Hannah and Drew Williams got married in September 2025.Sara Anderson DavisHannah and Drew Williams got married in Southampton, New York, in September 2025.They managed to keep their wedding to about $21,000.A small guest list, thrifted decor, and DIY touches brought the day together.The average cost of weddings rises each year, like clockwork.Zola's Wedding Cost Index puts the average cost at $36,000 for 2026, while The Knot's Real Wedding Study lists it slightly lower at $34,200.Those numbers are high, but in reality, many couples are spending much more on their big days. Some have large guest lists, others want to splurge on flowers or decor, and many couples only have expensive venues available to them.Some couples, though, are managing to pull off their dream weddings for less, like Hannah and Drew Williams.Their intimate wedding cost a little over $21,000. Here's how they did it.Hannah Williams didn't expect to meet the love of her life when she moved to a new city.Sara Anderson DavisIn 2022, Hannah, now a 29-year-old mental health therapist, was ready for a change. She had spent her entire life on the East Coast, growing up in Southampton, New York, and attending school in Boston and New York City."After grad school, after COVID, I was like, 'Let me just try a new city,'" she told Business Insider. "I was like, 'If I don't leave now, I'll never leave.'"She decided to make a fresh start in Denver, telling herself she could always return home if it didn't work out. Hannah only knew one person in Denver, a friend from college, who eagerly introduced her to the community he had built in the city in the spring of 2022. One of those people was Drew Williams."It was nice that I got to meet him organically," Hannah said, adding that she quickly fell in love with how patient, thoughtful, and family-oriented Drew is.By the fall of 2024, they were engaged.They wanted their wedding to feel sentimental with retro touches.Sara Anderson DavisHannah and Drew agreed they wanted their wedding to feel intimate and personal."I'm very sentimental," Hannah said. "Every single thing in our house has a story to it. So I really wanted every single thing to mean something."Hannah is also passionate about vintage and thrifted decor, so she hoped to buy as much of their decor secondhand as she could. That personalized, vintage aesthetic led the couple to a small wedding, as did Hannah's thoughts on the planning process."I love big weddings," Hannah said. "But I am so type A to a fault, and I knew it would not be a fun process for me to do a big wedding. There's the seating chart of 300 people, the invitations, and all of this stuff. I knew that it would really take it out of me, so for our own benefit, I was like, 'I think that a smaller wedding might be really nice.'"They set their wedding date for September 19, 2025, and invited just 33 guests. They threw a more laid-back party with their friends in March 2026, so they still got to celebrate with everyone despite keeping their nuptials intimate."That was the best thing we could have done," she said. "For me to put all the planning and detail into it that I wanted to do, I knew that a smaller wedding was going to be more our vibe."The Williamses set their budget after talking to their parents.Sara Anderson DavisHannah and Drew were prepared to pay for their wedding themselves if necessary."We probably both could have put in $10,000 each, so $20,000 was our budget," Hannah said.However, their parents were all happy to support their nuptials financially, so they didn't have to spend as much of their own money."Our parents are all divorced, so we had four people that we were able to ask for money, which was helpful," she said.Each of their parents contributed $5,000 to their wedding fund for a total of $20,000. Hannah and Drew planned to rely on their parents' money for most of the wedding budget, but they knew they had their own funds as backup.They tied the knot in the Hamptons at a rental home.Sara Anderson DavisThe couple said their vows at a house Hannah said is a "stone's throw away from" her childhood home in Southampton, New York.They first considered getting married on the beach or at a park in town, but then Drew's mom sent them the listing for the Vrbo she was planning to rent for the wedding weekend in Towd Point.When Hannah and Drew saw photos of the property overlooking the bay, they were smitten. They received the Vrbo owner's approval to host their wedding there, and the couple went out of their way to ensure the event wouldn't disturb the neighboring homes, gifting them notes and bottles of wine.Because Drew's mother and her two siblings were staying at the Vrbo for the three days of the wedding weekend, the couple didn't include the venue cost in their wedding budget, though it cost around $3,000.The couple didn't have a traditional wedding setup.Sara Anderson DavisRather than having a ceremony followed by a reception, Hannah and Drew decided to set aside two hou
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