Big Wedding or Small Wedding?

I had a big wedding and if I had to do it over again I would do a small wedding aha. Initially I wanted something small to begin with but when we did the guest list it just ballooned and so we ended up with a much larger wedding than I anticipated

I was originally planning a 150-200 person wedding. Now because Covid I’m planning a small wedding and I’m so much happier. Bigger wedding, more money, more problem, more logistics. Small wedding planning really has shown me how much more the day is about you. I have splurged on things I wasn’t able to afford for my big wedding because of how many ppl but now I can ! So I advise for a small wedding ! Even a 50 person wedding is big and small enough! Have fun

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This is my current situation, I want a small wedding but our guest list says different. At this point I want to ditch the list and just have my immediate family around and be done with it.

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Thanks so much for the advice. I am really leaning towards a small wedding the more I think about it I'm all about saving money and being able to really spend money on the things I really want for my big day.

View Quoted Comment Yea honestly i had 250 people and it was overwhelming. Having less people also means you have more time to spend with each person more

Originally had planned a 92 person wedding. COVID19 came along and it came down to 7people in an outdoor garden ceremony n our reception at our apartment. If I could do it all over I'd still go with the smaller ceremony/reception, its cost effective & less stressful

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I believe that will be how mines will end up.

We're inviting just under 150 but expecting about 110-120 people (unless we need to cut due to COVID restrictions). In my culture weddings are a really big deal and you invite everyone.

As much as planning a bigger wedding is more expensive, I do think they can *generally* be a little more fun. Without offending anyone, what I mean by this is it's much more of a party with a crowd than without - if that's your thing.

Mine was in 2017. We had a micro DW (15 guests), and a small local reception three months later (50 guests). Small guest list so we splurged on venues, food, drinks & entertainment. Loved both. 💕 But I would have put 4-6 months between them.

Small—- 65 guests of only our closest circle of friends and family. These are the people who truly matter, they’re our support system and the ones who we regularly interact with/speak with.


For my first wedding 15 years ago, we had 150 guests. This included some of our parents’ friends too. But I wouldn’t do it that way ever again. Hence the reason our wedding will only have 60-65 guests. A wedding is too special of an event to invite “just because” guests.

Our guest list has 96 people, including us. I’d rather it be smaller.

We had an initial guest list of about 140, so a medium sized wedding. Then family drama happened, and we lost literally all of my family, so nearly 30 people.

In the end, we had 80 or so, which is technically a small wedding.

Looking back, it would have been nice if my family had thrown the drama earlier, so we could have sent invites to other friends, but, at the same time, the people who showed up mean the world to us, and we had an absolutely perfect wedding.

I have about 150 on my list. It’s the people I want to celebrate with. My backup plan in case COVID is not allowing that number in October is to just postpone the big celebration and have an intimate ceremony with 25. It’s not what I want, and it’s cutting out so many friends and family that I would love to be there, so many that have eagerly anticipated this day with/for me for years. So if restrictions continue, honestly even if I’m allowed to have 75 but not 150, I’ll still go with the intimate now with big later option. Beyond the 25, I can’t see how to cut certain ones out versus others.

My husband and I had, what I called, a medium size wedding. We invited 125 and between 95-100 were able to make it (I don't remember our exact number). If I had to do it all over again, I would 100% have the same amount of people. Everyone that we invited were near and dear to our hearts and we were so glad those that could make it did. We did hear from those who were unable to make it due to work/travel reasons - which we completely understood. I loved the smaller group we had because we were able to spend time with everyone there. Also, my husband and I knew everyone at our wedding. There weren't some guests that only I knew or some guests that only my husband knew, which was nice.

I had a small wedding by choice and would make that same choice all over again; it was perfect for us. As a guest, I also greatly prefer small weddings.

Almost everyone here that had a big originally wanted a small. Is their anyone who actually wanted a big and had a big?

I want a big, but idk if we have the guest list for it.

I plan on having a small wedding. We plan on renting out an airbnb and having only 10 guests over to watch us exchange vows during the late morning/early afternoon. We will most likely order takeout for food.
We agreed on the decision due to COVID. I don't wamt to take the risk of investing 10, 20, 30 USD on something that can be cancelled at anytime.

I got married on June 20th. My original guest list (pre COVID) was 80 people, but was truly expecting 50-70 people to attend since both of our families live out of state. I ultimately had to reduce my guest list to 25 people and I loved it. Most of my vendors were very flexible and I was able to make upgrades last minute and I also received refunds and reduced balances on a few contracts. I was able to enjoy my wedding as if I was a guest. It was perfect. My DJ also streamed the entire wedding on Facebook live via a private group to allow some of our loved ones to witness.

I originally invited 60 people pre covid because we have a lot of family expecting only about 45-50 to come. Now we have been getting cancellations on those RSVPs now that I live in a hot spot. I still have 4 months before the wedding on Nov 14 so I guess time will tell what will happen. Honestly I wish it would have only been 20 people or less and less stress.

We will see what the next month brings to know if I have to change my plans.

I like the small mountain wedding is my personality. I hope it all works out for the best.

Honestly we are having a smaller wedding with 60 people total. If we were getting married where we grew up, I can guarantee that number would have been doubled if not tripled.


I know my FH would love to have more people at the wedding but we can’t afford to.