Split ceremony/dinner and reception- Seperate invites

If you are going this way.. which looks like with so little time you are.. do the cake at thre recpetion . and make sure you feed your guest something.

Hmmm that is a good question. I've been wondering about this too because we are having a small private beach ceremony with no more than 10-15 people (immediate family) and the reception w/ dinner (50-65 people) will follow afterwards. Do I have to send separate invitations to those who are invited to the wedding ceremony and just send reception invites to those who are only invited to that?

Do the cake cutting and all the other stuff at the reception. You can do the toasts after the cake cutting quite easily.

The real issue is the timing. Between the actual ceremony, then pictures, then dinner- will you be done by 7pm?

Since it's still early to send out the invites- may I recommend moving the reception to 8pm... Even at 7, people will expect lots of food.

You could mention a cake cutting reception..I agree with Meghan, you are going to be very rushed..a dinner normally takes about an hour, plus pictures..you don't wan to make the reception only people wait a long time.

Ps- is it a cash bar? if not and you are paying for the drinks, then maybe you can make it a cash bar so you can feed everyone dinner? if not then nevermind!

Thanks for the input ladies!

We are going to have a very short ceremony, no longer than a half hour, and pictures will be before the ceremony so I'm not real worried about time between.

We are doing a cash bar, except for our parents and bridal party will have open bar all night.

I love the idea of having the cake cutting at the reception and toasts after that!

Let me get this straight, you're not paying for dinner for everyone AND you're not paying for drinks for anyone? Not to be mean, but it sounds to me like you should have cut your guest list by a LOT so you could be a gracious hostess for the guests at your wedding. I'm guessing you're still hoping for a gift from these 250+ people who will be buying their own dinner and drinks to celebrate your wedding?

Sounds very gift grabby and rude to me.

Even though the original post was from 2011... I feel the need to comment to Lianne that you don't know her situation. We are thinking about doing the same thing (and the idea about the drinks is an interesting option) and we are requesting NO GIFTS. so don't make assumptions. Thank you to Trisha for posting the question as it was exactly what I was looking for.

View Quoted Comment I know this is old too but thank you so much for saying this. I've been trying to find other brides who are doing the same thing I am because I got called tacky for wanting to split the ceremony dinner and reception because I wanted family and super close friends only at the ceremony and dinner but I'm still serving dessert drinks and will have DJ for the rest coming later for dessert. It's a totally common thing to have reception only guests. Not everyone can afford to feed so many people and it doesn't mean the couple is fishing for gifts at all.. in our case we had too many friends and family we wanted to celebrate with so this was the best way to still include them. We're being super clear on the invites we're giving them dessert and drinks so if they don't want to come they don't have to and these are all local people too I would never ask them to only the dessert portion if they were out of town. Anyway, people shouldn't judge! So thank you for your comment ❤️