Weddingbee boards

OK...This is my first post but you guiys ahve been so helpful with other people's issues I was wondering what type of input you may have on my situation.

My FI and I are in the process of planning the wedding. While trying to respect all of the rules of ettiquite we are finding that we can not afford to have all the people we want to have at both ceremony and the reception. Now i know most people would say invite all or invite none but its a bit more tricky than that.

first off, i am the eldest of 7 children and both of my parents are the youngest of 5. SO with just MY IMIDIATE maternal and paternal family, The guest list is at or around 30. and those are people who I cant NOT invite and wouldnt want to not invite either. Now my fiance's family is much smaller than mine but basically with JUST our families, we are looking at a guest list of 100.

Now of course we have friends who will be invited as well putting our guest list cap at 35 (the maximum our venue will hold....deposit has already been put down and date is already reserved, STDs have been sent as well but mainly to those who dont live in town)

Seems simple right? Well my FI and I met in college in band actually and our college bandmembers are VERY excited about our union...and The band does function as a psuedo family to some extent. NEedless to say as soon as we were engaged, not only did word spread quickly, there are MANY MANY people who want to witness our nuptials and we would like them their as well. the problem is that it is hard to invite some band members without others for obvious reasons....Oh and BTW the Band we met in marches btween 250-400 people at any given time...

Unfourtunately, it is absolutely impossible for us to ahve the reception we want and invite all of the people taht we want. Most of our family memebrs do  NOT live in the same town as me and my FI....infact ONLY my mom dad and sibs do so ALL of our relatives would have totravel and we feel it is rude to haev them come all this way and not to be able to provide a meal for them. We also know that the reception is probably the ONLY reason that our families will have to come together like this in the future and we would liek for the reception to serve as an opportunity to get to know each other.

Our solution right now is to have the wedding and invite basically anyone who would like to come and support us (and we welcome the support) and have a reception following that for family only (the friends we included in the first reception are basically family minus the fact that we do not share blood). We then plan to ahev a 2nd reception with in the month following the wedding for all of our co-workers, bandsmates, college friends and whatever family may like to attend.

We arent trying to get extra gifts or anything like that. We really just want to give all of the people who are important to us a chance to party with us as well but due to the types of thisngs we want to do at our first reception, that number of guests would not be appropriate.....

SO what do you guys think?

I think this is completely appropriate. It is extremely nice of you to tell everyone that anyone can come the wedding (would your ceremony venue be big enough for that??)  I have heard of this quite frequently actually-- the family only reception. :) If you want to have a second reception after the wedding for your friends say a month later, I think this a completely alright. Just be sure to put it on the invites very clearly that the ceremony is for everyone though the reception is for family only! That way your guests know what to expect.

@lisalew5472: My fiance and I are planning on doing something very similar to what you are suggesting about keeping it simple with a small ceremony and reception (out of state) with our families and maybe having a party when we get back with our friends that we could not invite... our wedding will also be broadcast over the internet (something the venue does since it's kind of a destination wedding venue)... Would you suggest sending out separate invitations or something for this broadcast and reception for the people who aren't actually invited to the wedding? How would you go about this since it's not actually a wedding that people can go to?  Do you have any suggestions on how to word this to people who aren't being invited to the wedding?? Our thought was to have a get together after the wedding and try to de-emphasize the wedding thing as much as possible as well as not saying anything about a registry so people don't feel obligated to bring gifts... but how to actually let people know about this... I am at a loss with.. what would be right etiquette wise??

 MrsWall2B: I'm afraid that what Kittyachi says may be true though given your situation (and mine as well) I really don't know any way around it without spending an arm and a leg to try and make EVERYONE happy... I hear so many times that you can't make everyone happy so you'd might as well go with what you want in planning your wedding-- that's what I hear anyway..

@lisalew5472: I agree with lisalew5472. definitly keep it 100% seperate.

Thank you all for your advice! It has proven to be very helpful. Me adn my FI have talked about it and weve decided that it would be best to do the two receptions still but on the same date instead of a month or so later. Since our friends are significantly younger than most of our relatives (especially my FI) we think friedns would be more comfortable at the 2nd reception anyway. The first reception would be more formal and would include things like the first dance etc. and the 2nd one will be less formal, more cocktail party ish (gives me an excuse to have TWO outfits) We may do the whole boquet, garter toss at the 2nd one as well. We plan for both receptions to run about 2.5 hours and bothe will be concktail style. the only difference is that the 1st will be champaigne only and the 2nd will more than likely be open bars (our friends looove to party) Since both will be "equal" it shouldnt matter which one you get invited to right?!?!?

@lisalew5472: thats what i was thinking to do at first but my FI wants to do them the same day! we still have to play around with things and see how it works out1 i hate hurting feelings though and i would really like to include as many as possible...Thanks for the positive vibes though!!!

@2dbride thank you for the advice :)

Thank you everybody for all of the great advice!! Its so awesome to be able to take things to the BEes and get some of the best wedding related advaice. Heres what FI and I have decided. We are going to move the time of our wedding up to 12 in the afternoon (On a Thursday?!?!) We will have a lunch reception imidiately following the ceremony for family and then have a desrt reception later in the day for friends. SInce our wedding falls during the work week and during the day, we figured that having the later reception for our friends (in town guests) will make it so that no one has to take a whole entire day off to attend the wedding. The ceremony shouldnt be too long so everyone will be able to go back to work and then come and party with us later. WE plan to do the boquet toss at the 2nd reception becuase we will have more single people there. SInce the 2nd reception wont be sit down, if there are family memebers from the first one who would like to attend the 2nd they may but we are thinking that most of uor family is not going to be as interested in drinking and dancing as our friends will. Hopefully this all works out! again thanks for the great advice!

Both receptions will last for the same amount of time, they will just be catered towards the groups of people who are present. For example less offensive music less drinking at the first reception. The second reception will be more dancing than sitting and feature an open bar because thats how our friends like to party. I think our riends will be appreciative of the fact that they wont have to miss an entire day of work and that they will have an open bar (the 2nd reception will not because 1. its in the early afternoon adn no one will expect to get smashed that early and more importantly, FIs family hardley drinks at all) I know my friedns well and i know they would much rather come to the second reception with free flowing liquor vs the 1st one which will have a signature cocktail and probably wine/champaigne!

Again thanks for all the advice

@mandalee0624: The band is like a fraternity or sorority....so there are about 1oo and some odd people that i refer to as "my brother or sister" simply because we came into the band the same year. It is like a family....excluding some people would be the equivelent of inviting auntie and daughter A to the wedding but neglectig to invite Daughter B (because there isnt space) with that being said, there are a number of people i am close to that i really want to have with me on my special day.

The bottome line is I am blessed to have such a large family and friend network, i just dont have budget (or enough space, time etc.) to throw the type of reception one would need to house everyone at the same time.

@DemoDreamer: I thank you for your opinion and for sharing your story. however, after explaining to friends and co workers etc) what the deal is,  they all appear to be very understanding. I am literally the running joke amongst friends because of my 12 million siblings...lol

However, we are pretty much the first in our circle of friends to get married and alot of our friends are saying this is the first wedding they will ever go to.Also a lot of our friends are in college and as a result may have class or who knows whatelse going on that day. It may be a shame but my friends are waaaayyyy more stoked about getting to party, look fresh and have unlimited drinks!

Again everyone thank you for your advice. We truly would not have considered this option if we felt our friends would no agree. and i think that since the first one is family only, they will understand and will be happy to party with us

One thing ive learned through wedding planning is that ettiquite is important and useful in giving you guidelines. for example, when faced with a slight cut with guests to include a dance floor in the 1st reception, FI tried to move his bridal party to the 2nd reception...i had to explain to him that the bridal party HAS to be at all wedding events...lol and that is something i wouldnt now without researching ettiquite. However, i also have realized tha it is just a guideline and sometimes is not relevant in "abnormal" situaltions (like my group of friends)

Again bees i sooo appreciate the advice!