i want a small intimate wedding but our guest list is close to 140... help! Any ideas?!

I would keep in mind that 100% attendance is not common. It can happen, yes, but overwhelmingly likely? No. We invited 146 people and our wedding only ended up being 96 including me and my husband.


If you’re going to do the two parter event thing, do not do a large engagement party and then a small wedding. It’s actually a major etiquette faux pas to invite people to a pre-wedding event (engagement party is included in this category) and then not invite them to your wedding.

As a person who comes from an extremely large family, I completely feel you on this! FH and I went back-and-forth forever about whether to have a large ceremony to accommodate all our friends and family, or the small, intimate wedding that we really wanted. We didn’t want to hurt/offend our loved ones, but in the end, we opted for the small, intimate wedding. And we have zero regrets! We ended up doing a destination wedding within the United States, and only invited parents, siblings, wedding party and everyone’s spouses. It ended up being 30 people and it was perfect. Enough people to have a lot of fun with, but not too many to have to organize/wrangle 😆 It was the perfect amount of people to give the ceremony, an incredibly cozy, intimate vibe, and not make us feel like we were “on display”. It was romantic and very much about the two of us. If you choose to have the small ceremony, you could always live stream the event for the rest of your friends/family to watch in real time. Or, if you plan to have a videographer, you could always share the wedding video at the larger reception (if you do you want to have the additional celebration with everyone).
Or, if you are just wanting the small, intimate ceremony, but still want the large celebration afterwards…. And this is thinking completely outside the box here…. Maybe you could have everyone gather at a reception space nearby where you plan to have your ceremony, and everyone could watch via live stream while you took your vows alone (or maybe in front of just your parents and siblings). Then you could make your grand entrance to the reception immediately afterward, and still have the celebration with all your friends and family. I’ve never seen that done before, but if I were a guest in that situation, I would think it was pretty cool.

View Quoted Comment

Oooh that's an interesting idea!!! Thank you for commenting!

It is a huge misconception that 100% attendance doesn’t exist.
It’s also a new trend post-Covid to have a small ceremony with a larger reception at a later date because it is a huge faux pas to not have a reception for those attending the ceremony the same day with no gap beyond driving time. Some people actually do have issues with the trend of being invited to the reception only, because they are not invited to or attending the ceremony which is the purpose of the reception and would prefer to not be invited to any of it. But no one will ever come up to you and say that they are offended or disappointed because it’s impolite, which is where the misconception arises that silence = approval. Having a reception at a later date does not guarantee a larger group for that reason.

Engagement parties are common in some geographic areas and social circles and unheard of in others. But they are a pre-wedding party that it is a faux pas for someone to be invited to if they are on the ceremony guest list. You can always host parties in your home at any time for anyone after the wedding is over and you have moved on with married life without the breach of etiquette that comes with inviting guests to pre wedding parties and not to the wedding itself.
As far as the actual guest list, you can easily trim it down if you need to. It’s not as daunting as it seems. Make a list of your ride or die must have people whom you can’t imagine the day without. These are going to be people you would take out to dinner without a second thought. Their partners are automatic invites as a social unit, regardless if you have met the other person or the amount of time they have been together if they consider themselves a couple.
Make a second list of people who would be invited only to please parents and other relatives. This consists of their coworkers and friends, relatives you have no relationship with, coworkers of your own that you don’t socialize with beyond happy hour, and past friendships that you no longer maintain on a regular basis. The second list doesn’t get any invitation. Parents can host family in their home at another time and they can arrange a family reunion picnic for all relatives at a local park or community center at another time that is not associated with your wedding.
Avoid B listing because it always backfires. People know that they are your 2nd or 5th choice for seat fillers and would rather not be invited at all. Coworkers will host a shower for you at work that doesn’t obligate you in any way to inviting them to the wedding.