How many people came to your ceremony?

I have never been to a wedding where I didn’t go to the ceremony. I think all of your guests that go to the reception will go to the ceremony. Your parents are wrong on this one I believe. It’s better to find a new ceremony venue!

Sorry, your family, not parents. Misread that part!

I would bet on everyone attending the ceremony. Could you compromise by having everyone stand and only reserving seats for those who cannot stand for a short length of time?

I go to every ceremony. Everyone on my minimony guest list came to mine of course, but in my family everyone is expected to go. I do know my dad's extended family does skip ceremonies. However, these are all hour-long church ceremonies at separate locations, not 20 minute ceremonies at the reception hall.

That's all to say unless you have a cultural thing about skipping ceremonies, I think 100% of guests will be there

I had 3 not go I think, one couple was running late and one was my cousins wife. She stayed with their 11 month old so she didn’t Interrupt and then joined us at the reception. We had 63 guests.

Unless it’s a situation where guests aren’t allowed at the ceremony - a Morman friend’s wedding was in their temple and it’s common for family and friends to not be qualified to enter the temple - I haven’t heard of people skipping the ceremony and just going to the reception. I guess a couple times where a work schedule interfered maybe.

Your family is definitely wrong on this one. Get a venue that’s going to fit your guest list of 130 people. Our guest list is 100 & 7 have declined- our venue can hold 225.

We invited 162, 110 said yes, 106 attended the ceremony and 104 stayed for the reception ❤️

I have honestly never heard of skipping the ceremony and just going to the reception. We had 110 guests RSVP yes (pre-covid), and all of them came to both.

It depends on how this is handled.

If you are specifically only inviting 60 guests to the ceremony and all the others to the reception, that's one thing. (This is not considered rude, by the way - there are certainly times when people invite only their nearest and dearest to a private ceremony, then host a large reception for everyone else.)

If they are thinking you are going to invite 130 and only 40-60 will attend (or that 40-60 will attend only the ceremony), absolutely not. That is 54-70% of your guest list.

Since they have an opinion on it being a waste of money, am I correct to assume they are helping pay? I would suggest either paying for a separate ceremony site yourself (if you want to be sure all 130 of your guests can attend) so they can't really say anything about it, or paring down the list so that you have only 60 people on the ceremony list, but all 130 for the reception. There are some other steps should you choose the latter, but definitely, definitely, definitely do not assume that over half of your guest list will skip the ceremony.

You should plan on everyone you invite going to the ceremony. If you are doing a truly immediate family only ceremony and then a larger reception that's one thing, but PP is totally wrong. It is super rude to invite half your guest list to a ceremony and then more to the reception. Either have your ceremony at the reception site so you can fit everyone, cut your guest list, or move your ceremony. A tiered reception (what you are planning on) is very rude.

Maybe 100 but there were 250 at my reception

View Quoted Comment Agreed. And it would be rude to do a tiered wedding (where guests may only be invited to part). Find a venue that can accommodate all guests you invite.

As a safe rule of thumb if your going to invite 130 people to your wedding plan on hosting for 130 people until your rsvp come in. then plan accordingly, if your heart is on this venue then have a smaller venue and host 60 people. we had to cut our guest list from almost 480 people down to 130 peopole

I'm sure there are cultural or regional differences around this, but it has never occurred to me NOT to attend a ceremony AND reception of a wedding I am invited it. And I have never noticed a larger crowd at a reception than was at any particular ceremony (but of course I haven't counted, either!). My wedding was very small and all guests were at both parts.

So, unless it's a widely established practice in your area to skip the ceremony, I would not make your plans based on this assumption. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

All of our guests attended our ceremony and I’ve never attended only a reception, except for friends who eloped. Even friends who married in a church and had their reception elsewhere all had their 100+ reception guests at their ceremony.

I've never heard of anyone skipping the ceremony before. We had 120 guests and all 120 came to both the ceremony and reception.

The only time I have ever heard of people skipping the ceremony because people know that it is rude to do so is LDS weddings where only the couple and their attendants who are approved by religious leaders can be there but the reception is open to all or when there is a gap between longer than driving time (2+ hours) and guests will attend reception. Otherwise never bank on anyone skipping the ceremony, especially if you have sticklers for etiquette in your circle.

Other than that, most every bride I've known has said they were surprised to have 99-100% attendance

View Quoted Comment I don’t think you read my post properly - I’m not planning on having a tiered reception at all... I’m just trying to decide whether I have my ceremony in a separate space to the reception and how many guests would realistically attend from our full guest list.