Invites to after dinner reception

Commenting because I am considering this exact thing. 2nd marriage. Very small ceremony and reception at a hotel since most family is from out of town. We are planning a 5pm ceremony with a small family dinner after. However many friends and extended family have expressed an interest in coming. Some have even said, "I know your wedding is small, but I'd love to just come for drinks and dancing. I never get to dance any more." I think this older crowd might not mind joining us after? Like mentioned above, some are people we know through our kids. We would have light food. The invite for that group would be specific for a cocktail reception, 7:30, no gifts. Everyone knows us well and knows this is casual.

I love this idea and am doing the same thing but because I have an enormous friends/family circle, a small budget and plan to have a small dinner & ceremony on private property with limited seating.

After the ceremony & dinner reception is complete, around 7:30-8PM- I guess "afterparty"(?)- I'm not sure what to call it but I kind of hate the word afterparty (maybe "post dinner celebration or maybe just a celebration"?) - we will include dessert, drinks, camping the night and following day brunch as well & hold no expectation of RSVP'ing or gift giving--kind of a show up if you'd like to camp & celebrate type vibe.

Honestly if someone in our circle is offended they weren't invited to the whole event then they probably weren't close enough to want to go to either portion.

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This is a years old thread. You might want to start your own. That said, your logic is backwards. People are offended by things that are widely considered offensive. That includes A lists and B lists, tiered receptions, etc. The appropriate thing would be to host something casual or inexpensive at a later date for those who couldn't attend.

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Agree to disagree I guess. I personally would not be offended to be a "B" list attendee unless it was someone I'm terribly close with (none of my "B" list attendees are close). To each their own unique wedding. For ours this works and satisfies the want to make sure everyone gets a chance to visit while we are in the state that wants to visit but would otherwise not go out of their way to visit. This was the resolve at request of those guests. Those that are close enough are attending the whole thing & those that are less close are attending the other half.. the "after-glow party" lol. The post was relevant to my internet search. I didn't realize the date until I'd posted.

This is absolutely rude. We’ve been invited twice to the reception only for coworkers. Both times the wedding was an hour away and we were invited AFTER the dinner. No thank you. I can’t believe anyone would even do this. We went to the first one, not realizing there wasn’t a dinner at the reception. We left early to go eat at a restaurant. This time I told my husband I’m not going. Been there, done that. If I’m not invited to the actual wedding and they don’t want me there for the dinner, I clearly don’t need to be there at all. It feels like you’re just inviting people for additional wedding gifts. So tacky.

Honestly we were thinking of doing that too and I see that can be rude but it’s so expensive it’s not even funny. Me and my fiancé we both have big family’s and for our reception it’s $60 per a plate and we have already put 9,500 towards it and we still owe $4000 and some more for only 150 people and it’s bad that everyone wants to keep inviting more people and we I just don’t have that money it’s not in our budget. And what I mean by everyone I mean our grandmas and his parents