Small Ceremony/reception, Big dance

This is extremely rude. You should invite guests to the entire event or none of it. The only exception would be an immediate family only ceremony and inviting extended family and friends to the reception. There's no case where it's okay to invite someone to attend only once your preferred guests have already been served a meal.

Ya, unfortunately this will probably back fire on you. I'm sure you aren't meaning to come across as rude. You're essentially trying to have everyone come to celebrate you without having to pay for it, or properly host it. Drinks and dancing is a reception, and unless you're doing a cake and punch reception only for everyone, you are expected to feed all of the reception attendees. You could always try to do something cheap like a pizza bar.

I agree with the others, I wouldn't do this. I think you need to either decide to include everyone you want (even if that means having a cake and punch reception) or having an intimate wedding with just those closest to you and not inviting anyone for the end of the reception.
It never feels good to be partially invited to something.

I would strongly suggest against doing this. It is incredibly rude as it pretty much tells your guests that they weren't important enough to attend the actual wedding but hey, come party it up with us even though we wont be feeding you. I would highly recommend that you just keep your small wedding and reception with your closest friends and family then maybe send announcements to everyone else after the fact.

I know it can be hard when you want to host a lot of people and can only afford to host so many, but I strongly urge you to only fully host the number of people you can accommodate properly. If I was a friend only invited to the dancing portion, and I found out that you gave others a dinner and fully hosted them, but I was not given the same, I would be extremely hurt. More hurt than if you would have not invited me in the first place.

I think your intentions were sweet, and you aren't meaning to be rude by any means, which is why you asked on this forum! You just want to celebrate with as many people in your life as possible, but unfortunately, doing a tiered reception is not the way to do it. You could always host a cake and punch reception, or look into cheaper catering options if you still want the big crowd!

Good luck, Emilee!

Agree with the others. I do want to point out, though, that this is very common practice in a lot of other countries. My family in the Netherlands- all their weddings are like this. It's not considered rude because it's the norm there. By North American standards though it's really frowned upon.