Small Wedding Planning(50 Guest and under)

Music: We are using a laptop hooked up to venue's sound system with various playlist.

Invites: We are not putting RSVP cards inside but rather setting up an email account strictly for RSVP's. This will be mentioned on invite.

Cupcakes: We are doing cupcakes and not specifying "wedding cupcakes" upon purchase, just "for an event". The cupcake boutique near us has amazing chocolate salted caramel cupcakes(nice for fall) which sell 6 for $16.00. We would get enough for each guest to have 1.

Thanks @LMac

I'm definitely looking forward to interacting with more brides who are choosing to have small, intimate weddings or have already had.

I had a small early afternoon wedding of 55 guests at a historical park. we were married in the chapel and the reception was in the Alexander Blue House. It was the perfect place for an intimate guest list. The ceremony started at 11:30, the reception quickly followed and every one left between 3-4:00. We had 3 food stations and everyone loved it.

@MrsA2B that sounds beautiful and relaxing. Thanks for sharing. Our wedding will run approx 4.5 hours as well.

You can do online RSVP for free using wedding wire website. I did cupcakes but you can save more money doing individual cakes from the grocery store and do a dessert table. A bride on here did it for her small wedding and it looked beautiful. The ipod thing is ok if you are using it for background music only. I would prefer a DJ for party type of feel.

We had a small intimate wedding with 46 guests. It was perfect. We did your 1st and 2nd advice ... We did playlists on Spotify and used the venue's sound system. We only sent 20 invitations so we did RSVPs via phone and email. We did have a small 3 tier cake because we wanted the look of a cake instead of cupcakes. It cost $185 which was not much more than cupcakes (your cupcakes would have cost us $122). But cupcakes are very nice also!

Another cost saving measure ... we wanted programs "just because" even though many brides forego programs to save money. We created them ourselves and they were 2 lengthwise on an 8 1/2 x 11. Then went to Office Max and printed 30 on heavy paper, cut lengthwise. It cost $5 total. So there are lots of things you can do inexpensive when you have a small wedding!

@Julia T Ah yes, the WW RSVP tool. I will look into that and see if I can figure that out. That would make things easier in terms of organization I imagine.

Individual cakes from the grocery store to create a dessert table that's a great idea! I will look into this more. Thank you!

Yes I agree for a party type feel a DJ would be preferred. We are doing a dinner not a reception with the dancing. So yes, I think in our case the ipod would work.

If it's just a dinner then Ipod is fine. Another idea great idea that I recently heard on WW is to play the 1st dance song of the marriage couples there. It wasn't posted in time for me to steal it for my wedding but I love the idea. So I pass it on to you to steal it lol.

Bride2b - We also did a dinner and not a reception with dancing. Honestly you couldn't really hear our playlst - people were talking and have a good time! About 9pm my daughter and the other 16-30 year old guests said "can we dance?" and we said sure! They collapsed their table and moved some other tables a bit out of the way, took over the iPod and created a dance party! It was so impromptu and fun! Not something you can do with a bigger wedding LOL.

Our wedding was at 6:30 pm, cocktails at 7pm, dinner served at 7:30 pm. We cut the cake and did bouquet toss just before 9pm, which is when the photographer left. We had the venue until 11pm. Our 4 1/2 hour event worked out perfect.

@Kelli I never heard of Spotify. I will look into this. I think having a small wedding and finding our your venue has a sound system is like gold. Makes it easy for DIY music.

Good suggestions on the programs. We have decided to forego them but for other brides reading this who do want programs that will be helpful for them.

@Julia T Oh what a cute idea!!! So you mean find out other couples first dance song and then throughout the evening have them play throughout the play list?

We are also having a small wedding. I am following for ideas since our wedding is a year away.

We had a guest list of about 50. We got married in a chapel, and used a "civic center" room for our reception. We made a playlist on our tablet ( we used spotifiy) and hooked the up the sound system for music. We had a BBQ buffett for lunch, ( for apps we did fruit/vegtable trays, crackers/cheese, that was eaten before we had got there) We got our invites and some decor from oriental trading ( we did RSVP cards/information cards DIY, it was mostly OOT guests) for center pieces we bought flowers from the dollar tree, vases, and colored rocks, each center piece was about $5 ( we only need 6) Bridal Party ( parent/grandparent) flowers came from Budget-bride.com My flowers were amazing i loved them. I only paid about $160.00 ( a bride boquet, tossing boquet, moh boquet, 4 corsages, 7 boutineers) We had a 2 tier "wedding cake" we ordered from sams club, it was roughly $30.00

Small wedding here! We are looking at about 36 guests. Ceremony is in a local arts center (small gallery room) and then our guests will head to a local restaurant that has private event space on the second floor. The first hour is cocktail hour, so open bar and appetizers will be served (we will not be there just yet- FH and I will be taking some pics before we go in). Then we'll have a sit down dinner. Afterwards, we'll head out to local bars (there are a ton within walking distance of this place, large city downtown area). I'll probably try to find a place that has a private or VIP area we can reserve ahead of time, just so there is a gathering spot.

Also doing online RSVP!

Small means no wedding party. Also doing hookup to the sound system and will do Spotify playlists, as it will just be background music.

Also, since it is a smaller group, we really want it to have a fun feel, and also for everyone to mingle together, so during cocktail hour we will have small vintage tabletop games for people to enjoy (nothing too time consuming - wooden tic tac toes, mini pinball games, etc).

Still debating on dessert, although there is a fancy doughnut place here in town that I LOVE and it would only be about $1 a person. And I'd get those little individual cartons of milk. Just a thought, I'm still looking at options!

We originally started planning a reception for 120 people, and then decided to go small. I can not tell you how much happier and less stressed I am now.

@Kelli That's a good point about the music during dinner. It truly is background music and will most likely be drowned out by conversation.

I like the spontaneous dance party! Definitely something you could not do at a bigger wedding.

Thanks for sharing your timeline. Did you and your husband do a first dance and the other traditional dances that are at a wedding? We are doing our first dance as we enter into the dining room followed by the beginning of dinner.

@Bride2b - We didn't do a first dance by choice. Because we didn't think there would be any dancing LOL. But I think it is fine to still get in your first dance even though it is not a "dancing" reception!

@Dharma81 - I love the idea of donuts and milk! But instead of replacing cake or other dessert, I think that would be a fun "end of night" treat!

That's almost the exact number of guests we had (35).

We used the RSVP tool on WW.

We used an iPod and the venues in house speaker system for dancing and it worked great.

@Ashlee Awesome Your wedding is 3 weeks after mine.

We are having a small wedding - around 50-60 guests, 10 of those being kids. We skipped the bridal party and will just have our kids be the flower girl/ring bearer and perhaps some of the nieces/nephews. We're having a brunch reception with about 3 or 4 food stations. We'll have a mini tiered cake and cupcakes. One thing we are doing since we have a small amount of guests is personalizing our guestbook. We've asked each household (about 18-20 households) to send us their favorite recipe and we have pictures of us with them. We are going to build a photo book on snapfish with the pics and the recipes and sprinkle in pics of us dating and from the engagement shoot as well. That will be what the guests sign when they come in. We are going to have a DJ.

Skipping the save the date bc everyone knows when it is and the rsvp will be very informal as well. I set it up on wedding wire but people will probably just call or text us.

@Happily Married Thanks for your post, lots of great ideas! Thanks for the information on Budget-bride.com chekcing it out right now. I have not heard of this site(shockingly).