Traditional Wedding With Small Guest List

Make it yours. It's ok to do the traditional stuff with a small guest list. And with a smaller guest list maybe you can make the day more you. Instead of place settings, maybe do the cool favors like pashminas, or a signature drink, or... you name it. Aim to make it distinctive rather than large. I promise your wedding will still be magical and likely even more fun!!!!

It is totally OK to have all the traditional elements of a larger wedding at your smaller event! As a matter of fact, you can use it to your advantage! We have had to postpone twice, and have decided to now host a small intimate event. We are cutting our guest list down to 30-40 people. We still plan to have most of the traditional stuff, but we are modifying it to fit the smaller celebration, and it has actually saved us a lot of money that we are able to put elsewhere, where it will be more enjoyed! For example, since we no longer need music projected to as many people, we are cutting our string Quartet down to a string trio. We still plan to have real floral centerpieces, but we now need half as many, so I am putting those savings towards more expensive flowers and a more extravagant bouquet. Because we are having far fewer guests, we are able to have a top shelf open bar all evening as well as a 5 course plated meal, and twice as many options for hors d’oeuvres during cocktail hour. Because there will be 1/3 as many guests as originally planned, we are able to give them more expensive favors as well as really fun welcome bags. Like you, I think having a DJ for that few amount of people is a waste and likely wouldn’t be utilized, and could possibly be awkward. So we have decided not to have a DJ. Luckily, we hadn’t put a deposit down on one yet, so no money lost there. If you have already put a deposit down, you could either go ahead and have him and just use him for ambience music, or you could make the decision to cancel and unfortunately lose that deposit money, but at least you wouldn’t lose the full balance. You could put the money that would have gone towards paying off the remainder of the DJ fee towards some sort of entertainment for your guests at your reception. We are using the money we would have spent on a DJ to hire a caricature artist and tarot card reader.

A smaller scaled wedding with all or most of the traditional elements are a thing that is done especially during this pandemic is is known as a micro wedding. My husband and I had one once we decided to downscale our 80+ guest list to 46. It did not change a thing and the wedding was an absolute blasts our guests had so much fun and still rave about our wedding to this day. We did not feel short changed at all. We had our all inclusive venue, our ceremony room, our cocktail hour room and our reception hall. We did our first dance, parent dances, toasts, bouquet toss, shoe game, cake cutting and partying. We had our dj and mc who truly set the tone with their high energy and our amazing photographer that our guests loved so much. We had a live streaming of our ceremony and the big moments of the reception for guests we simply could not invite or who could not make it out. 50-60 joined online and left wonderful messages. I had the same worries as you but our wedding was a dream and I wish I could relive the day again and truly take it all in.

I agree with Laura. I went from planning a 250 person wedding to a 20 person one. And the 20 person wedding was great. Initially, I was going to completely change everything - my dress, my reception, my cake, etc. given the much smaller guest list, but my sisters convinced my husband and I to have the wedding we wanted and not cheat ourselves because of the change in plans. And I’m so glad they did. Although the guest count was different, I had the traditional wedding of my dreams — complete with my dream wedding dress, traditional ceremony, dinner reception, tiered wedding cake, special dances, photographer and videographer, etc. Instead of focusing on the number of guests, we did our best to have no regrets, have the wedding of our dreams, and treat our guests to an amazing experience. I know how you feel, but just know you can still have the wedding you want and it won’t be or look strange at all.

Sorry, accidentally posted before I was finished. As far as a photographer and videographer go, I don’t think there is such thing as too small a wedding for either of those vendors. Even if you eloped just the two of you, you would still want photos and video of the day! If you don’t think you need them for as long, talk to your photographer and videographer and see what they can do for you! Maybe they would be willing to cut your package down to something smaller. Or maybe they would be willing to cut down the hours and give you a beautiful heirloom album to make up for the difference in price. I’ve found that reaching out to my vendors and explaining my situation, most of them have been incredibly kind, understanding and accommodating! Some have allowed us to downsize without penalty, and some have offered modified services with “extras” thrown in. If not, I truly think you will be happy in the end to have all that footage of your day (even if it doesn’t look the way you thought it would). Reach out to your vendors and see what they come up with! Or, if you have ideas on ways to modify, pitch those ideas to them! You never know until you ask! in the end though, your wedding day is going to be magical! 💕✨ Just remember that these little details are often only important to us, and guests don’t even notice them. Try not to stress girl!

We had a small wedding (50ish) and it 100% felt authentically wedding-y! Our reception was in a ballroom that held 200 and it didn’t feel too big at all. Like Laura said, extra touches can really help. We had palm trees brought in to fill space snd created a mingling area by the bar for people to move around and socialize in after eating.
We personally didn’t want a DJ, but when I think back to my sweet 16, I had a DJ then and probably had about 40 guests. Didn’t feel weird at all! Best way to get people on the dance floor is for the bride and groom to be out there! Reach out to some of your trusted friends/family who you know are great hypers and ask them to help you get the party started by joining you guys.

I'm in a similar situation, except postponed from January to November. A lot of factors mean that A guest list of 75 will likely be 30-40 in attendance and I am also feeling that way. Especially since I think it's just going to be a few friends and older family.

I'm trying to not let it bug me. If the evening is spent alternating between me and my girls on the dance floor, the occasional slow dance with new husband and with the rest of the evening spent drinking wine and having quiet conversation with FH and family well... that's not actually so bad.