I'm starting to plan my wedding for October 2021 and have found everything in my area to be incredibly expensive even though we only want about 40 guests maximum (that number would include some plus ones for some of our guests who aren't currently in relationships and probably would just go together, plus a few people who aren't entirely essential to invite). We're considering doing a very small wedding with just family and just having a ceremony and then going out to a restaurant after to celebrate, then throwing a party or renting a cabin or something to celebrate with our friends later. I live in the D.C. area (in Silver Spring, MD), and it seems almost impossible to find something that's actually reasonable for the small number of guests we're hosting (a lot of food and beverage minimums at restaurants that host weddings are very high for that number of people). We aren't super traditional and really like venues with nature/greenery around. We've considered just doing an earlier daytime wedding to cut costs on food and then planning to invite guests out later in the evening to go out dancing and to bars (so we can still party with our friends), but we're also new to the area so I'm not sure where to start on that.
Does anyone have any advice on how to really cut costs and where to look for affordable venues for a small wedding or examples of where they held their ceremony and reception and how much the total was for a similar guest count? It seems like it's almost impossible in the D.C. area, but please let me know if you were able to have an affordable small wedding. I've also considered the Pittsburgh area, as my immediate family lives there so it would still be convenient to get there as we can stay with them, but I'm not sure that anything there is much more affordable. It seems to be tricky to plan a wedding with such a small number of people regardless.
