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Technically, the reception is a "thank you" to the guests for coming to the ceremony. Some people may be offended since this comes across as a tiered reception. If I were invited to an event like this, where I was only good enough for part of it, I'd probably decline the invitation :(
Another thing is to have a ceremony & reception with the people to whom you are closest and have a large, non-wedding related party later on... but that kind of takes the fun out of throwing a bouqet & cutting the cake and all.
That's what I dreaded to hear. I posted something on facebook so we'll see how my friends and family really feel about it. Most people who know us as a couple know that we are family oriented, I think if we exlain to our friends and distant relatives that this is an intimate ceremony, I think most (at least the family and friends that know us) would understand. If not, then that's their choice to decline.
We were going to do a small ceremony and reception (we were thinking courthouse even) because we just want to be married, but then my mom had a small (rather large) problem with that. So we compromised our small wedding for 30. Now we may have to compromise again for 100... it's beginning to not seem like our day anymore.
Thank you for your advice though I appreciate it!
No problem, and I really wasn't trying to sound harsh. There's got to be some kind of compromise here though... maybe do your small(ish) ceremony & nice dinner for a reception, and then at a later date have a big party. I'd avoid doing wedding-y things at the big party though, so you'd be making some sacrifices, but that's only if you want those things in the first place.
And, honestly, in this day and age sometimes etiquette can be a little dated. If your circle of friends & if your families are ok with a tiered reception, then do what works for you guys. From an etiquette standpoint though, you might get side-eyed for it.
In the end, it is about you marrying your best friend. You deserve to have a wedding that you can both look back at fondly :)
I think it's fine for you to have a small ceremony and a bigger reception. It might be easier to have it on different days to avoid the confusion of the invite. But I think most people will be happy that you've invited them to share in your reception.
A friend of mine did exactly what you're talking about a few years ago, for somewhat different reasons (one of them had severe "stage fright" issues, and a ceremony with 200 people looking up at them made them very uncomfortable) so they had a small ceremony of about 20-30, and then had their reception to follow.
I think these days people are understanding of a lot more things. I think you should go ahead and do what makes you feel best.
Also, if it makes you feel better, my FI and I are getting married in my parents backyard with our parents, grandparents and siblings only, and then a coupld months later we're having a BBQ reception to celebrate with the rest of our friends and family. Anything goes as long as you and your future groom are happy with the day.
~Dee
Thank you for your input! I got some feedback from friends and family and they were for it. Some sent examples of reception only invites. We already booked the Hall for Sept 8th, once we saw the courtyard we decided to get married there as well on the same day. Once I started thinking about how to word the invites I got a little freaked thinking we made a mistake having both on the same day. Our idea of our wedding has always been intimate with a lot of meaningful touches, my cousin is even marrying us. So I think we're going to keep it that way. But I thank you for all of your input it did help me put things back into perspective!!
-future mrs. ranville : )
We had an intimate, immediate family-only ceremony followed by a larger (about 90 people) reception later that evening, and everything was fine. There were a few people who were confused and of course, some people (like my aunts) were sad that they couldn't see us get married. But ultimately, everyone completely supported our decision, and they were more than happy to celebrate with us at the reception.
We chose this for a variety of reasons: initially, we wanted to do the small ceremony followed by an intimate dinner reception with just our immediate families. My mom really wanted us to have a larger reception so that more family and friends could attend, so we decided to go with that. We wanted to have it a few months after our ceremony, but again, my mom really wanted it on the same day so that everyone could see us in our wedding finest and celebrate with us on the day we got married. So we decided to just go for it and have the reception a few hours after the ceremony.
As I said, our guests were very understanding and supportive. Most couldn't have attended the ceremony anyway because it took place on a Friday afternoon, while they were free for our Friday evening reception. We also just explained the thought process behind our choices. We didn't exclude people from the ceremony because we didn't like them - we just had this vision of a very small, intimate ceremon, and our guests were totally supportive of that desire. And I'm so thankful that they all were so understanding and so happy to celebrate with us at our reception.
Ultimately, it's your wedding, and you need to do what makes you most happy and comfortable. Everyone gets to plan the wedding that they want, and you should be able to do that as well. Just be open to questions if your guests have them, and explain the thought process behind your decison with love and kindness. If your guests know that you appreciate them and want to celebrate your marriage with them, I think they'll be a lot more understanding of a somewhat non-traditional wedding. :)
Good luck!
I have good news for you. Etiquette absolutely permits you to invite a small, intimate group to the ceremony and a larger group to the reception. The etiquette breach would occur if you were attempting to do the reverse by inviting the larger group to the ceremony while restricting the reception to an intimate few.
The best manner in which to do this would be to send a "reception only" invitation to the entire group, while also including a separate, "ceremony invitation" for those you wish to invite to the ceremony.
Oh, and as for invite wording, it was really simple! We didn't stress the reception only aspect. Here what our wording looked like (I bolded the only line that was different from our ceremony + reception invites):
Parents' names
Request the Pleasure of Your Company
At a Reception Celebrating the Marriage of Their Children
Miss Parasol
&
Mr. Parasol
Friday the Sixteenth of September
Two Thousand Eleven
Seven O'Clock in the Evening
Address
@future.mrs.ranville: Have a Cerermony with reception invte and a reception invite. Its the same as attending a party for a couple that get married overseas. I think its totally fine
@future.mrs.ranville: Don't worry! Have your intimate ceremony & celebrate BIG after because it is YOUR union & YOU are running the show!
It made me so sad to see you say "it's beginning to not seem like our day anymore." YOU POOR DEAR! Stop right there! INTERVENTION!!! lol
When dealing with situations like this I like to remember one of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes:
"Be who you are
and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.”
Go have the wedding of YOUR dreams honey and allow for a LITTLE flex but don't let anyone take over! Make you and your future husband happy and all the rest will follow 
@parasol: This is what we did as well!
@future.mrs.ranville: As one PPs said, this isn't an ettiquette breach- it would be if it were reversed, but...you're not doing that, so it's all good!
We had our ceremony/family dinner on a different day then our large reception, so what I did was have the formal reception invites printed and then, for the peeps that were invited to the civil ceremony, I hand-wrote a letter inviting them to that event and inserted it into their invites. It was time consuming, but personal, so it was worth it to me.
We did have some friends who were sad that they couldn't see us get married and I did have one person comment to my mom that the reception wasn't a "real" wedding but it was a real celebration of our marriage, which is what a wedding reception is.
To be honest, a lot of people commented to us about how fun everything was and were glad that they didn't have to sit through a long ceremony. :)
We are putting the reception informationon the invitation, and then including a small card that has ceremony information for guests who are invited to that. The ceremony will be mostly family and extremely close friends, while the reception will be a lot more open-ended.
This is a REGIONAL thing! In my state it is somewhat common to have a small ceremony and a big reception. No one is really that excited about the ceremony, anyway, besides family.
I sent out two different invites. They were exactly the same except the reception-only invites said "The couple will exchange vows in a private ceremony."
Some OOT's were confused and asked my fiance's grandma if they could still come to the ceremony. I don't care but we DID want an intimate ceremony for a reason..it's kind of like, can you read?? Anyway, there will be problems but do what you want! It will all work out.
I've only seen this done if the ceremony is truly private - immediate family only.
That being said, you are trying to keep on top of etiquette. But is there a reason you don't want the rest of your friends and family at your ceremony? That's not the expensive part, usually the ceremony is the same cost for 30 or 150 people (depending on the venue, of course, but if its at a church it will cost the same).
We did the same exact thing. Our ceremony was immediate family only + wedding party. We sent out invites to everyone to invite them to our wedding reception and didn't mention anything about the ceremony in there. Our aunts/uncles/cousins weren't invited to the ceremony since it was literally our wedding party + parents+ siblings and our officiant.
We got a lot of crap from DH's aunts that were pissy that they weren't invited to the ceremony but oh well... I looked it up and it's like what the PP said... etiquette says you can invite more to the reception, but you can't do it the other way around.
we are also doing this, and it's quite common. nothing to be bad about, in my opinion.
some of the earlier suggestions are good, I would just make the invitation clear that it's for the evening reception, without any excuses in print. your family and friends will spread the word well enough to explains the whys...
I'm doing a city hall reception on a weekday afternoon and then a reception the next day. Originally my thought was family only for the reception, but my fiance NEEDED 6 friends there (said they were like family). I gave in - after all, weddings are supposed to be for the two of you :) Then his PARENTS started inviting family friends to the ceremony - before invites even went out! I was furious - and still am - but gave in. His parents said they likely won't attend anyway, since they're from many states away, but I was still pissed.
It's easy to draw the line at "the ceremony is for family only," but once you start inviting some friends, feelings get hurt. That's why I'm mad about his parents inviting friends.
The reception the next day is for our friends and family. No one so far seems to have a problem with this, aside from my fiance's very traditional parents.
We're sending out two separate invites: one is for wedding + reception, and the other is just for the reception. We found a seller on Etsy who makes a style we like and is fine with printing small quantities, and she isn't charging us any more for making two styles of invites.
Thank you all SO much for your responses I have read every one of them!
@parasol- Thank you for your advice and reassurance. Our idea started out just like yours, as very small ceremony and then the reception on a different day but my soon to be mom-in-law (who is close to me like my own mom) and my mom both wanted it the same day. So we compromised, I know it's our day buit it's also a marriage and joining of two families so I feel the parents should have some input too. Also, thank you for your wording advice, it makes me feel better seeing examples of a reception only invite done.
@samanthajkellie - Thank you for the positive feedback!
@KimmySumShuga- Thank you for your kind words! Sometimes you can forget your dream in the wedding planning process. I'm trying not to do that, I think I was trying to please everyone and that's just impossible. Ultimately though, at the end of the day, when we're married, I'll be the happiest girl!!
@ArwenBride- I've been practicing my calligraphy so I can handwrite the addresses on our invites, everyone says it's a lot of work, but a few extra hours is worth it to me for personal touches! I want to show them they are special and that I'm happy they could be there to celebrate us! Thank you for your advice on handeling guests who won't be there at the ceremony!
@kissme_cait- Our ceremony will be the same feel, small and intimate. I did not think about inserting a small card in our invites though, I will definitely consider doing that! :) Thank you for your advice!!
@littlelucygoose- I agree, talking with family and friends it's a lot more common to do this where I live as well! If someone REALLY wants to come to our ceremony and were confused about the invite, I would not mind. It's a tight space but if they don't mind standing, I don't mind either. As long as I'm married to my love, that's all that matters! :) I also LOVE your advice on wording "The couple will exchange vows in a private ceremony" sounds perfect!
@futuremrsfitz18- The reason why we're having a small ceremony and larger reception isn't about the money AT ALL. We actually wanted to go to the courthouse and be married but some family members had disagreements with that idea. I understood where they were coming from too, so we compromised but still wanted to do a small ceremony. We were always going to do a larger reception for some of the traditions such as father/daughter dance. My dad has congestive heart failure so I wanted to have that memory of him and I. We've compromised a lot so far, I just didn't want to compromise our ceremony too.
@vickyness- We haven't gotten any issues from other family members yet, but I assume we will at some point. The people that matter know us, and know where we're coming from and understand. :)
@mtnhoney- We're trying to come up with something that is clear, but i think no matter how clear we are there will be some confusion. Facebook, friends, and family have helped keep people up to date on what's going on with the wedding planning :)
@julie12- We have some friends coming but they are in the wedding party. One of my fiance's close friends will be having twins around then so the likelyhood they'll be there isn't much. I'm close to my aunt and my cousin will be marrying us so I had to invite their family and a few others but all in all it's about 30 of our closest friends and family. :) Thanks for your input!
@Brielle- I must have skipped over yours when replying, I thank you for your reassurance! I will definitely keep your advice in mind for the invites! :)
This is what most people in the UK do. We just send out 2 different types of invitation. One to the ceremony where guests know they're there for the whole day and another invite to the reception with a venue and start time.
We're having the exact same numbers to each as you!
@ticatica- That's great to hear, I'm glad I'm not the only one doing this and that it's also a cultural norm in the UK! :)
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Hello Bees,
I'm in a dilemma, the future hubby and I would like a small intimate ceremony of just family and very close friends considered family at our wedding and then have it followed by a reception with our extended families.
We love the idea of having a small intimate wedding and our ceremony site can only hold 30 people.
We would invite around 70-100 more to the reception (only), same day.
I thought it was rude at first to hold both occasions on the same day and only invite some to the reception but not the ceremony, but I talked to my future mom-in-law and future aunt and that is how they did it when they got married. They said people understood because of space and would respect what we wanted if they knew us.
So how do I go about inviting some to the ceremony and reception but the majority reception only? Do I state in the invite "due to limited space..." or do you think that is rude in general?
We are not trying to be rude by any means, each person invited is special to us. It's not about the money but about the vision we had for our wedding, yet so many want to join with us and celebrate, which is great!
If you could please lend some advice, that would be appreciated!
Thank you!
Future.Mrs.Ranville