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I'm choosing a small wedding with all of my closest family and friends because it's what we want, i want to see and party with all of my friends and family and not worry about pomp and circumstance and seating etc.
as a guest i have no preference, i would really just like to be there for the couple as long as i am not stuck in the back near a door because the list was too large and there was no where else to seat me.
My fiance and I chose to have a small wedding! Our perfect number is 150 ... we have around 190 invited now - that's the max.
I've only been to two weddings in my whole life ... so really I have no opinion but it does seem like you can do more "special things" if you are having a smaller wedding.
My wedding would be entirely different if I invited 650 people. =)
It doesn't matter how big it is, people will have fun no matter what. Big of course is really cool (for the most part).
We chose to have a small wedding (40). We are paying the same price for our small destination wedding as we would to have a large wedding where we live. We felt it was more important to have an intimate event and share it with those closest to us. I was married once before and hated spending the reception going table to table schmoozing with our guests. I am very excited about our wedding and intimate celebration but it wouldn't be everyone's idea of a perfect wedding.
we're having a very small ceremony and a larger dinner, for 100 people. i have extremely high anxiety and i really don't like being center of attention, so there was no way that i'd be happy with a big wedding. however, my fi really wanted to share the day with friends and family, he was more about a big wedding. we comprimised by letting people celebrate with us after. as a guest, i've never been to a small wedding. i'm not a fan of dancing, so really i'm probably not the person to ask.
We originally thought ours -- at the beginning of our planning -- would be about 110 people, but now that it's less than a week away (eeee!), we're jazzed about the fact there they'll only be aboutt 80 people there...small enough for us to see everyone, not get too easily overwhelmed, etc.
We invited 125 (kids included) and we expect to have about 75 or 80. We didn't go into it trying to have a small wedding and we invited everyone we wanted to invite. So it just worked out that way.
We had a small wedding, 32 guests. I wouldn't have had it any other way; this was our preference to have only those closest to us attend. It was beyond personal, it was private.
As a guest, I don't have a preference. If a friend has a small wedding like mine and I'm not invitied, it doesn't bother me. I love bigger weddings, too, I have been to one of about 500 people and several in the 80-120 range, which seems most common.
I go back and forth on this a lot. Part of me wants a small intimate wedding and the other party wants a huge extavagant wedding. I think I will end up somewhere in the middle.
I had something of a small wedding (just around 100 people), and then a while later went to my friend's large wedding (around 225). I noticed differences, even though maybe they weren't as noticeable to other people since I had just gotten married. Like MsHymanRoth said, you can do more special things with less people since that usually means you have more money to play with.
I'm having 2 small weddings! The 1st is a church ceremony, it'll be just us and the parents! Our other wedding is 2 weeks later in Aruba with about 60! I like love small weddings!
I wanted a small wedding but with are families being so huge it quickly turned into a big wedding.
We wanted to have a small one so that we could be able to have more personal time with our guests. We're inviting about 175, and hoping for 125-150 to come.
I would love to have a small-ish, intimate wedding with about 100 guests. However, it has become clear to me that sharing that special day with so many people that are excited to be a a part of it is more important. So we are inviting over 200 guests, though many of them are out of town and won't be able to make it. 150-ish is more than I would like, honestly, but I'm still happy to include everyone that I feel deserves it.
I was hoping for a mid-range wedding, but I thought our guest list would be 250 max. Once the names of close friends and relatives only were on paper, we quickly discovered the list was at 450. So, I guess it's a big wedding for us- makes it SO MUCH HARDER to find a venue, especially if you weren't looking for a huge ballroom in a hotel. I am sure it will be beautiful, but it's not what I initially thought it would look like. Ok by me though, I just want to spend the day with my man! =)
For me weddings have always been a wonderful chance to have the extended family together and since I have such a big family (4 aunts/uncles and 17 first cousins on one side and 6 aunts/uncles and 21 first cousins on the other side - all of whom are married) I have about 80 people before I even get to friends (or the groom's side!) so we're looking at about 180-200 on the invite list. We're having a ceremony/reception in Ireland 2 weeks later and we're looking at just about the same number for that. So two fairly big celebrations but I just couldn't imagine not including everyone. (except for my cousins' children - can't do it - that would be about 100-200 more people!)
I've never been to a really small wedding (less than 100) or really big wedding (more than 250) but I do love to see how creative brides/grooms are when planning large and small - so many great ideas out there!
I had really hoped to have a small wedding, with something like 50 to 60 people, but it very quickly became apparent that such a small wedding was not in the cards. I have a HUGE family, and amazingly we're all very close, we have at least five family gatherings a year at which well over 100 people show up. So even being brutal with the guest list the number of family invitations on my side is over the 60 person mark. Throw in an equally large and close family on my fiance's side, plus very close friends and we're looking at inviting between 160 and 180 guests.
AnamCara, I completely understand what you are going through. My FI and I come from HUGE families. I have 21 aunts and uncles (total) and they are all married with children. My FI has 4 aunts and uncles, but he has six sisters, one brother and over 20 nieces and nephews. So, by the time we added up everyone , we had a guest list of over 250 people. There was no way, we wanted to have a wedding that big.
We chose to have a small wedding, because we have been to only big weddings and even though they can be fun...they can also be alot of work and exhausting. We have been to a couple of weddings that we only got to talk to the bride and groom for like 5 minutes before they had to go talk to their other guests...we didn't want that. We wanted to have alot of time with all of our guests and we wanted our guests to know that they are very important in our lives and were not invited just because they were family. If that makes sense. But good luck, ladies! Small and Big Weddings are only a personal choice and you have to be comfortable with whatever choice you make.
We'll be having a small wedding. I'm hoping for about 50 guests. We're having a destination wedding, but even if we got married where we live, about 85% of our families would need to travel. With both of our families living out of town, I really want to be able to spend time with them at the wedding. It just sounds more intimate, and more us. Most weddings I've attended have had between 100-350 guests (and I've been to a bunch of weddings). As a guest the only difference I could tell was how much face time I had with the bride and groom.
as a guest id go to either though ive never been to one under 100. (which is what i really consider "small")
for us we're having a big wedding (200+) due to my family size, and its what really our parents wanted.. they didnt want us to miss out on that experience!
but really we wanted a small wedding (50ish?)
we're just grateful to be having one now though!
I preferred a small wedding because I couldn't imagine running around all evening to greet everyone and only having a few minutes with each guest. I also wanted to invite only people who either FI or I were close to. I have a small family and a relatively small circle of close friends, and he has an average-size family. So I think we won't have any trouble keeping it to 70-80 people.
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To each his/her own, but personally, as a guest, I've attended more small to medium-sized weddings, but also the odd mega large event. Funnily enough, the mega-large events have been less memorable to me. I may vaguely remember them being luxurious, or that I maybe exchanged 3 words with the bride and groom, but that's about it... It is the smaller events (50 - 75 guests) that have really stuck with me as a guest... But this may well be because I'm more of an introvert! 
Needless to say, we're having a small wedding ourselves, for many, many reasons. The main one being that we want it to be super meaningful, so we would like to just be surrounded by people we're close to.
Another reason is the environmental footprint thing. Fewer guests = fewer invites printed, fewer cars on the road getting to our venue (we're having the ceremony and reception in the same place), etc...
And, yes: if cost wasn't a factor, we would still choose to go for a small event. 
We wanted to keep our wedding relatively intimate. If it was up to me, I'd have like 50 people there max, but FI's family is HUGE so that wasn't really an option lol!
Post wedding, one of tne of the biggest regrets brides have (as cited in polls), is having invited "too many" guests, along with spending too much on the reception and/or not having enough time to socialize with guests on their wedding day. Having a smaller wedding often means you can have more options, save more and just have more time to chat with your guests. In any case, I've never heard anyone saying that they didn't have a good time at a party simply because it was "too small" or conversely, "too large." They enjoyed it mostly because they were in a comfortable atmosphere with great food, fun entertainment and friendly people!
While an old thread, still completely valid.
I have always wanted a very large wedding and that is what we are planning. I had no idea going in what the budget really would have to be to get what I want so thankfully we are in a financial position to afford my dream.
As a guest I also enjoy larger weddings because they have all the over the top details that make it a bit more of a party. Not to say that smaller weddings aren't fun or fabulous, I"ve been to many amazing smaller weddings. I just like all the extra perks a larger wedding allows.
As a bride, I prefer having a more intimate wedding (under 100). As a guest, I don't have a strong preference for either a big or small affair. However, I might feel a little "lost" in the crowd or cramped in bigger functions, whether it be a wedding, a private party, a conference, a convention etc. For weddings though, I don't think size matters much in terms of creating something memorable and fun; it just depends how you pull it all off.
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Which did you choose and why? Money not being a factor. As a guest, do you have a preference at all or not?