My fiancee and I are planning for a short engagement – which means a fast dive into wedding planning! We are toying with the idea of a dinner party for family/close friends (max 60), followed by an after party at the Royal Palm Shuffleboard in Brooklyn for more friends to join. That party will be 2-3 hours with open bar and we’ll have some platters out. OR the alternative is find a restaurant in Brooklyn/Manhattan that can accommodate a ceremony and up to 100 people for a seated dinner, and if there is an after party, everyone’s on their own with their drinks. My fiancee is pumped to do the former option, he also doesn’t have as many friends and guys don’t seem to be as sensitive– so it’s less of a concern for him.
Any thoughts on this? I do feel bad about inviting some friends to ONLY the “after-party.” I’ve been slow with the engagement announcement because of this fear, but as more friends are finding out– of course they are really excited and saying how they can’t wait to celebrate. I am thinking I can say only family and childhood friends for the dinner because we’re on a tight budget and there are venue restraints. Hopefully people will mind. Especially because I have a group of friends I’ve know since 1-3rd grade, that I live near now and are extremely close with, and then the extended friends are college/old jobs, that I am definitely not the same level of closeness (even though my college roomie had me as a bridesmaid). I also saw in this blog to say “no gifts” in the after-party invite to help them feel less offended and like we really want to celebrate with them.
Would love to know what others have experienced around this sort of situation.
