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I'm in the same boat!! I was wondering if that was possible....hope someone fills us in! :)
I've been to a few weddings where the reception was not open to all the ceremony guests. Doing that would be easy, just don't include any info about a reception in the invite to the ceremony.
hmm, I would be careful with just "not including" reception info. People are going to naturally assume that they will be invited to the reception, and will try to find out the details regardless if you include them. You'll probably have to find a clever way to say "ceremony only" on the invite.
Honestly, if someone invited me to the ceremony but not the reception, I'd be pretty offended. However, maybe this is acceptable in other social circles?
My other concern is: even if you don't include reception info on the invitations for ceremony-only guests, what if they go anyway? When they see other guests heading to the reception or hear them talk about the reception, wouldn't it be natural for them to assume that they could attend as well? I can see it being a pretty awkward situation if extra guests show up to your filled-to-capacity venue.
Honestly, I think most people care more about the "party" and socializing and celebrating then the (usually) 20 minute ceremony.
If I was just invited to the ceremony and not the reception, I would be kind of insulted. It would seem rather gift grabby and I obviously don't rate high enough to come to the actual party.
If you have to keep it at 50, keep it at 50, for both.
I would just do word of mouth in your situation. Explain that it's a very small reception, but they are welcome to come to the ceremony.
@bunnyfoofoo: very good point!
Have two different invites printed up, one printed specifically for the guests who can not be accomadated at the reception.
Here, I found an example:
"The honour of your presence is requested at the wedding ceremony
of
Kesha Miller
and
Mr. Thomas Dwight Brown
Saturday, the twenty-third of August
at four o'clock
Church of Christ
Bedford
I would be insulted by a ceremony only invite.
I would feel like I was being invited mainly because you want another gift but I'm not special enough to come to the celebration afterwards.
I'm not trying to sound harsh, just seeing things where I come from but my..
My question is are you expecting those people you invite only to ceremony give you gifts (cards..etc) ?, because that wouldn't be fair to those are getting to go the reception and getting a nice meal?
I'm not trying to sound harsh, just seeing things where I come from but my..
My question is are you expecting those people you invite only to ceremony give you gifts (cards..etc) ?, because that wouldn't be fair to those are getting to go the reception and getting a nice meal?
Could you do cake and punch afterwards at the ceremony site or something like that, then transition to the actual reception (so the ceremony only guests still get a little time to socialize)
I guess I should add that my parents did that, though less because of the numbers (everyone was still invited to the informal, potluck reception) but becaue my Grandma insisted on a more "formal" reception, so they did that with just cake and punch
I agree with JennaBride. If it has to be 50, then keep it at 50. I think you will get more hurt feelings inviting people to only the ceremony, than if they weren't invited at all.
When I was younger, I remember my mother telling me about reception cards enclosed with invitations for those who were invited to receptions. However, the practice seems to have gone away almost entirely. Partial invites don't seem common anymore.
50 is 50. Keep it simple.
Frankly, I would be insulted if I got to the wedding ceremony and found out there was a reception afterwards that I was not invited to. Perhaps you can have the reception another day? I don't think there's another way to do it without making your ceremony-only guests feeling slighted.
I would stick to the 50 guest for both, I would personally find a partial invite insulting. Once a guy asked me to be his date to a wedding. He was only invited to the party after dinner and speeches ect. We showed up at 9pm and it was horribly awkward. Speeches ran late and we were stuck in the hallway waiting for the speeches to end. When we did finally go in we had no seats because we weren't included in the reception seating. I found the whole thing really awkward and distastful.
I had a friend that got married last summer and was very upfront with us about only being invited to the ceremony because her church held 500 people and the reception 300. She was sad that we couldn't be at the reception because there were a lot of family friends on both sides that they needed to invite, because of that, there was not a lot of room for their friends. In the end, she squeezed in a table for us. But I think that if youare upfront about it to them it could work. Also they had the ceremony at 11am and did a small lunch buffet for those who would not be going to the reception. It was a nice compromise.
If your guest list is 50, then you should keep it at that. If your guest list is over 50, then you need a new reception venue. Just because your ceremony venue holds a larger number, doesn't mean you have to invite that number. I hate to be harsh but if you are including your closest friends/family to the reception, do you really think your other guests would be ok with just attending the ceremony? I wouldn't be but if you think so, then go for it. I agree with pps that other guests might think its gift grabby and your less important guests might not feel like they need to witness only the ceremony. I think part of a wedding is being able to mingle with the bride and groom.
A friend of mine did this recently, however she had many many friends and women in her church make cakes so that there was a mini-reception for the guests after the ceremony and then all the evening guests (200less people) went on to the proper reception from there.
I don't think theres anything wrong with inviting more people to the ceremony (its fairly common here in the UK), but i think my friend got the right balance by providing some time for herself and the groom to catch up with these 'ceremony-only' guests before moving on to the exclusive part of their day. Otherwise it might look like you're fishing for more gifts.
@MapleBecky: That is exactly what I would do, we only had 60 guests, a couple of people expressed an interest in coming to the ceremony, and so I welcomed them along, obviously you dont expect them to give a gift.
Etiquette wise this is a big wedding no no. It's not polite to invite people to the ceremony but not the reception. BTW the Royal couple is having what's called a tiered reception. Although this may be ok for the Royal couple it is considered very rude for us normal people.
I have seen this before my friend just did it last aug. She just left out reception info on some of the invites. They relyed on family to spread the word that as much as they would love to invite everyone.. it just wasnt in the budget.
OMG!
You all have been so wonderfully helpful and honest--THANK YOU!
The main reason I am asking is only because there have been a large number of people who have wanted to come but I cannot accommodate in the reception.
I am not looking for more gifts. I think it is more rude to tell people who are joyously excited for you that they cannot see you be married than to at least offer them the ability to attend the ceremony.
I am not going to drum up a whole other list of people who could only come to the ceremony. HOWEVER--I would like to be able to (and maybe only by word of mouth) say that if they are interested there is room at the ceremony.
I am getting married at Disney and that also gets a lot of people excited. Maybe they want to see us married and see a "Disney" wedding.
The main thing I'm getting at is that I don't want to ignore people who have literally almost invited themselves innocently because they are excited. My fiance and I have been middle school sweethearts and dated all the way thru college. We have a long trail of people who have been waiting to FINALLY see us just get married already! :)
SO! In light of this, have any of you changed your opinion or have any other advice to offer? Your honesty and similar situation as a bride to be makes your opinions really invaluable since no one else gets it!! :D
Personally, I would keep it @ 50 and then have a separate wedding reception. that Its similar to if you did a destination wedding. Not everyone may have been invited to the original ceremony so you have a reception to include those who were not originally invited.
Good Luck.
@homegirl2180:I didn't post earlier bc I didn't have time, but after reading your new response my mind still is the same. I would feel very insulted and think it would be rude to invite some to the ceremony only. I understand people are excited for you and yes maybe some have invited themselves, but you need to stand up for yourself and just be honest and say due to budget issues we have to keep it at 50. People now adays DO understand budgets and will understand. We went through this, I had a very small intimate wedding bc we were on budget due to building a house. Really some people got it and some people didn't understand till now. 2 years down the road, it doesn't matter and having this person or that person not witness it doesn't make us any less married.
this has happened to me before. I was invited to a ceremony and then just the dance portion of a reception, not the dinner portion. I found it weird and offensive and just didn't go at all.
If you are going to invite people to the ceremony only, it's best to do it via word of mouth. Don't bother sending those people an invitation. Just tell them, "look, we are keeping it very small, but you are welcome to come to the church for the ceremony, which is open to everyone."
@amariem25: I agree. I generally think it's a bad idea, but if you REALLY want to do it, I think its best done through word of mouth. Just throw the idea out there to a few people, and that way if they are going to be at ALL offended, they can easily decide not to come :)
Funny you should ask. My fiance and I were seriously considering doing something like this (more people at ceremony, smaller reception). However, when we started actually thinking about the logistics of it, we realized it wasn't going to work. I've heard of people having family-only receptions, but we were going to have more than family, so this wouldn't work. We also thought about how many extra people would we really want at the ceremony who we didn't want at the reception, and the number wasn't bit enough to justify it. A big issue was the added cost too. If we had some ceremony-only people, we felt we'd have to do some sort of appetizer/dessert/champagne reception to thank those who came to the ceremony only. And then we'd have the dinner reception later too. I think the biggest thing that settled it though was thinking about photography. If we were to have the appetizer/dessert, etc. small reception first, we'd want to have it for at least 1.5-2 hours, and what the heck was the photographer going to do during this time? We'd have to pay them, but we wouldn't really be wanting that time covered. The whole idea was just adding up to extra cost and hassle, so we nixed it and just went with a slightly larger reception for everyone (we're expecting maybe 70 people to come).
If you're having a Disney wedding you CANNOT have extra guests. You will get slammed with a big huge fee is you go over your limit, which I know can be as low as 18 guests depending on the type of wedding you're having. So be very careful about that!
It's very sweet you two have been together so long and people are so excited for you (I'm a bit jealous, I wanted a Disney wedding but am settling for just the honeymoon, haha), but the reception is meant to receive and thank your guests for attending your wedding - it's really really not polite to invite people to the ceremony only.
My FI and I have been looking into the very same thing. It's a bit of a diff situation. My dad's a pastor - so there are a lot of church people who think of me as part of their family, but we have limited space at the reception venue. We are doing an open invitation to the whole church, where it is clear that there is not room for everyone at the reception (this is done with most weddings at our church). However, we have other friends, etc. who are on the "B List." We'd love for them to be a part of our day, but we just can't make room for everyone. So... We're contemplating doing a cake/punch reception at the church right afterwards. Our issue is that the church's facility won't have room for everyone... So we need to come up with a polite way to ask the reception-invited guests to feel free to not hang around for the cake/punch haha :) It sounds like it won't work in your case... I'm thinking to just keep it at 50
@Jenlon: If it's at DIsney that won't be an option...they are unfortunately very, very picky about what they do and do not allow at weddings on their property.
Like others have said, you're going to run the risk of offending people by not inviting them to the reception.
I've only heard of people having a very intimate ceremony, but then invite all the guests to the reception afterwards....And I've had a friend who got invited to only the reception but not the ceremony, and got offended and told them he would not attend unless he was invited to both events....I think it can be a tough situation..you would definitely have to make it clear on the invite...BUT you would most likely offend several people who are hungry afterwards and thought they would be able to party with you after....As someone above mentioned, if guests attend and give a nice gift to you, and then not be able to celebrate aftewards with the A list group who made it on that list.....IMHO, it seems kind of touchy.
We are doing this for our church wedding. In the UK, it's common for extra guests to be invited AFTER the reception meal for the disco and buffet. Instead, we decided that the ceremony is the most important part of the wedding for us and that is the part that we would like to share with others. There will be an open invitation to church and to my work collegues (I may make individual invitations for some guests). Everyone invited to the ceremony only will be local, and we plan to cut the cake at the church so we can share tea and cake with our extra guests before heading off to the reception.
I would send invites to the 50 guests only, then if anyone expresses an interest in attending the wedding say they are more than welcome to & perhaps let word of mouth work its magic. In my history of weddings i have noticed people attending who know the couple but aren't close enough to be invited often turn up for the ceremony.
I'm pretty sure Disney will not allow this and will make you pay for extra guest reguardless. Use it as an excuse.
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Ok ladies--tough post so prepare yourself.
I have a very limited guest list of 50 people. Period, no exceptions. It's caused a stir and some ruffled feathers but I have managed to hold fast and remain unmoved.
In all the news about the upcoming Prince's wedding in England, I noticed that their ceremony is a lot larger than their reception(s).
Now it's no surprise that I'm not royalty, but this idea struck me as a great compromise (and a great test) for those who want in on my wedding.
My reception location seats 50 (another great way to keep the guest list down) BUT my ceremony site can seat 300.
So I am thinking that I can invite people who want to come to the ceremony and the reception would be a private reception for close friends and family.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
HOW DO I ACCOMPLISH THIS IN THE INVITATIONS?
Thanks in advance, ladies!