- Asha Alaji-Sharif and Chris Huot from Atlanta had a Las Vegas wedding on a budget.
- The couple’s big day on February 3, 2023, came with few obligations for guests.
- There wasn’t a wedding cake, and guests brought their own alcohol to the reception.
Asha Alaji-Sharif, 23, and her now-husband Chris Huot, 25, connected on Instagram in May 2020 and met for the first time the next day.
Alaji-Sharif, who is a graphic designer and does photography on the side, told Insider she was a little weirded out at first as Huot had suggested they meet at his apartment for a photo shoot.
“This doesn’t seem very safe, but I mean, what else am I going to do?” she said she thought to herself before ultimately agreeing to meet up.
But the shoot went well and the couple, who are both from Atlanta, Georgia, began to date on June 13, 2020, she said.
Throughout the two years and two months they dated before getting engaged, Alaji-Sharif said she fell in love with him because he’s the kindest person she knows.
She said Huot knew she was a huge fan of “The Hunger Games” and proposed in front of the Swan House at Atlanta History Center, one of the filming locations for the movie franchise, in August 2022. They set their wedding date for February 3, 2023.
Originally, Alaji-Sharif wanted to elope as she’s never been a huge wedding person. “I just think that they’re ridiculously expensive,” she told Insider.
The couple bought a house in Atlanta in December 2022 and would rather spend money on their home than on a big wedding, Alaji-Sharif said.
They didn’t have a particular wedding budget in mind. “I just knew that I was not about to spend $1,000 on a dress,” she added.
She wanted the wedding to be fun, informal, and have a traditional Vegas vibe, she said. Excluding the outfits and food, the couple spent around $2,290 on the wedding. This included the venue, their hotel stay, and the wedding ceremony with around 60 guests.
Researching venues, Alaji-Sharif came across A Little White Chapel, which has a pink Cadillac and cost $95 for a reservation alongside a $5 fee. For this, couples get a non-religious 10-minute-long ceremony. It was perfect for her as she loves vintage things, she said.
They tipped the minister $80 according to a TikTok she shared on February 20 that has over 11,000 views. The venue’s website says tipping is encouraged.
Alaji-Sharif said they used air miles to buy a round-trip flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas for $180 each instead of the original $500.
They stayed at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino because it was pink and they knew they wanted their wedding to have a pink theme, she said.
Alaji-Sharif and Huot stayed from February 2 to February 5, 2023, and paid $500. When they booked the rooms, the hotel was having a special so it was a bit cheaper than usual, she added. They also set up a wedding block for other guests, which gave everyone, including them, 10% off.
They decided to have the wedding reception in a suite at the same hotel as it made it easier for the guests to get to, Alaji-Sharif said. The suite cost $600 for one night.
She said she thinks it was cheaper to have the wedding in February as it’s not a busy travel time for Las Vegas. “Most people are traveling from March to June, through the summer. It probably would’ve been a lot more expensive then,” she added.
Alaji-Sharif added that she estimates they spent $300-$400 on food and drink.
They created digital invites instead of mailing them out and also made a website, which made communication way easier and didn’t cost them anything, she said.
Instead of sending out mail-out invites, she used her skills as a graphic designer to invite their 60 guests, Alaji-Sharif said.
She also created a website that had all the information, such as the dress code which required guests to wear green, khaki, or tan attire with sunglasses. The dress code was quite strict, but there wasn’t much complaining from guests, Alaji-Sharif added.
“I figured it’d be an easy way to communicate,” she said of the website. There was also a mass text option, which guests could respond to and she could answer back in the app, rather than having a bunch of message threads, she added.
They spent around $850 for both of their outfits, including three dress changes for Alaji-Sharif.
For her wedding day, Alaji-Sharif wore a $300 puffy minidress from Selkie with a bralette underneath. “I’m very into the puffy baby-doll style dresses. I love the higher waist. I just think it’s cute and kind of timeless,” she told Insider.
She wore pink Steve Madden heels, which she bought on sale for $80, to go with the pink theme for the wedding weekend. She said she thought the color coordination with Huot’s suit was cute.
She wore a pink pearl necklace that her mom gifted to her for her college graduation and paired the look with pink sunglasses. “I’m a huge crier, I wanted something to supplement in case my makeup got ruined,” she said.
Alaji-Sharif did her own hair and makeup. For her hair, she chose to do a high ponytail with a pink bow she bought from Etsy for $20, she said. She chose not to wear a veil.
For her reception, she wore a $143 beaded Oh Polly co-ord.
Huot wore a $95 pink suit from Boohooman, $150 Dr. Martens shoes, and black sunglasses, she told Insider.
Alaji-Sharif had a bachelorette party the night before her wedding with all of the girls.
Alaji-Sharif said she didn’t have any bridesmaids as she thought that would’ve been complicated. For the bachelorette party, all the girls played games and chilled in her hotel room.
The couple’s families live across the United States, so it was cool that they all got to hang out and get to know each other, she said.
“There were two of his sisters that I had never met,” she added. The bachelorette games were centered around Alaji-Sharif and Huot, and that way they all got to know her better.
She wore a white strapless dress for the party, which she bought for $30 from a local store, she told Insider. She also wore $5 gloves, which she also bought from a local store, and her shoes cost $30 from Nasty Gal.
“All my outfits, they didn’t really cost much,” she added.
Alaji-Sharif and Huot’s wedding day was super casual, she told Insider.
At 10 a.m., Alaji-Sharif said she ate pancakes for breakfast at a restaurant with her husband-to-be and her family. She wore white pajamas and a pink headband.
Afterward, she got ready with her sister in her hotel room, and Huot got ready in her brother’s room, she added. Her aunt gave her “something old” to her, which was her late grandmother’s ring.
Alaji-Sharif said her mother made the bouquet using fake flowers and hand-sewed beads. It’s a family tradition, as her mother also made her sister’s and her cousin’s bouquets, she added.
They didn’t have a proper first look scheduled, but seeing each other in their outfits was really emotional, she said. They arrived at the chapel at 2:15 p.m. for their individual pictures, and then had the ceremony at 3 p.m.
Getting their marriage license was easy, as around Valentine’s Day there was a pop-up marriage license bureau at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, she told Insider. “We were able to get it before we got our bags,” she said, adding that the license cost $107.
They got married in the backseat of a Cadillac. It was a simple 10-minute ceremony with no personal vows, which Alaji-Sharif said she didn’t want anyway as she dislikes PDA.
It wasn’t a traditional wedding, Alaji-Sharif said. Their ceremony didn’t include a walk down the aisle and could be seen from the parking lot.
Afterward, they ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. “I feel like that’s a very American thing to do,” she said. Not everyone joined, as she told everyone to get dinner wherever they wanted.
In the evening, they had the reception in a suite at the hotel they were staying at. Huot’s dad brought some catering, which included small sandwiches from Chick-fil-A, and there was also food left over from the bachelorette the night before. Everyone brought their own alcohol, Alaji-Sharif said.
They also didn’t have a wedding cake. Alaji-Sharif said they were going to order pink donuts, but noticed “people weren’t really eating and we were like, we don’t want this stuff to go to waste because we’re not going to eat it.”
After midnight, they ended up going to a nearby club for a little bit. She said she felt tired by that point, so she ended the night watching TV and eating her leftover pancakes in her hotel room at 2 a.m.
Everything about their wedding was unconventional, Alaji-Sharif told Insider.
The wedding itself was really informal, Alaji-Sharif said. They considered paying to rent a restaurant and doing a dinner for the reception, but they wanted their guests to be able to do their own thing since it’s Vegas.
Las Vegas is a great place to get married and not break the bank, she told Insider. Even though they didn’t have a strict budget in mind, Alaji-Sharif said the destination wedding cost them $3,450 in total.
“I was like, I don’t want people to feel pressured to go here at this time and go here at that time. The only obligation really is the wedding and maybe the after-party since we got the suite,” she added.
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