Plus one help!!

Tl;dr: should I include plus ones for singles even though I’m trying hard to stick to a small budget? Is it acceptable to say plus ones can only come to reception, not dinner?? If so, how do I word that on invites?


My fiancé and I had originally planned a $15k wedding for 2021. I’m in school full time (also working 30 hours or so a week as a bartender) and he works as a manager for a cleaning company. In order to afford that wedding without taking out any loans, we both had to stick $250 each in a savings account between now and June 2021, even then we were $3k short but my parents would make up for the rest. We were planning on approximately 185 or so when we made a guest list last month. I graduate next June 2020, and we were going to move out together then so that I wasn’t living at home as a college graduate. After realizing how tight money would be if we moved out and still had to pay for the wedding, we decided that we weren’t going to move out together which upset me. Just a few days ago, we decided that we were going to cut our budget in half and move the wedding to next summer 2020 instead so that we could afford to live together, and so that we didn’t have to wait 2 years. The first thing I did to help make this happen was cancel our expensive venue and DJ, both of which have agreed to refund our deposits. Next, I cut down the guest list which included making it a 18+ only wedding which is what I wanted the entire time, and I took out all plus ones for single people. Important note; every person at our wedding will know someone whether it be another friend or they’re part of a family who will be there. I posted on a Facebook wedding group mentioning this, and most people said they didn’t like it or were iffy on the idea of no plus ones because they probably wouldn’t go to that wedding. So today, I added back in the plus ones for the single people and I’m back up to 165 people, which I think is too much for such a limited budget. Our catering is $10 a person plus gratuity so it’s doable, but i’m concerned we’ll go over budget and it’s hard for me to want to pay for people I don’t know. Is it out of the question to say we’re having an “intimate” dinner and that plus ones can join at the start of our reception? I’m concerned that then people would have to take 2 cars which would deter people from coming. Thank you!!