Small Wedding Thread (50 people or less)

Does eloping count? We are having an intimate ceremony in the White Mountains with just our photographer who is also my bestfriend of 18+years. After pictures we plan to celebrate just the two of us at a nearby restaurant and then spend the rest of of the night dancing together. I'm really looking forward to it!

Yay I can contribute!

We are having 30 guests, it’s a wedding with all the trimmings but we don’t have a bridal party and our ceremony is a tad different.
Our ceremony spot is a gigantic gazebo with built in seating for our guests. We will be standing there holding hands while guests arrive. No aisle, no procession, nada. Our dear friend will be our officiant and will be performing a handfasting ceremony.

The reception will be at the building right next door, it’s a basic white walled room but it has gigantic windows and hardwood floors, lots of potential and we’re decorating every inch of it!
Guests will have dinner and dancing, entertainment will be a live celtic band and a photobooth. Finally a gorgeous two tier cake we helped design! And a big dessert table with goodie bags to take sweets home.

We didn’t narrow down our guest list, 30 people is all we know. We have small families, the majority of guests are friends. Everyone invited is someone who loves us and cerebrates our relationship. I’m looking forward to not having drama from bad blood or anything.

It’s a small wedding but it’s our wedding, we still want to host our loved ones with music and food. We want the same experience as any other traditional wedding.

We had 40 people and did the whole sh’bang! It went perfectly! Ceremony, cocktail hour with yard games, and reception with photo booth. I just had a realistic expectation of my wedding. It will look small compared to a 100+ person wedding, but no less special! My crowd wasn’t into dancing and I knew that going in, but some crowds are even with less people! I also only had 2 bm and 2 gm, so small wedding party 😊
As far as worried about food, you’re doing it during a good time so after 5 people can go and get dinner if they’re hungry! I wouldn’t stress about that as it sounds like a good amount of food during a nonmeal time 😊

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Awe I love that!!! How romantic and intimate! Absolutely that counts

We are having 40-50 people with a full wedding and reception. Everything will be outdoors. The views are so beautiful, there is no need to spend $$$ on decorations. After the ceremony, we will have a full buffet served in stations so everyone can walk up to any station and get what they want. (Chicken, fish, steak, vegan) Open beer and wine bar throughout the reception, so no extra cocktail hour. DJ with lots of dancing. It’s July 4th, and our location has an excellent view of local fireworks. Champagne toast at sunset. ❤️
If you can go with outdoors, I really encourage it. It saves money and provides beautiful spacious views.

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Awe I love that and I especially love that it is every single person you would want there so you are having a small and intimate wedding without compromising on the guest list or the experience!!! YAY! Love the idea of you two being there holding hands as people enter! I can't wait to see photos of that!

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Awe that is sweet! Outdoors is always great!

We live in TX and I wanted outdoors but even September will be 90 degrees. We settled for an outdoor ceremony in a high end hotel that lasts 20-30 minutes followed by our three hour indoor reception inside the hotel. Although we won't have a LOT of food (although plenty for three hours from 2-5) we have some of the BEST food we've ever had.

Wish we had a more "reasonable" time of the year for the weather and location! Just isn't a possibility in TX! It goes WINTER SPRING ALMOST SUMMER SUMMMMMMER SUMMMMMER SUMMER SUMMMMER SUMMER SUMMER fall WINTER here lol

We had a DW with 15 guests. No DJ/dancing, but we had some fun surprises like a Disney pirates reception in a wine cave with an accordionist dressed like a Pirate during cocktail hour (guests did dance!). Full premium bar, family-style dinner and tons of decor/props guests used to pose with. Like a big noisy family dinner.

Then we had a formal local reception for 50 guests. Swanky 60’s theme. Guests dressed up. Drinks, dinner, dancing, dessert. Total party vibe.

Your wedding sounds like so much fun! Smaller weddings can be more fun/intimate than big ones.

We had an intimate wedding with 40 guests. It was a semi-DW so we splurged on our guests by paying for their accommodations for the weekend. We had a welcome dinner Friday evening and a farewell brunch Sunday morning. As for the wedding itself, we were able to offer more by keeping the guest list down. We had live music all day with a string duo and pianist during the ceremony, a solo guitarist during cocktail hour, a 5-piece band for dinner, and then a 9-piece band for dancing. Our menu included lobster, filet mignon, salmon, truffle stuffed chicken breast, and a vegetarian option. We had 2 late night snacks - s'mores and grilled cheese sandwiches. We had a fire pit with chairs and blankets for everyone to take home as well as a photo booth and personalized ornaments. There was also a candy bar, a hot chocolate/cider bar, and an open bar of top shelf alcohol. It was such a fun weekend and everyone really enjoyed how cozy and intimate the wedding was.

We had a tiny wedding--a dozen people. It was wonderful! With that number, we were able to find a big house where everyone could stay the night before the wedding and the wedding night. That meant we got to spend two days with people we don't see often, instead of just saying a brief hello at a big event.

We had the ceremony at a synagogue. It was very participatory. Every guest had at least one part in the ceremony (reader, doing one of the seven blessings, etc.) and every guest signed our ketubah (formal Jewish marriage contract).

After the ceremony, our photographer took pictures of everyone (not just ourselves and the wedding party). We then took everyone to dinner in the private dining room of a restaurant. The reception ran for about three hours, and everyone had so much fun catching up that the restaurant pretty much had to shovel us all out of there when they were ready to set up for dinner.

We're inviting 75 but expecting about 50 (that extra 25 is out of state family I'm sure won't make it but want them to know they're welcome.) I don't think ~50 is that small or uncommon.
We're having a winter wedding because AZ is HOT af lol! Our venue is all outside, gazebo for ceremony and then the reception area has level ground (cement maybe? I honestly can't recall now that I'm actually trying to think about it) for eating and dancing. It's all inclusive so vendors are all picked and we just meet with them and proceed as normal. We get to bring our own alcohol which I LOVE because it saves us so much money!

We are inviting a total of 48 guest. majority family and like 10 friends. We originally wanted just the church and that was it. Then i found my dress and want to show it off lol. We found a nice coffee shop. They have a giant gazebo in the back. Everything is include, even the cake. its all very private and the coffee shop doesn't open on weekends, so it'll be all just for us. We are deciding what to do for the entertainment cause we are really trying to stick to our budget. But overall i just love how its coming out.

I am having a intimate wedding with 44 guest this December. Our ceremony starts at 5 and should only be 30 minutes. After that we plan to have pictures for about 30 min and guest will have a small cocktail break(30 min) during our pictures. So 6 is our actually dinner time in the reception room, but if we run late with pictures guest will just be in the reception room awaiting our arrival. We have the reception room till 9 but put 8:30 on the invitation so guest wouldn't think its too long. We are having an intimate dinner with no dj or anything crazy. We just wanted close family and friends around us. So our time for everything is about 4 hours which is plenty seeing as its a simple dinner.

We originally were planning a big wedding for 2020 with close to 100 guest but the stress wasn't worth it. We just got engaged this past December and literally in march we decided to get married this December 14. We book a venue that would host the ceremony and the reception. We got a food packaged deal from the venue that included pretty much everything I wanted. My theme is beauty and the beast. I have been buying majority of the decoration and linens for the wedding to help save on cost. I will have music playing on a speak on Pandora shuffle. I'm happy we decided small because my stress level hasn't been so high. Our budget has been close to 6k but that's majority for the venue and vendors(violinist for ceremony, cake, flower, photography, officiate). The biggest hurdle was guest list and who to invite. I got into many fights with my FH but we came to an agreement and got passed it. Good luck!

Intimate immediate family and close friends - looking at 23 guests plus us. Full wedding with Jewish ceremony then reception with (hopefully) a cocktail hour, buffet dinner and dessert options (cake, whoopie pies and gelato bar) and a full open bar from start to finish with DJ. Wedding is in 13 days!

We are having a wedding of about 50 guests. It’s in San Diego where we live but everyone else is out of state so I guess it’s a destination wedding. We love breakfast so we are having a brunch wedding! It will have a buffet with an omelette station that we are really excited about. We aren’t cake people so no cake but lots of other desserts. Both ceremony and reception are in the same area, ceremony is outside on a hill with beautiful mountain views and reception inside. Our wedding evolved into the full thing with a dj, photo booth, cocktail hour etc. Originally we were going to have just mimosas and sangrias but with our guest count it was the same price to have an open bar so we’ll have both. Our guests are traveling so far and our families are hardly together so it ended up being a whole wedding and not just a quick brunch but we are very excited. Ceremony at 11am, cocktail hour immediately after and reception 12-5. We are trying to figure out if we should all meet up somewhere afterwards. By having it earlier in the day on a Sunday we saved quite a bit of money.

I love intimate weddings! You get to spend time actually enjoying the company of your guests and not just going through to quickly say hi to everyone. All our guests are people we love congrats everyone!

Im having a small wedding to Aug **** days away woo hoo..anyway lol we are having 48 people great venue they set it all up tear it all down set up decor bc our flourist is tied in with tbe venue so works perfect doing a 3 tier cake and a special grroms cake to say thank you for letting me plan the most of it lol...were having outside ceremony right outside the venue is a nice grassy area thats pretty if it rains no prob inside they have a section reserved for a ceremony area ... dj has a nice spot next to dance floor our ceremony starts at 5:30 reception to follow 6-10 pm no open bar cash bar only haveing chicken or roast beef with sides etc ...doing the dollar dance and bouquet toss garter toss lol... and dance the night away at 10 pm were doing a Chinese lantern send off outside and boom done..yay to small weddings nice and intimate no hours of walking around talking to everyone etc lol

View Quoted Comment Ok I’m envious of your pirate cave wedding, that sounds amazing!

We just had a small destination wedding with 52 people and we got married on the beach. It was my second wedding and my husband’s first wedding and the most important things to us were family, great music and good food. We got married at 5:30 and then had cocktail hour with passed appetizers followed by a great buffet and lots of dancing. I am thankful that we did the small wedding but feel bad that we weren’t able to invite all of our family and friends so our plan is to have a large outdoor barbecue/party at our house in the end of September. Good luck

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Thank you, Yam! It was amaaaazing and so "us." My hubby and I teared up when we looked at our reception area after we decorated it. Nobody in our group had been in a wine cave and the ambiance is the coolest feeling! Here are a few pics:

the resort's pro photo

cave entrance/decor - we changed into pirate outfits during cocktail hour

our dining table & decor

View Quoted Comment I once went to a handfasting ceremony. It was maybe like ten to fifteen guests inside a tea shop cafe after hours. They only served cake and there was a photographer. It was a very short event, but it was a beautiful ceremony.