The $2 wedding budget

A British novelty wedding vending machine that dishes out marriage ceremonies has sparked orders from around the world.

For $1.50, a wedding march plays as couples choose their type of union and press one for “I do” and two for “Escape”. They get a wedding receipt and two plastic rings.

Standing at 2.4 metres tall, the Autowed is described by its makers as a “parking meter mixed up with a Cadillac”.

The Autowed is the brainchild of Sam Lanyon, an electronics engineer who heads Concept Shed, which he refers to as part product design company, part group of mad inventors.

“We mix design, engineering and creativity to build wacky things, sometimes from our own ideas and sometimes with ideas from clients,” Lanyon says.

Lanyon is quick to point out that an Autowed ceremony is not legally binding; it was designed as a novelty.

He’s surprised by the number of requests he’s received to buy the wacky wedding machine, including the United States, Brazil, Russia, Portugal, Italy, Hong Kong and Japan.

Because of the enthusiastic response, Lanyon plans to make a scaled-down version of AutoWed that would be good for bars, hotels and pubs. What other novelty ideas might appeal to pub-goers?