Courthouse + Dinner : HELP!!!

Maybe ask the judge if he would be willing to do it outside in the public area? worse he can say is no.

You only invite the people who witness the ceremony. If you want more, hire an officiant and get a space.

Where I'm getting married only allows 15.

Invite immediate family only (parents, siblings) to the ceremony and everyone else to the dinner.

ETA: or hire an officiant and have the ceremony at the restaurant

When is your date? It says 10/14/16? I do know that etiquette wise it's probably not polite to invite people only to your reception. I believe that's called a tiered wedding but could be wrong. Guests might become insulted by not being invited to the whole wedding. Maybe on your invites call your reception a wedding celebration instead of reception. The reception part implies that it follows an event and if they're not invited to the event it could be offensive.

If you keep the guest list for the ceremony truly intimate, immediate family only- parents, siblings, grandparents- there is no breach of etiquette in inviting other guests to just the dinner. In that case, you will need 2 different invitations: one to the ceremony and reception dinner; and one to a dinner celebrating the marriage of_____.

Thanks guys - the date is October 2017.. I can't figure out how to fix that typo. Lol. I am not calling it a reception but a celebration dinner. If I limit dinner only to the 12 or so that can come, I'd be so sad not to had some of our family and friends there. I really wanted this to be simple and intimate but I'm so stressed out. I end up in teas trying g to write the invitations. I think I Will try Muriel's advice of two seperse invitations.

We originally thought about doing this. We were going to have our closest friends and parents at the courthouse but invite 35-40 people to a reception or "celebration of marriage" and just tell them we were doing the ceremony at the courthouse.

You could also do one invitation with a separate insert card for those who are invited to the ceremony.

"On the invitation, instead of inviting guests to witness your marriage, the wording should say that guests are invited to a reception in celebration of your marriage — this implies that you will already be married by the time they arrive. The insert card can more specifically invite guests to your wedding ceremony. It should list the time and location, and conclude with "Reception to Follow." On your wedding website, you can either list the ceremony information and specify that the ceremony will be family-only, or you can opt to keep the ceremony information private and add a little more information about how you are inviting guests to join you for a celebration after you've exchanged "

Thanks Muriel. I love that solution.

Why can't you get married at the restaurant? Hire an officiant -- and get busy finding one (October is a big wedding month). That's exactly what my son and FDIL are doing next month (yes, they considered a court house wedding, but the guest limitation was 1/10th of their reception guest list)). It's going to be quickly, easy, and breezy, but every guest will witness the ceremony, and then, it's party time.

Hire an officiant and get married at the restaurant. Most courthouses don't do wedding on a weekend and most of them won't do it on a specific date.

You could also get an officiant and fine a free local park and then go to the restaurant. That way everyone can go to both. But it would be rude to invite some to one and not the other, endless it was parents only at the courthouse

I would have an officiant come to the restaurant. With low numbers, having half of the group be important enough to attend the ceremony may come across badly to the other half.

I was going through your same situation so we changed it and we are having it at a public beach which is free so everyone could come and then dinner afterwards