Ceremony and Reception At Different (far Away) Venues

I would not pick a place that can't accommodate everyone so my recommendation is to either pick places that can accommodate everyone or invite less people.

I wouldn't rely on people to sort themselves out the way you're hoping. I also feel like a lot of people would skip the ceremony because of the drive just to drive back for the reception (if they were to attend that too). I wouldn't invite more people than you can accommodate, which sounds like a max of 90. Not a good idea to assume that over half of the people you invite won't attend one or the other.

I predict that your venues having a 90 person capacity will become an issuefor you. In your situation I wouldn't choose a venue that can't accommodate at least 150 people with your guest list being 200. You may be surprised how many people will want to come to the reception or vice versa and you will probably put yourself in a difficult position. I highly doubt it will work out to 50/50 going to ceremony vs reception.

Sorry but I think this is kind of a recipe for disaster.

First of all, making people pick and choose when I'm sure plenty of your nearest and dearest will want to attend both the ceremony and reception, but may not be able to with the drive, is pretty rude. A wedding reception is thrown to thank your guests for witnessing your nuptials, and an hour drive between the two locations does not a thank you make.

Second, as a general rule of thumb, you should never invite over the capacity of a venue. If your church seats 90, 90 should be your cap. You should always operate under the assumption that every guest you send an invite to will accept. There are some pretty bad stories of brides and grooms over-inviting, getting way more "yes" RSVPs than they thought, and either legit uninviting people or breaking fire codes at their venue by having people stand, having people sitting on the ground eating at the reception, etc.

I'd recommend cutting your guest list significantly and maybe finding a non-beachy venue near your church if you're super set on your particular church for your ceremony. Something within a 15-20 minute radius should probably get you out of the coastal town just enough, but there may also be venues on the coast that don't give off a super beach-drive vibe.

This honestly sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. If you can't accommodate all your guests, you will either need to cut the guest list or find a larger venue. I think you'll have a hard time finding people that will simply sort themselves out, and some might have some pretty strong feelings about the set-up you've outlined here.

I do agree with PP who mentioned it's better to have a place that could accommodate the max amount you're inviting. I do know some people only invite close family to the intimate ceremony before though. For my wedding I did give people the option to RSVP for ceremony only, reception only, or both. And I did get different counts for both.

I’m sorry, but this sounds like an awful idea. What are you going to do when more than 90 guests RSVP to the reception? I would be willing to bet that only very close friends and family will attend the ceremony and most guests will just want to come to the reception. Will you tell them that they can’t because you didn’t plan efficiently?

Yeah, I think you could probably get away with having the ceremony venue be smaller (it'd still make me nervous though), but I'd expect to have a lot of people only attend the reception. Unless it was a really close friend, I'd definitely skip the ceremony and do the reception only, and I have a feeling most of my friends would feel the same way.

Thank you for the responses. I should have clarified that the guest list is going to be cut down a bunch - only about 100-125 people will be invited in total (a chunk of which live out of state). I know it's unrealistic to invite all 200 with our situation!

View Quoted Comment

I still wouldn't invite any more than the max for either of your venues. What if nearly all of them RSVP yes?

View Quoted Comment I agree with Amber. You still shouldn't invite more than the maximum capacity for each place. You have to plan for everyone saying yes to attending both even if that isn't the case. I also think it is rude to invite people to a ceremony and reception that are an hour away from each other.

I think you can invite people to the reception only, but not to just the ceremony. I would be offended if I was invited to the ceremony and then got brushed aside so you could go to your formal reception afterwards. While I think the best is to invite everyone to both, it’s more understandable to keep the ceremony small and private and then to include everyone for the reception.

However, I personally don’t think that’s the best idea. I would want to go to both, and be able to use my own judgement on whether I want to drive back and forth. I have been to weddings where the church is 45 minutes away from the reception, so another 15 minutes may not dissuade me from going to both. Guests always have the ability to go to just the ceremony or just the reception, but it’s presumptuous to ask and will probably not give off the sense of consideration you’re trying for.

You can, of course, plan this however you like. But I think you are opening yourself up to A LOT of avoidable stress and headaches and confused guests with this very inconvenient wedding.