should enjoy her day and not spend it and the preceding 2 days and nights wildly preparing food. People want to help, let them. Delegate. Have a team, where nobody is killing themselves. Do not make your own cake, do not be the chef, sous-chef, and scullery maid. Limit your role to planning and coordinating and maybe some make-way-ahead-and-freeze stuff. Maybe some family member is broke but can bake, you can ask them to do the cake according to the recipe you pick out, and have that be their gift.

Tablecloths; with so much lead time you can find some pretty cloth to make some out of, they could be floral as hell since you're skipping the real flowers, or find choice ones at resale shops, jazz up with ribbons, etc. It's not necessary, but it would lend a lovely air to the proceedings, and working ahead of time you can have something really nice instead of spending money on cheesy plastic throwaways or rentals.

/r/Frugal Thread