Separate Ceremony and Reception guests (same day)

You would need to have separate invitations. One for just the reception guests and one for the people invited to both. The reception only invites can say something like "Bride and Groom will be married in a private ceremony and would be honored to have your presence at their reception" there are a lot of option and wording ideas if you google them.

We are having a home reception a few weeks after our DW since we wanted to keep the ceremony small with very close family. So we are mailing reception only invites to everyone around the time we leave.

I would send separate invitations. For the people invited to both: "Jane Smith & John Doe invite you to their wedding on (enter date, time, place), reception to follow." For the people only invited to the reception: "Jane Smith & John Doe invite you to a reception on (enter date, time, place) to celebrate their marriage."

People are going to be upset. A truly intimate ceremony with immediate family only is fine, 35 people isn’t immediate family. I surely wouldn’t travel for a reception if I wasn’t actually invited to witness the ceremony.

I don’t think there’s a way to do this without people being upset. The only way this is okay is if it’s truly immediate family meaning parents, siblings, and maybe grandparents.

My fiance wanted to do something similar, but I thought it would be hurtful to our family and friends not to include them in the ceremony. Mutual friends of our agreed with me so instead of getting married at the place he wanted to do the small ceremony we got engaged there. If this is what you want, I would prepare for some backlash. As for invitations, I would recommend sending two different invitations. One for the ceremony and one for the reception.

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Same. If you don't consider me close enough to actually watch you get married, count me out.

We had 75 ish people and think of that as a small wedding. Very close friends and family. People that we didn't see our day without.

I kind of agree that people might take offense. Immediate family means brothers, sisters, parents, nieces/nephews, step-parents/siblings, and grandparents even though grandparents don't truly count, but most people probably would include them. If this is all true and it's not any aunts/uncles/cousins then it's all good!

But in any case, you would do separate invitations! I don't know that the other guests not invited would find out who's involved in the ceremony until they actually arrived, unless it trickled through the grapvine.

Yeah, there is no way to do this without coming off rude. Immediate family is parents, siblings, and grandparents. Is that really 35 people!?

I agree with PP above. Also, if the reception is directly after the ceremony, what are you going to do when reception-only guests arrive a little early and get there in the middle of your ceremony? I would just invite all of them to both parts.

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Oy, that'd be so awkward...

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Agreed. I would be mortified... and there's no way you won't have people upset over that.

I made the mistake of writing immediate family members because it doesn't meet the definition, so I should have put "close". The family I'm inviting to the reception is all the family I have at my ceremony, all the family I have at all. The family he has at the ceremony are family members to him as close as his parents and siblings, its just how his Dominican culture is. I'd say 50% of people invited to the reception are his family, 25% is friends we've made from his baseball team and the 25% is my entire family. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to keep it with our closest people but based off of all of the feed back, I feel awful. It's very hard to balance when my family is so small and his is very large. The closer we get to the day, the more and more it feels like it's not our day.

View Quoted Comment Is there a reason you don’t want everyone at the ceremony?

If you're going to only have a few people at the ceremony and everyone else at the reception, I think this is really only ok if your ceremony is like 10 people and the reception is much bigger. 35 to the ceremony when the reception is only 60-70 would mean that half, or more than half, of your guests were invited to the ceremony. The remaining half would definitely feel like they were less valued. Is there a reason you can't just have everyone at the ceremony? Or if you really want it to be intimate, I'd recommend making the ceremony even smaller.

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I have a lot of trouble speaking in front of people and some of his family members that are invited at his mom's request are people I've never met in the six years we've been together. We've already made the decision together to make the ceremony bilingual out of respect for his Spanish speaking family members, which is hard, too because my Spanish is not that great. We also don't have a ton of space where the ceremony is held within the venue. I don't know now, just seems like I'm wrong no matter what.

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The reception is estimated at 90 people right now. It's 60-70, plus the people from the ceremony. As I mentioned in a previous comment, it's about speaking in front of others, especially in an unfamiliar language, plus the available space.

You need to send out separate invitations

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I was just wondering how to word them, but from the response I've gotten, I'm guessing I just need to change everything because people will either be upset with us while at our wedding or not show up at all.

I totally understand. We had this idea during our planning phases, as well. Even if you sent our two different types of invitations (one that is just for reception vs one that is for both) your guests will find out about being only invited to one or both. It just kind of happens, so don't be surprised with it starting right afterwards that someone doesn't just sneak in. Ridiculous but I've seen it happen.

On pinterest I saw were a couple was having an outside wedding and they had signs attached to trees. One sign pointed to the wedding location, the other sign pointed to the reception location. So when guests arrived or departed the wedding area they knew were to go. Maybe something like this could help?

Is it possible the venue could do like a cocktail time that's in between wedding & reception? or at least a 30 minute break? This would allow you some leeway time and than you don't have to worry about someone arriving too early and coming upon your wedding site.

Good luck!

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Amanda,
Sorry I haven't read all of the comments, I just saw this one. Don't change your mind completely just because of comments on WW. You do you. If you and your FH wants your wedding to be intimate and than have a reception that's bigger, that's what you do.

I wrote a similar question on here when I had begun planning and was talking about ideas. I got a lot of flack as well. Just remember, this is your and your FH wedding. Do what feels right to you. There is nothing wrong with your idea. If someone has an issue with it they can just not come and that means there not supportive and shouldn't be there anyways.

ALSO...if I got an invitation like this I would be THRILLED! My FH and I really don't like weddings LOL but we'd want to show our support, so just attending the reception and receiving an invitation just for the reception would make us VERY HAPPY!

Stay Strong.