Invite to the Reception, but not the Ceremony

You need two different invitations or you could use one invitation to a "reception celebrating the marriage of____ and ___", and include a separate card for those invited to the ceremony.

This is ok IF you truly are inviting immediate family only to the ceremony. It is seen as a "private" ceremony in that case. But if you are picking and choosing some other friends and extended family to invite to the ceremony as well, and leaving out others, it can be rude and hurtful as people will feel excluded and left out.

To answer your question - I would send two separate invitations. The reception-only invites can say something like "John and Jane will be married in a private ceremony. Please join them for a celebration of their marriage...date, time, location".

@Emily we have a specified line of where "immediate" stops. We have decided that we will only have parents, grandparents, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles. (not sure if that's 100% accurate, I don't have my notebook with everything in front of me)

I wouldn't invite aunts and uncles - they aren't considered immediate family.

Agree with cutting aunts and uncles. They aren't immediate.

I disagree with some of the PP here - aunts and uncles can definitely be considered "immediate family" in a loose definition of the term depending on how close the family is. It's a case by case scenario. I have aunts that are like second mothers to me.

If you are inviting all those people, you have to invite the rest of the guest list. You can only get away with a private ceremony if it's the two of you, parents, and maybe spouses Once you open it up more than that, its incredibly rude to tier your event like this.

Aunts and uncles but no cousins? That could get mucky, I guess if I was in that situation I would make the invite say like close friends and family for the ceremony and those that felt they met the criteria would come. And those that want to come to reception but weren't feeling up to the ceremony wouldn't feel inclined. Since you aren't paying for much for people to attend the ceremony and you don't have to interact until reception, it wouldn't bother me if people came to the ceremony.

I would leave the aunts and uncles out

No aunts and uncles. no nieces nephews or cousins. If you're striving for 'immediate family', you're talking parents, stepparents, siblings and their so's. Beyond that, you're now talking extended family.

I mean, honestly, it's up to you and dictated by your motivation for a private ceremony. 'cause 30-40 people isn'' private any more.