Basic wedding?

At a minimum, a reception only needs to consist of food of some kind (apps, party trays, cake etc), drinks of some kind (sodas, water, tea, etc), and an adequate place that can hold everyone comfortably so they can mingle and sit. Cake and punch receptions are still acceptable is an option for those who don't want to spend a ton of money on a "modern" wedding. If you do not want to provide a full meal an only finger foods, try to have it at a non meal time

If you are inviting people to your wedding ceremony, you need to host them in a reception of some form. The reception is your thank you to your guests for taking the time to take time off, travel, and attend attend your ceremony.

Low-key weddings are great! If you are having a small guest list and don’t want a reception/party afterward, you could just host a dinner in a private room at a local restaurant.

We are having about 20 people over to our house after the ceremony and grilling. There is no mandatory way to have a wedding! Yes to restaurant private rooms, or maybe a park pavillion or even someone's backyard. The key is to search for venues that don't specifically advertise as "wedding"

We are getting married on the beach on the Gulf of Mexico in Texas, and are planning on just doing a sit down dinner at a local restaurant for our reception. We don’t want a big to do with dancing and all of that, so we are opting for the dinner route and having a smaller gathering of close friends afterwards.

Hi I am! I'm not sure where you are located but I am in Southern California so EVERTHING is expensive. I found a restaurant called Five Crowns in Newport Beach/Corona Del Mar area. They have an outdoor patio area and you have to meet a 6k food a drink minimum. My intention is to have my guest seated at their dinner table, I'll walk down the middle and have a brief ceremony and go straight into cocktail hour so we can get some more photos and then start dinner. Just very simple. The thing I dont love about weddings is the structure of doing first dance, toasts, bouquet toss, etc....it leaves room for error and I just want to get married and treat people to a nice meal. I HOPE it turns out like I picture in my head.

I really wanted to do a simple restaurant wedding, very similar to what Gina mentioned. Only problem was my fiancé really wanted to have an open bar and dancing. We compromised and instead had a backyard wedding. I got my low key wedding and he got his open bar and dancing!


I guess my advice is ask your fiancé what he really wants out of the wedding. I’m sure you already did but I know that I had my heart set on a restaurant wedding and I assumed since “he was a guy” he wouldn’t really have a preference. But alas, he had big opinions. I said, planning a backyard wedding is a TON of work and he was up to the challenge and we both planned it together. I might even say he planned more than me haha

We rented a historic home & we are having a catered dinner w/open bar (no dj, dancing, bouquet toss, etc). We have a 50 person guest list. The home was under $2k & we have it for 12 hrs. Our reception will be 3 hrs (as opposed to the usual 5-6 hr reception) since we won’t have dancing.

What is your definition of basic? The only requirements are a fiancé, an officiant, a marriage license and 1-2 legal witnesses as required by your state. The rest beyond that is fluff and 90% of it will not be missed if you skip it.

If you invite guests to the ceremony, you must have a reception. A reception can be as simple as dinner in a local restaurant. There is no law saying it must be a wild expensive party with full dinner and dancing. The reception is whatever you decide, as long as you are gracious hosts.
A full meal is not even a requirement contrary to popular belief and many receptions don’t have them but guests are still properly hosted. Fed appropriately with the reception held not a minute later than the driving time between ceremony and reception if they are held at separate venues. Having a gap of 1-3+ hours is how you lose guests who decide last minute to stay home. You don’t ask guests to open their wallets for any reason. That includes making sure there are no tip jars accessible because it is not a guest’s responsibility to do so.

If you are on a budget and want something simple, most parks department owned venues are very nice and include all rentals with full kitchen. You only need to bring in photographer and dj. You can get delicious food from restaurant drop off catering. Supply alcohol and non alcoholic beverages from Costco or another wholesaler and hire a reputable bartender inexpensively on thumbtack.com

We had a restaurant reception without a "party" afterwards. Many restaurants will allow a pre set menu either paid for in advance or with a deposit. We had 30 people and the cost was only about $900 and that included our cakes. In my experience if you call around you'll find out quickly who will and will not work with you. Just explain you want to reserve a party room for a wedding dinner and be realistic about your expectations.

My husband and I got married 06/26/2021 we got married at Everett we only did ceremony and cake and there was only I think not even 30 guests but it was so simple and fun.

Oh! I’m in the same situation as you! We decided to rent a cure VRBO with a big backyard in the mountains. Our house just isn’t big enough for a typical “backyard wedding” but the only option we could find to do the same thing was renting a mansion and that was out of the question. We’re renting our VRBO for five days so we have it to set up and use for our bachelor/bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinner, etc, and for all our out of town guests to stay in since it has like 20+ bedrooms, and all in all it’s gonna cost us like $1200! If you just wanted it for the wedding it would be like 200-400.

If you need some inspiration for smaller weddings, I really enjoyed looking through https://www.intimateweddings.com/ for inspiration! There were a lot of couples who had around your guest count with some great weddings for less than $10K. I also think they have a specific thread of weddings featured under that price point.

We are getting married on our 8th year anniversary (March 7th, 2022) at the courthouse with our parents and then three months later (June 25th, 2022) we are throwing a BBQ reception at the park! You not the only one doing simple sis! The simple the better honestly more money for other adventures like getting a house, new puppy, saving for a baby, or even going on a nice long honey month!