Non traditional wedding advice!

Hola! I had a small wedding, 15 guests. We rented out a huge suite in a resort/casino and had our ceremony and dinner in there. Afterwards some of us went to the casino and played. It was a lot of fun!

We will have a total of 37 people at our wedding. We are having both ceremony and reception at an old mansion that functions as a restaurant. They have different rooms and ours will be in one of the rooms. There will not be dancing, just a four course sit down dinner. We will be heading to a pub afterwards to continue celebrating.

Hey everyone! I love that so many of you are having/ had similar experiences with a smaller group. I was talking My FH late last night after posting this, and we're actually planning on honeymooning in Savannah, Georgia and he recommended having a destination wedding with our little crew at a historic B&b as an option! I am also looking into renting a home and catering food and buying alcohol from sams club. Half of our guest list doesn't drink alcohol so that should keep that budget pretty low. Ideally I'd like to do this for under 2k but where I live and with little decoration, I think this is doable. The majority of the costs will go into food and liquor. I love the idea of the thank you cards and formal invitations. I have a HUGE family and although I'm committed to a small guest list, I'm afraid of offending certain people. My parents are each 1 of 6 and each of their siblings have at least 2 kids.. I wasn't planning on inviting any of them.. just immediate family, our best friends and 1 cousin (who is like my sister, and we were raised really close where as the rest of my cousins lived out of town growing up and I'm never see them) and her husband... but I wasn't going to invite her parents ( dad's siblings) because I'm afraid of offending all the others if I do.. any advice on how to handle something like this? The other option for us was just to elope to avoid all the madness, but I'd like my dad to give me away, he almost died in an accident when I was a child and my whole life I promised myself I would give him this opportunity because I was so close to losing that) i just don't know how to go about it.. or if we did decide the elopement route, how incan include my father in a sentimental way...

I should probably make another discussion post on this too huh? Haha

A good friend of mine had a house wedding. The JP came out to the house and dud the ceremony there. Only about 15 people were there for the wedding ceremony and it was fantastic and full of love and laughs. After the little ceremony we all went to a rented hall for the reception. Potluck style. It was so great and fun. Lowkey, low pressure and affordable. The biggest expense was a toonie bar!

No toonie bars, no potluck. stop it.

We were thinking a restaurant style sit down dinner lol I found a really awesome speakeasy in town that's very lavish but decently priced for a small crowd, but at the end of the day it is a bar, no matter how classy and upscale it as and they serve bar food.. high end as it may be they're still hors d'oeuvres and small plates.. is that inappropriate for such a small group? I'd be able to cover the cost for our group for a few drinks and food and have a private room( behind a secret bookcase at that) I figured it would be about the experience and a cool

Chic new environment but idk. I'm clearly tossing around a ton of different ideas but I need to explore every avenue hahaha any thoughts on a. Bar-esque like reception gathering for s small crowd?

Priscilla as long as its a good amount of food, it doesnt matter whether its all tapas or one big plate. That is to say, if you're having the party part during dinner time, it should be enough food so people don't go home hungry.

Re: Your dad, you could just elope with your dad as the witness so he'd be there with you.

Sounds good to me, if there is enough food. We did a lot of weddings at Rebar and that sounds a lot like what they did. The guests really loved it; different than a sit down dinner, but way fun.

But you do need to have enough food.

I like your speakeasy reception idea. The whole cocktail party vibe with appetizers would really lend itself to this kind of venue. Cocktail receptions with apps are fine, as long as your guests are being offered plenty of them with some variety. Actually, it's just another way to present wedding food.

I've been to both the restaurant/small group reception -- totally easy to find and book -- and the cocktail reception with heavy apps/open bar. Both were outstanding. Actually, the one sit-down, plated meal reception was held in a private room in what was essentially a bar. It was a very nice, well lit, clean bar, but still a bar -- and believe me, none of us felt out of place in our dressy clothes.

Your wedding will be fabulous, whichever way you go. It is totally possible to do smaller weddings if you use an establishment that serves food and alcohol to small, medium, and large parties of guests. They have the kitchen, the staff, the raw product, the servers, and the desire to fill their spaces with paying customers.