This is such a long post, and I kinda just need to vent, and be told I'm not doing it all wrong but here it goes...
So originally when we talked about a beach wedding I was planning to extend the invite to all family members and if they can't afford it, I understand but didn't want people to feel mad that they weren't invited.
But I recently brought up to my fh about if we want to do a beach wedding perhaps we need to cut our guest list to only parents, grandparents, and siblings ( and maybe their kids) so this would have us under 30 people, after I had several people to telling me, it's my wedding so what I want, and how I could just have a beach wedding with less people then have a reception when we get back for everyone else that didn't attend.
My reasoning for less at ceremony is between renting chairs, planning in general for more people in a state that I don't currently live in, and feeding people in a different state where food is more expensive, I'm just super stressed with planning for closer to 80ish people for a destination wedding. I know you can find packages where stuff is lumped together but I don't know if I want to spend the money for it.
But I worry that family like aunts/uncles and cousins will be mad that they aren't invited to the ceremony but I don't think it would be fair to pick and choose some but not all aunts/uncles/cousins. My fh has 6 aunts/uncles plus their spouses and kids so it adds up. I have 4 aunts plus their spouses and kids. Some of the cousins are old enough I feel it would be rude not to give a plus one.
I am not only doing the reception for the gifts though it would be nice if we receive gifts but they won't be expected since they weren't invited to the wedding.
With keeping the ceremony/ after ceremony dinner guest list small my hope would be to spend that extra money at the reception back here. On things such as a bigger variety of food ( we discussed food truck and possibly sushi and ice cream bar and or dessert table) open bar and DJ and photo booth.
I was also hoping to show a video of the ceremony ( not the whole thing) at the beach, and pictures we took at the ceremony at the reception so spending a little more on a videographer and photographer. I would love to include photos from the ceremony as decorations at the reception ( and hope that nobody publicly shares picture from the ceremony until after the reception 😉)
I also want to get more pictures done at the reception of typical reception stuff like cake cutting but also professional pictures with guests and extended family.
So with planning a bigger reception back here where we live I can explore more options to save money and find better deals.
I don't expect people to solve my planning problems but I can't be the only one dealing with these issues!
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