Is there such thing as “too small” of a guest list

We only have 18 people! And its a formal event in a private room at a restaurant. The only issue we had was a lot of places require a minimum food/ beverage purchase.

Our wedding will have about 100 guests max (and I don’t even like 100 people lol). I don’t have a big family or a lot of friends but my fiancée is a social butterfly and has a big family. We sat down and listed who we REALLY wanted there to compromise on an amount. Honestly, we only truly care for like 75 people on the list. I felt kind of embarrassed when I went to the venue and saw wedding setups for 200+ people, thinking my wedding was gonna be minuscule. Our venue matched us to a room that will better fit our wedding guest list and depending on the day of the week, there are different minimums for each room. For instance, I’m getting married on a Friday. Our room holds up to 180 but we could have as little as 75 if we wanted. I’d look for someplace that offers something similar.

We had a nice venue with a capacity of 116 people (no add-ons) or 200 people if we added a tent and porta-potties. We wanted a 60-80 person wedding (invite 80, hope to get between 60-80). Due to Covid being a giant F U to all things wedding, we ended up with 47 guests.

60 people is just about the perfect wedding size, IMO! Its small enough that you can see and interact with most of your guests one-on-one or in small groups throughout the evening but big enough that it feels like more than just having a bunch of people over for a more casual party (like a birthday or long holiday weekend backyard bbq) and is certainly more people than I would otherwise ever host.

The two things I think are important to consider with smaller guest lists are how to organize the space as well as what that group of guests actually looks like in terms of engagement, activities, etc. If you have a venue large enough to hold 100 guests or more, you don't want it to feel cavernous or overwhelming, so being strategic with table placement really helps. We did six 8 person farm tables arranged in three two-table rows and it was perfect. Our venue had a porch area for dancing that could easily have accomodated all of our guests, but I would say 1/3-1/2 of our guests didn't dance at all, which to me was a big disappointment. So sometimes our dance floor felt a bit empty, but that was more an issue of our guests being lame than there not being enough of them.

Like you, I don't even like 100 people, and I feel like having a smaller wedding with guests who really mean something to you is a much more rewarding experience than having a big event with an extended guest list of people you don't really care much about.

Don't let anyone make you second guess yourself, don't think you have to have some magic number to make your wedding everything you want it to be! Choose to have people there that you love and will surround you with love, don't pad the guest list just to make it look fancier or something more than you want it to be because of what someone said! You're wedding is YOURS. It is between you and your fiance, no one else. Don't let anyone put doubts into your head!!

There’s nothing wrong with a guest count of 60. If anything, it means you can have a really intimate wedding and explore interesting and unique smaller event spaces that the “typical 100+ guest wedding” couldn’t even consider!

Well, I originally planned to have around 120 but due to covid (or maybe people just don’t like us) we are probably going to have a “backyard” wedding as your coworker puts it. Tbh I worry a little bit because of peoples comments like these because in the past I have been to very large weddings so in comparison Im afraid it might be underwhelming. I hope that the number of people isnt such a big deal.

View Quoted Comment Honestly I don’t think it’s fair to limit the type of wedding you have based on the number of guests. If you want a big beautiful venue why does it matter if there are 50 people or 200? I think 35 people should be fine. Besides who wants to pay for more people than necessary?

View Quoted Comment I totally agree. Unfortunately venues put a minimum. I have to pay for 110 guests regardless of who attends. And this was actually negotiated down from 150 due to covid and us basically saying we cannot guarantee 150 people with a pandemic. Now we are close to our wedding and realizing even 110 was a stretch. So we will be losing money for sure but most venues in my area refuse anything under 150