Church wedding but private ceremony

You don't it's rude .

Rude af actually!!

You don't. It's rude to invite guests to only one part of the wedding celebrations. Also, your title is wrong.

So just make it an open invite?

Not rude at all. It is very common to issue an invitation to the church family or congregation to witness the ceremony if they so choose. The reason is that the church is open to its' members 24/7.

You do not send out invitations to the congregation. The pastor issues a verbal invitation or it is published in the church newsletter. They are invited to the ceremony, not the reception. it is however, courteous to host some light refreshments in the church hall- cake and punch, or tea and cookies, for the church members. Your other guests will proceed to the reception.

This is the one situation where it's not rude, actually. Send invitations only to those who you want to invite to the reception and in terms of your church congregation, an announcement in the church newsletter of the date and time of your wedding is all you need - you may find this happens automatically anyway. That way those who choose to attend can, but no expectation of attending the reception.

Thanks everyone!!!

Weddings in churches are technically public worship services, so anyone can come to the ceremony with or without an invitation to the reception. This is a fairly common practice in close-knit congregations.

You only send formal invitations to those who are invited to the reception. The announcement of your ceremony date and time can be made from the pulpit and/or included in the parish announcements section of a Sunday worship service to notify the congregation. There should be no mention of a reception during these announcements!

Do not send paper invitations to anyone who isn't invited to the reception though! That would be a tiered event and is considered rude (as PP mentioned).

I think this is common in some areas. I'm not sure where but I've heard of it. Maybe Celia can help.

@muriel j- So the congregation stays and has refreshments and the bride and groom aren't even there? That seems odd to me.

@Erin Wood - Did I say that? They normally make a quick appearance to thank everyone for attending, then proceed with picture taking like most couples.

So they don't stay and celebrate with everyone from the congregation? Just trying to understand. If the bride and groom weren't there or at least coming back I would leave. All the other guests are at cocktail hour I assume. How long do the bride and groom stay and visit with the congregation usually? Even if they only stay 30 minutes that only leaves 30 minutes for pictures.

This dynamic isn't unusual. There are plenty of couples, devout church members, who invite the church membership to attend their ceremonies, but not their expensive, formal wedding reception. However, some type of relaxed reception -- and that can be an hour in the fellowship hall or church basement featuring soft drinks and desserts -- are customary. Bottom line? Every INVITED wedding guest who attends your ceremony should be hosted to, at the very least, a cake/punch reception and a personal greeting from the couple.

If you choose to host those guests at a mini-reception at someone's home, all of them have to be invited. You shouldn't even consider going through the list of congregants and selecting who gets to come to whatever church reception you're planning. That is bound to result in hurt feelings. Some may decline to attend the mini-reception, but that choice belongs to them.

My suggestion is to either invite only those church members you can host with some type of reception, or don't invite any of them. Congregants do understand, when the couple is an integral part of their church family, not being invited to the formal, dinner/drinks/dancing reception, but if some are selected to attend the light/fast reception and some are not, you will hurt feelings. No doubt...whether those who are not invited express it or not.

What @muriel said! I had a similar question because our wedding is a church wedding and I wanted all the members to attend... we did give invitations to those who are close to us. My father (the pastor) will make an announcement at church the week before the wedding, that all are welcome to attend the ceremony.

I did this because I'm actually the pastor at the church where I was married. I put the invite in our newsletter and bulletin for several weeks and we had cake and lunch following the ceremony for everyone.

Then dinner and dancing followed. Only folks invited to dinner and dancing received formal invites in the mail. It worked well.

@Erin Wood - So you are saying you would leave the cocktail hour if the bride and groom aren't there? It is very common for the couple and the wedding party to miss most of the cocktail hour while they have pictures taken.

The church reception is no different, only the bride and groom are there for a few minutes at the beginning instead of the end.

For the record I stayed for the entire church reception. Aside from the few family pictures we had done all our photos prior to the ceremony.

I guess this is common in most churches. I think it's more something to do for the older crowd. I can't imagine someone my own age, or younger, would want to give up an afternoon watching a near stranger get married.(or casual acquaintance) I don't think you send out invites. It's just posted in church bulletin.

Your title is confusing, but what you're trying to accomplish is very typical of active church participants and it's not rude at all. The devil is in the details.

I've done many of these celebrations in my former life as a caterer.

You ask the pastor to announce it or put it in the bulliten or on the bulletin board.

You don't send invites to them, nor will you get rsvps.

You arrange for very light refreshments (ideally something portable that could be taken to the family reception if left over, or stored for the church coffee hour on Sunday; cookies, punches, cupcakes) and you mingle for a half hour, 45 minutes. That piece of the day is really more like a typical church coffee hour. But you should be there.

You leave, headed for the reception. You should either hire staff or possibly the church has volunteers who help with social hours....Those guests may stay longer and you don't want to clean up.

For the other reception, you send paper invites, noting that there will be a social hour at the church immediately following, and then reception details. This way they have a grip on the schedule, they can choose to stay or not, and it really doesn't feel like a gap unless they would like to treat it that way.

Then you have your 'traditional' reception.

I think a nice touch is for you to send a thank you note to your pastor to read to the congregation.