My FH and I are paying for the rehearsal dinner, wedding, and honeymoon all by ourselves. We got engaged about a month ago and are now looking at setting a date. We're debating between a shorter engagement (winter 2022), or a longer one (fall/winter 2023 or spring 2024 at the latest).
We really want to invite about 150, and be able to give our guests a great wedding experience, but where we are I'm feeling all pre & post wedding events will end up costing upwards of $40k, and we just don't have nearly a tenth of that saved now which is why we'd postpone to 2023 or 2024.
On the other hand, we're debating doing a small wedding with just our immediate families and a few of our closest friends (30 invited) in 2022, but I am worried I'll regret not doing a big gathering.
I know it would be special either way, but the clock is ticking down on venues if we did want winter 2022, and we really could only afford a gathering if we had a couple years to save.
Has anyone done a small wedding, and if so do you have any regrets? Or have done a huge wedding and wished you did a more intimate event? I've heard of people doing a small ceremony now due to covid and then planning on a larger event later when it's safer, but to afford it we'd have to wait at least 2 years later, but if we're going to spend that amount of money in 2 years, I'd rather just wait till we can do the whole wedding at that time.