20 Guest Wedding- what would you Do??

Having the dinner catered and you bring in the drinks may not be as expensive as going out to dinner. May also be just as beautiful since you can find airbnbs with nice properties! I like the intimate home setting and you control the noise and ambiance.

Hey there! I just married my high school sweetheart two weeks ago in a super small destination wedding. Only our parents, our son, and two best friends attended. We rented an AirBnB for everyone to stay in and paid the full cost for everyone. We married on the beach and then took everyone out to a restaurant for dinner and drinks after. It was a really initimate ceremony, low stress, and perfect for us since we’ve been together so long!

A couple of things I would recommend... be up front with the AirBnB host about your plans since many of them have event restrictions. Our activities were limited to getting ready and a few vendors being there for that process but we were still 100% transparent and had to adhere to some community restrictions like no on street parking, max number of cars in driveway, etc. so we had to plan for those logistics. I also reached out to the restaurant in advance to secure our reservation, a semi-private table, create a custom menu with minimal choices (and no prices listed), and coordinated a cake. We paid $510 including tip for 8 total guests appetizers, dinner, drinks, and cake.

We are having a pretty small wedding too and actually found an Inn that we can rent for 2 days (it includes all 10 rooms, breakfast both mornings, and a picnic lunch on the wedding day - for while we’re all getting ready).

We are having the ceremony and reception there as well and the Inn is taking care of everything. And we got it for a really great price. (Worked out to about 50% off than if we had rented each room individually for 2 nights).

Maybe you can find somewhere like that? I did also originally look up the idea of renting a mansion on AirBnB and having everything done there. You just have to check with the owner first, some bigger/nicer places have strict rules about parties of any kind.

We have 12 people and are renting an Airbnb on the beach. Everyone who is invited is paying their part. (We are both working on our 2nd degrees and don’t have much money to spare). We are paying for the ceremony and alcohol/ apps for cocktail hour. The cocktail hour is poolside; I figure we rented the propert night as well use it. The reception/ dinner at a nearby restaurant is being taken care of the parents. (Just keep in mind that some properties on Airbnb have a restriction on what you can do and how many people you can have.)For the “party” we will just go to a local hotspot and enjoy some free music and cheap drinks. For us the most important thing was to have a parents and siblings there and to make it as fun/relaxing as possible.

We are doing a 20 person DW on a beach in PR. We rented an Airbnb and paid the costs ourselves. We were also upfront with the beachhouse owners just to make sure we were following their guidelines. We are having a small beach wedding and then just lunch catered at the beach house. It will also be a big family vacation for both families so that's going to be exciting!!

We r having a 20 guest wedding as well. Booked the banquet room at our favorite 5 star gourmet restaurant. Ceremony and reception will be held there. Huge amount of money saved going this route so we r able to leave for our honeymoon the very next morning, 6 nights in Jamaica!!

I think for me personally, the Airbnb sounds like a better option compared to the beach idea. Unless you can reserve a part of the beach beforehand, which I'm not sure if that's even possible, I would think that you'd have a lot of random people in your photos, or they would cause extra noise that you wouldn't want in an intimate wedding ceremony! I guess technically, your photographer could edit people out of photos but that seems like a lot of work.

As for the Airbnb, I've seen a lot of couples find lovely mansions or beach houses! Or even just large homes that I can accommodate 20+ guests in a gorgeous backyard garden. I guess it really depends on what your budget is, and if you want to get married indoors or outdoors are your parents pitching in for the ceremony site? Maybe you might have some options open up if they do. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment If you don't mind, about how much was it to go that route? And you're having the ceremony at the 5 star restaurant, where? In the actual banquet hall?

View Quoted Comment We live in Springfield IL. The restaurant is Bella Milano. They have a banquet room that holds up to 65 I think. We reserved it for free. Only thing we have to pay for is the food minimum which for a Sunday evening is only $500. We will add their linens and bring in our own table centerpieces. We will have a back brop brought in and thats pretty much it for decor since the room is elegant in itself. With the plated meal and adding appetizers we r looking at under $1k for for venue and food.

View Quoted Comment Oh and yes ceremony will be there as well. Since only 20 guest they will be seated at 4 top tables for ceremony and reception.

View Quoted Comment So with this new ceremony, are you still being "walked" to him? And is everything else the same as far as your dress, his tux, wedding cake, etc..?

View Quoted Comment Im still deciding if I want my 24yr old son to walk me or I walk myself since we have no wedding party I probably will walk myself. We r in our 40s so we r not as traditional. I am still getting my dress..she just arrived at the boutique friday. We r buying FHs tux, our wedding cake is still being done by the same baker but instead of 4 tier we r only do 2. The banquet room has its own speaker system so will hook up our laptop for music and still have our first dance and light dancing, of course nothing like what would be at a full fledged reception. We concider what we r having as more of a dinner reception. It wont last as long. We ditched the bouquet toss and garter toss. Only thing we really changed was the venue, dropped the dj and lighting and dropped the wedding party. Added our 6 night Jamaica honeymoon and instead of over $**** we r looking at 8,000 total. My dress is a huge chunk of that with my total attire coming in at around $2,500. Here is a picture of it.

Jalla, same here! We wanted a VRBO or AirBnb originally, with lawn games, good food, and just somewhere that all 100 of us could relax at and have fun. Our budget was ~$15k. So we thought we found the rental house of our dreams (mind you - the wedding is in oregon & we live in Arizona), until my mom went to take a tour on my behalf. She lives there... so it helps! Anyways, tons of leaks all over, and it was entirely outdated! The pics my mom sent me, didn’t look that way on the website! Just for kicks, fiancé & I thought “hey, why don’t we compare what’s all included in the rental house anyway, and what we’d still have to rent, then compare it to some venues & what’s included there, to see which is more cost efficient.” Once we realized we’d actually be paying more for the VRBO, it was an easier decision to pick an actual venue. What frustrated us is that all of the VRBO’s that we fell in love with, don’t allow parties/events. Not only that, the ones that do, you pretty much had to pay for ALL of the rentals since nothings included. If you’re lucky enough to find a VRBO that works for you though, go for it! Snag it! That’d still be so ideal for our vision.