Micro wedding or invite everyone?

One thing to be mindful of is that any wedding that is more than an elopement (as in literally the two of you + witnesses) will require you to be thoughtful of your guests. I say this in the sense that if you can afford to comfortably host a 40 person wedding, but any more than that would cause you to cut down on necessities (food, drinks etc) then I would stick to a smaller wedding.

Regardless of how many people you end up inviting, it is rude to invite to any pre-wedding events any people who aren't going to be invited to the wedding. There are many etiquette 'rules' some of which are severely outdated, others which are quite dependent on location/custom/crowd but this is probably one of the big ones. It gives off the impression that some of the people aren't close / good enough to make the cut and is generally seen as 'gift grabbing'.

Micro wedding is my vote. I'm a bit bias because that's what we are choosing. We are doing our entire wedding for $1800 including rings, venue, cake, dress, suit and everything. The small guest list makes this possible. Also, it's much more personal and I love that. We are sharing the day with people who actually share in our life on a daily or usual basis. It also opens up including them or doing special things for them that you wouldn't normally be able to do with a bigger wedding.

What's your budget?


We planned for an 80 person wedding and it was VERY hard to stay under 30k.
If your budget is below 20k, I'd say microwedding is the way to go, although a 40 person wedding isn't really "micro".

You can have a celebration party after. But it rude to invite anyone to a shower who is not invited to the wedding.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for this! I definitely don’t want to offend anyone or not invite some family over others. I’m totally up for having everyone it’s just going to be difficult with the budget we have.

View Quoted Comment Wow that’s amazing! I’m trying to keep it under $4,000 but it’s hard since venues are so expensive! I tried to minimize the list but since my family is so large and i have many of them that are super close to me, it’s a lot more difficult then i expected.

View Quoted Comment We are trying to keep it under $4,000 or $5,000.

View Quoted Comment You’re definitely right! I don’t want to be rude or mean to anyone at all. Everything is so expensive so i’m sure it’s easier to just have everyone since we’d be renting out the venue anyway

Hello Dominique. If you and your partner are footing the bill, you can do what you want: micro-wedding,big wedding or in-between.
You sound like you want a micro wedding and you said your budget is $5,000: go for it if this what you want. Plus you can't afford a medium-sized wedding with a 5k budget.
You don't have to host a fancy,lavish wedding to please families, including both sets of parents. Only do it if you and your future spouse want a big event.Yeah: iI is rude to invite somenone to a shower or another pre-wedding event who is not invited to the wedding.

If your budget is really $4000, then I'd do a microwedding for sure.

Only people who are invited to the wedding itself should be invited to a shower (and you shouldn't be the one throwing your own shower), so don't do that as a solution. With your budget it sounds like small wedding is the way to go.

View Quoted Comment

This is spot on. Have the wedding you can afford and make sure guests are well-hosted. That should dictate the size of your list within your budget.

Also, definitely don't invite everyone to the shower before, but you can invite people to a BBQ or celebration party AFTER the wedding to celebrate with them.

I just had a micro wedding with 60 guests in April and it was the best choice. We invited our family and a total of maybe 8 friends. If you’re unable to afford more than 40 guests I would do the micro wedding! It’s still a wedding just less people so you decide who you want there! Also by having a micro wedding my husband and I didn’t have to sweat about a $20k+ wedding which was important us. We have other things we want to spend our money on like a home, kids soon and traveling!