Postpone Reception//sequel Wedding Questions

I'm doing this. I was married last winter and have a party prepped for this winter.


I am going to give my bridesmaids the option to wear dresses or not, and I'm going to have a color guideline instead of a specific color and vendor. They won't be as big a part of the day either way.
On the smaller day, we still did a pro photographer, a florist, and a caterer. Everything was just shorter and smaller, but we didn't skip many big things. We didnt hire anyone for music.
I sent out formal invites for my minimony, but I called everyone who was invited as well (I ended up only being able to have immediate family, so 13 people). I wanted the invites for myself, and my grandma wanted to display it.

My husband and I did just that! We had a minimony in October with 35guests, most of our bridal party attended but they were just guests. However, they will be our bridal party for our upcoming bigger wedding. My family cooked for everyone so we didn't have to worry about a cater and my father purchased alcohol (some people brought their own). We did hire a photographer, and my stepmom as well as other family members decorated the venue. We sent out electronic invitations to those who were invited.

Our bigger wedding is scheduled for October of this year and although we still cut our guest count to be safe, we are definitely looking forward to celebrating with the people who weren't able to attend the minimony.

We did this. Our plans changed so many times that it made my head spin, but here’s the answers to your questions.


1. Our wedding party wasn’t there (save a sibling on each side). For our third plan, we were only allowed to have a 10 person limit (which included officiant and photographers), so it was only going to be parents present. A week out from Plan C, we were forced to change again due to CA wildfires. The ultimate location didn’t have a limit, but since we were getting married on a Thursday morning, we only added in siblings last minute. I would have loved to have our wedding party there had we not been limited on numbers. If they were there, I absolutely would have had them wear their outfits (why not get more wears out of those dresses?!)
2. We had our officiant and photographers come to the ceremony. All the rest of the vendors will come to the reception (as long as we can still have it). We’ll invite our officiant and his wife to the reception as guests.
3. Because it was only parents (and because it was such a short event), we didn’t do formal invites for the ceremony.

We kept our wedding date last October and we plan on still having our larger reception if COVID allows for it.


We did a small ceremony only at our church (outside vs inside) and only our bridal party and immediate family only. We did not send out formal invitations for the ceremony as all of our guest were family and over half were the parents and wedding party and their spouses. Ended up being a total of 40 people including bride, groom and officiant. We did a live stream for the rest of our originally invited guests that could not attend the ceremony.
We had flowers and photographer only for vendors along with Hair and makeup for my girls and I.
We had a full bridal party at the ceremony so that we could have our typical wedding party pictures and most of them were immediate family anyways. This was also important to me because my brother (groomsmen) and his two kids (ring bearer and flower girl) were moving to Texas right after the wedding and I knew they would not have the means to make it back for awhile.
After the ceremony we did a dinner at a local restaurant outside just to celebrate with family.
As for our reception this year: Our wedding party has been given the choice if they want to wear their dresses and suits or not. My husband and I will be back in our outfits as I still have some pictures I want taken at the reception along with my two kids (again for pictures) but some of my wedding party will not be able to attend this year so I am not being to particular about what the others wear. Their roles at the reception are just to have fun and celebrate.
I hope this helps. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment

Thank you Shirley! This is so helpful to hear. I love the idea of having a color guideline as opposed to a specific color. I hope your party this winter is everything you've hoped for

View Quoted Comment

Thanks Yasmine! It's nice to hear from people who are in the same boat as me. Your minimony sounds like it was a perfect day, and that you didn't have to spend too much extra on vendors. Sending you good vibes for your bigger wedding in October

View Quoted Comment

Oh my gosh, I am so sorry you were amongst the brides who had to deal with Covid + the wildfires. I'm from Oregon and can attest to how bad things were.

Thank you for all the input! It's so helpful to hear from those who have faced similar decisions. Sending good vibes that you're able to have your reception

View Quoted Comment

Hi Katie. This is so so helpful! Thank you for taking the time to detail this out. I like the idea of having bridal party in their hair/makeup/dresses for the smaller ceremony, and then having their roles be to just have fun and celebrate at the reception.

I hope that your reception is everything you've hoped for!!

View Quoted Comment Thank you Natalie. At this point I just hope it happens at all. We are keeping our fingers crossed. My 8th grader is finally going back to school in Mid-March with a hybrid schedule so at least things are getting better so we will see.


Good luck with yours as well. Best thing to do is enjoy whatever happens. You are marrying the one you love and that is what matters most. ❤️

View Quoted Comment Thank you! I was sad at first because I had a vision of these custom matching dresses, but now I'm glad I made the change. I think different shades of the same color and different textures bring a lot of depth to the photos

View Quoted Comment Thank you 🥰

View Quoted Comment Did you do a vow renewal at your bigger reception? We’re due to have our postponed reception on our first anniversary on 4/2 and we’re conflicted on whether or not we want to do a vow renewal!

View Quoted Comment Did you do a vow renewal at your bigger reception? We’re due to have our postponed reception on our first anniversary on 4/2 and we’re conflicted on whether or not we want to do a vow renewal!

View Quoted Comment We actually ended up canceling our reception altogether. It was a tough decision but what was in the best interest for our family and friends and for us financially.


But to answer your question, no we were not going to do a vow renewal. Our ceremony was in a Catholic Church and we did not feel as though we needed to do another ceremony so soon after. Our first ceremony was lived streamed so those that were not able to attend were able to watch it. Our reception was just going to be a big party with food and dancing. We are in California and there were and still are so many restrictions our guest would not have been able to enjoy themselves and I had already been told by a large number of guest that they would not attend due to that current situation.
I hope this helps and answers your question. Good luck!!

View Quoted Comment

Like Katie, we actually ended up canceling our big reception. Instead, we added a week onto our delayed honeymoon (happening this July)! If we had gone through with the reception, we would not have done another ceremony as it would have seemed redundant and a time waste.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! We were too deep into planning and booking and I couldn’t bring myself to cancel, though we heavily considered it for a while. Haha. We feel like our vows were so special and our minimony was perfect so those are our thoughts as well. We’ve just recently gotten some pushback from family so I just wanted some validation that not doing a ceremony again is fine. My husband and I felt like it we re did our vows it wouldn’t be nearly as special. We’re so ready to party and move on with our lives. 😂

View Quoted Comment We definitely lost 2+ years of planning and what would have been an incredible party, but it didn’t feel the same anymore, so we moved on. A big party is perfect. If the ceremony feels disingenuous, don’t do it! I hope you guys have a great reception!

View Quoted Comment I absolutely agree with this. I still have a big box of decor that I don’t know what to do with yet and haven’t felt like selling it but I am sure in time I will find someone who might want it. We felt the same way about doing vows . I think around the 10 anniversary we will do a vow renewal and big party. Until then we are just happy being married.

View Quoted Comment Decor is the one thing I put off because I was so up and down with how Covid was going and I lost all motivation so I bought like 90 percent during normal planning, and then I just stopped doing my DIY’s, so I’m in full swing right now. We’re both still excited to celebrate (we didn’t zoom our vows, I didn’t wear my dress, we still have our photographer and videographer we pushed off since we had a friend do our minimony photos) so we have no regrets on that end. We just want it to be what *we* want still and that’s essentially a huge party at this point. Haha. I don’t know if people feel weird about coming to just a reception? But a ceremony doesn’t feel right to us, so I guess we will move forward with what we want!

View Quoted Comment

Hi Kimberly! We're in the same boat as you- got engaged before covid, planned a 150 person reception for May 2021, and then ended up downsizing to a 50 person ceremony (and small backyard celebration) on our original date and postponing our originally planned reception for May 2022. I definitely have some stress over how people will react to coming to just a reception when many of them already came to a ceremony and small celebration the year before, but in the end we decided to move forward. We had already put down around 8k in deposits, so it was too much to give up for us. We also felt that a lot of people we had always pictured being at our wedding weren't able to be there, and we wanted to have the celebration we had always dreamed of.

We are not doing a vow renewal, but we will be doing traditional reception things, like cake cutting, first dances, and speeches. In the end, you deserve to have the wedding you always wanted. Honestly, in my area, this plan seems pretty popular- I've met more people that postponed a reception rather than canceled a reception- so you're definitely not alone, even if you're not seeing a ton of representation on this site. I hope you have an amazing reception!