Ceremony, who to invite?!

Immediate family only is passable in my book, even immediately family and very close friends (i.e. the wedding party) would be fine with me, but 87 people to me would be offensive if I were a left out guest

Hard stop. You need to either find a new venue that fits all 150 people, or your ceremony needs to be immediate family only. 10-20 people.

Just do immediate family if you have to. No one does "family only" because as you said, that's like 87 people.

IMHO, you either need to: 1. Keep ceremony to immediate family only 2. Find another location for ceremony or 3. Find a way to get seats for all outdoors. Standing does not work. Talk to venue people, can they put bleachers in back, reserve for younger people?

Yeah I would be kind of offended if I was invited to the reception and not the ceremony.

No one is going to want to go to a ceremony and stand for the entire thing. Definitely no standing room for extras. Its ok to keep it to close family and friends instead of doing family only - sometimes distant relatives dont even want to attend, it would be silly imo to invite uncle jack you havent seen in ten years over your best friend.

You should invite everyone to both - it's not cool to pick and choose like that... if I were just invited to a reception and not the ceremony I'd be like, "Well, okay... that's weird."

This is so rude.

ETA: so some guests aren't important enough to witness the marriage, but they're invited to the reception so they still bring a gift, right?

This is gift grabby and poorly planned. Invite what both spaces can hold or find another venue for the ceremony.

You need to invite everyone! Can the extra 30guest stand? I know its not the most comfortable for the guest, but its an option.

It's very rude to invite only some guests to the ceremony. The only way you can do this is if you have your immediate family only (parents and siblings) at the ceremony and everyone at the reception.

@Z runner that's a terrible idea. Making your guests stand for your ceremony is terribly rude and poor hosting.

I love St. Susanna in Rome. But I love my family and friends more so we ended up getting married in our home parish.

No one should stand because how do you tell some they can sit and others cannot?

Maybe not every single person will rsvp yes and not all who do will come to the ceremony but you have to be prepared.

Ask the venue for their advice/assistance. Our church opens up and adds hundreds of chairs for Easter and Christmas masses.

Yeah and telling some they can't come to the ceremony--that's poopy right there.

It will work out--you just have to explore your options

Though many people here have a problem with it, it is not against etiquette to invite people to the reception only. That rule has existed for quite a while, I remember being invited to someone's reception when I was a kid, and my best friend invited twice her ceremony guest list to the reception (that's very acceptable in England where she was married). The fact that some people on wedding wire think it's rude doesn't mean it's not acceptable in society overall. I would seek to keep the guests invited to the ceremony at less than 50 people though. Keep it to very close relationships.

If I weren't invited to the ceremony I wouldn't attend the reception period. That's just screams gift grabby and is rude. Why not cut your guest to be the 120? That'll allow all guests to attend both and give you extra room in the reception area so it's not so crammed. To me reading that you're inviting the max people it can hold sounds like it'll be crammed.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm exploring with the venue about renting benches. The intent of only inviting family was to try to get the ceremony size a bit more intimate. Since I'm an only child, I'm close to my cousins. I mentioned the idea of immediate family only (to mom) and apparently the aunts had an issue with that. I have to invite aunts and uncles, and there are a lot. Another factor was that my fiance preferred not to speak in front of a large crowd, though he has a big family as well. We can't omit 30 people from the list, it's too late now and It was difficult getting It down to 150 let alone 120. By the way, gifts are the last thing on my mind It seems like every option available to me is going to offend someone. I guess I'll have to revisit the 87 guest list or if the benches don't work out standing may be the least offensive choice. I saw a standing ceremony in NYC central park once, it was lovely.

Unless it's immediately family only, you need to invite everyone to both the ceremony and reception. I went to a standing only ceremony once and everyone complained about it. We were so focused on the pain and being uncomfortableness that it was hard to pay attention to the ceremony. You must get chairs!

Do not invite anyone else. What happens if you get a 90% or 100% acceptance rate? If your venue only holds 120 people you will have a problem. Never invite more than what the venue holds.

Hi Mirba! Can you look into a different ceremony venue?

I'd either make sure every single one of your invited 150 guests can fit and is invited to the ceremony or a true "immediate family only" private ceremony that should be no more than 10-20 guests. You don't want the reception guests who "didn't make the cut" for the ceremony to feel slighted at an event you invited them to!

I went to a wedding in April that had a private ceremony. I was fine with that being only family, but when we arrived to the reception we could see the chairs on the patio from the ceremony. She had 80 people out there! That was a slap in the face.

If you do this, make sure no one can see just how many people made the ceremony cut. The only times I have known this to work is for the ceremony to be truly private with a bit of a gap and everyone meets at the same time at the reception space.

You don't definitely need to invite everyone to both things, but you can't have a private ceremony with close to 90 guests. You have a private ceremony with parents, grandparents, siblings. The end. And you invite them with enough of a gap that no one from the reception sees it. You don't invite uncles, and sorry, you don't invite close friends.

Or yes, you could make them stand; it's not ideal, but it happens every week at our venues for various reasons.

If you have to do standing room for the ceremony, be sure to alert your guests (ex on your wedding website) that there will be standing room in the back for late arriving guests or something like that. Additionally you will need to reserve seating for anyone coming to the ceremony who will need a seat, like elderly aunts, friends, grandparents, etc.

It's not an ideal situation you have but I would say it is better to invite everyone and suck it up that there will be people who have to stand than to not invite half your guests to the ceremony.

You just need to cut the guest list to 120 so that everyone can be accommodated at the ceremony and reception.