Small guest counts: do you regret your day?

We had a small wedding, by choice (pre-COVID), and have had zero regrets. I acknowledge that there may be differences between choosing to have a small wedding from the beginning and feeling "forced" into that decision by a global pandemic. But I still feel like that original "data" is probably skewed by confirmation bias and other issues.

There are PLENTY of examples here of brides grooms who downsized, enjoyed their weddings, and feel very married. You can also easily find examples of brides and grooms who wished they had had a smaller wedding (spent less money, had fewer guests) after the fact.

In the end nearly everyone compromises on something about their wedding and we all get to make the same choice: move on with our lives happily or look back with regret.

Uh no, no regrets at all! Both my husband and I also wanted an intimate wedding even before covid. We ended up having only 23 people total on our wedding day and it was the best day of our lives. I put so much into the day, making it perfect, and we truly enjoyed every minute with our guests.

Like previous posts on here, I think it depends on how much your plans have to change. For us we kept pushing through and just planned as usual, and our wedding day didn't even feel like a covid wedding, except the small precautions, like hand sanitizers and masks. Other than that, everything felt normal. 🥰

View Quoted Comment Wonderful!!! 🥰

We had 50 ppl invited originally and because of covid most of my family is not coming since they live in a whole other state (Maine and we are in NC) which I totally understand. We will be live streaming for them. We might have less than 35 which totally ok. My FH family is in state and they are the ones coming. I love them and consider them my other family. I would have loved it if my family could have made it but safety comes first. I know we won't regret it at all. We will be meeting my family when covid is over in Maine.

View Quoted Comment So true!! The couples who still view the day as their wedding day and take part in the experiences important to them (dress, photography, personal vows, etc) seem to be so much happier with the decision!
I still don’t understand the push to get married on the original date, which date do you even celebrate?!? (At least for couples who don’t need to be legally married for insurance/military/other reasons)

Our guest list only includes 65 guests because they are our closest family and friends. So those are the people who we want to celebrate with us. Of course, we know many more people. But we had no desire to add extra “just because” guests simply for “fluff” and to increase the wedding size.

I mean, due to COVID, we had to cut down on our guest list. But prior to that (our original date), we invited 100 people. Our new guest list will probably be 50-75, depending on headcount restrictions. I'm okay with it. When we were planning for our original date, we planned for 75, but ended up adding additional people. lol I don't think we'd be able to cut below 50, though, as we want our immediate family and best friends to be in attendance. lol And besides, the bigger the guest list, the higher the costs.

We just got married at the end of May with a total of 7 guests. We wanted a small ceremony for the parents more than for us due to COVID. I originally wanted a destination elopement as we love to travel and are introverts by nature. However, the world still isn't allowing us to travel out of our country into most other countries, so we compromised as we've been engaged for over 2 years at this point, and together for 8 years. I do have two regrets after looking at the day/weekend we planned our wedding. #1 Allowing my husband to invite his friends who seemed to have held a grudge for many years(long story), but it was his wedding too so his choice to invite them. In turn, this allowed these friends to basically act rudely on the day of and be "offended" by my side that I was oblivious to, and to act like children as a result . #2 I wish I spent more on my photography as we don't have any bride or groom by themselves pictures, and want more pictures of us as a couple. Again this is my fault as I was trying to be economic and save money on many parts of planning my entire micro-wedding. So, despite a couple of hiccups, yes we are "married" and that should be all that matters, however, I'm now planning for a "make-up elopement" during our honeymoon to New Zealand and doing an "after wedding photography session". We will dress up exactly like on our wedding day and finally get to take our portraits just the two of us and alone at an exotic location that was originally intended. I know we aren't "re-doing" our wedding or changing the date, but this will supplement the current wedding memories that we couldn't get at the time due to unnecessary drama and COVID. I know I don't regret doing a large wedding because that drama would have been a mess and the entire wedding would have been ruined for sure. But now I have to wait a year or two depending on when New Zealand decides to open back to get these "supplemental" pictures done. That means if we didn't get married this year, it would be close to 10 years of our relationship and 4 years engaged, not something I was going to continue to wait for just because we can't travel to our destination.

My first wedding was 300 guests... because my mother invited everyone she knew. I regret that.


This time we'll have 60 or less guests and I'm excited. It does make the amount of money we're spending seem insane, but it's about us celebrating starting our new journey so it'll all be worth it. ❤

View Quoted Comment So glad you guys feel that way. I'm planning a super fancy wedding that was already small, 35-40 people and now a bunch of family may be refusing to come. Even my parents were so cheap as to think twice about wanting to come because they didn't feel like paying for a domestic flight or paying for hotel. I'm their only daughter