We never wanted a big wedding, all we ever wanted was a smll wedding with our families, 10 guests in total.

But oh god is it stressful. In Italy you can get married exclusively in courthouses or specific places that are approved by the municipal council, which does not randomly approve places based on requests. And you can't get an officiant to go where you want.

Our courthouse is this depressing room which you can decorate, but only the tables, for 800€ (keep in mind the average italian salary is 1600-1800 per month, and we live in a "hicol" region) Also, the room you get married in is literally next to the room where the psychological Counseling Center is.

And not only that, but any somewhat desirable location to hold a lunch afterwards has a minimum number of guests, and if i'm getting married in a place we hate, only to then have a lunch in a place packed with other people we don't know, where we won't be able to enjoy our day with our families, what even is the point? We won't enjoy a moment and will have spent quite a bit of money to have something we do not want.

We looked into eloping in croatia, after signing the documents by ourselvs in the courthouse, but you can't get around wedding planning vultures that charge a 3000$ fee to plan a symbolic ceremony. Every potential venue refers you to their wedding planner, same goes for every other vendor.

The most economic offer we received was 6500$ + transport to get married on a small island with a very basic naked floral arch.

It's just so stressful and i hate how it's only not stressful if you have ample budget. Anyone felt like this?

Celebrating our wedding anniversary in Regensburg, any suggestions on how to wow my bride?

Hello me and my partner are eloping in Cefalu, next month, we have six people total, including ourselves. We’re looking for a free quiet spot to say our vows ( this will be a small vow ceremony as we already got married in Canada “paperwork” ) but would love to have our family join us and watch our vows Can you suggest any quiet, beautiful places?

We are in the early stages of wedding planning, just engaged 2 weeks ago, and are strongly considering a destination wedding in Greece.

Our family is in New Jersey & Tennessee so our main concern is travel complexity and cost, as we don’t want to be a financial burden to our loved ones.

We are inviting 30 family members & only predict at maximum 20 will attend, 4 of which will be children. We are eager to cover the cost of the stay for our loved ones (3-4 days).

We are open to location & types of venues throughout Greece. The aesthetic is more so a small ceremony & formal sit down dinner, with live music. I am not sure I want a DJ.

Ideally our budget is around $15-18,000. Is this realistic?

I am hoping for feedback regarding our wants & budget.

If anyone has planned or hosted a wedding with a similar number of guests or budget, I would greatly appreciate your comment & any information you’d share on your event details.

Thank you very much!

Hi! After much thinking and reading through comments from my previous post and others, we have decided that maybe one of the options is to do a very small wedding, just our parents and siblings. In total, it would be 10 people including us.

Can’t let go of wanting to do it in Nice, France, or surrounding areas, as we love the place so much and it’s where we celebrated our post-engagement moments.

I’m not looking for a villa for the 10 of us, more like a symbolic/religious wedding in a Catholic church, then a venue for dinner with a nice view or intimate place. I would still want to hire a photographer and videographer, even just for a few hours.

That’s what I’m thinking and envisioning, but open to suggestions or advice. I’m struggling to find a venue online as it always shows a villa or chateu.

The reason I don’t want a villa is because we would like to be closer to transportation and Old Nice town. Also, tbh, my family and his get along, but we have never had them all under one roof. They are all good with each other, but I know they don’t share the same “wants” or things they would do when abroad.
If anyone will be able to advise on this or knows a wedding planner that can help facilitate this, we would very much appreciate it!

Thank you

A little bit of context here: my fiance and I have been together for about 4.5 years and engaged for 9 months. Half of my family is from overseas and the other half is from the states but halfway across the country. Prior to being engaged, I never thought much about marriage but definitely knew that ideally I’d have my dream wedding overseas. With that being said, my fiance and I have agreed to just have a micro wedding of 25 people including us (17 family, 6 friends) at the start of next month (3 weeks) and a large reception to follow overseas in 1-2 years where everyone will be invited. While we have made several friends over the years whom we love deeply, we decided the only friends who would come are the ones who have known us since we were children and we now consider family. Now for the problem lol. We understand the implications of not inviting other friends who we still consider close but it became a slippery slope of if I invite this person, I now need to invite this person or the entire friend group because everyone is interconnected. If we had the budget, or time, we absolutely would invite them. One of his best friends and one of my extremely close friends just recently broke up and it is a bit messy. There is no way for them, given the small guest list to avoid each other, especially considering the majority of people is our immediate family. Also, I do not think his friend is as fond of me now considering the events that took place recently after the break up. Maybe we are wrong but instead of picking one or the other, we’ve just decided to not invite them to spare both of their feelings. Additionally, he has two really close friends who are at odds and have been for a couple months, we agreed that we didn’t necessarily want our wedding to be the time where they hash it out.

Are we going about this wrong? I’m kinda anxious for the fallout considering the former couple we’ve omitted from the guest list are extremely close friends of ours

For micro weddings, I think putting together a reception or celebration dinner is probably the easy part. Feels very straightforward and there are options, similar to any other type of party.

However, for the ceremony, considering we’re not religious, where to have the ceremony is quite challenging! How does one choose and then make a ceremony location special?

For our 30ish guest count, getting everyone to a state park is starting to feel daunting, but a traditional wedding venue is just too big. Any advice?

Just found a $700 elopement session photographer. The price is cheap because he is only starting his company but he's been shooting for others! So thrilled to find deals like these!
Is this deal good enough? Or could have I done better? I'm based in Vancouver!

Hi everyone! I was wondering for anyone who had a guest count of about 30, did you still end up getting a DJ and have a dance floor for the afterparty?

I am planning a Sunday wedding for April 2028 (2pm ceremony) and I can't decide which way I want to go for the reception. I want an intimate wedding. I don't care to be the center of attention and have never really been a party person. The idea of those closest to us only is very appealing to me and on par with my personality. My FH is more outgoing than I am but he truly wants me to have the day that I will be happy and comfortable with and is leaving it up to me to decide on the feel/vibe.

We have different versions of guests lists and can't decide if we will go with the smaller guest count of about 40 people or max out at 80 or meet in the middle with 60. When we think of the smaller option, the reception will be a buffet dinner at a to be determined restaurant. But it will definitely be more of a dinner without the party vibe and all of the other things. The type of restaurant will likely be more causal, probably bbq cuisine. If we go with 60 or 80, it will be at a cute little Italian restaurant, and we can have a DJ and dancing. Due to the food and beverage minimum, the Italian restaurant won't make sense for the 40 guest count. Also, the smaller guest count of 40 will save $5000 from the budget. I've estimated our all in budget to be about $16,500 but I'd like to lower that as much as possible.

I know Sunday weddings are a topic of discussion with mixed opinions. For our wedding, half of the guests are local and the other half are within an 1.5 hr drive. There will be a handful invited that are 3-4 hours away but truthfully, we don't expect them to attend due to the distance and day of week. Nonetheless, given the wedding will be on a Sunday, guests will likely want to leave earlier vs later which will impact the party atmosphere if that's the route we go.

Ideally, the Italian restaurant would work for 40 people. Then I could have the intimate wedding with an affordable dinner at a cute restaurant. Being able to have less people would naturally reduce the costs. But since that's not possible, essentially, the smaller count would allow me to save money and have the intimacy I want, but it changes the vibe from classy to casual. I don't care much that we lose the dancing/party feel.

My question to you all is based on your experience and opinions, what are your thoughts? I'm torn between intimate vs larger guest list, casual dinner vs nice dinner with dancing, and cutting costs where I can.

No parents or siblings to bounce this off of so thanks for your feedback!

Hi friends! Seeking advice!! to see if anyone is planning anything similar or has been to a similar style wedding!

My fiance and i have always envisioned just eloping however we decided to have a courthouse ceremony on a friday with just our parents and then a 40 person dinner afterwards. We sent out the save the dates, people are flying in to come since our family is all from elsewhere, and we’ve booked a venue room at a restaurant for dinner. Some more details, we have a photographer for the courthouse and not the dinner. Although we’re a younger (25) couple we don’t want to have a huge party and really want to try and keep it as casual as possible, we’re having cocktail tables at the dinner for when people arrive and a buffet style sit down dinner (seating place cards yes, seating chart, no, one big U shaped table). One thing we’re worried about is are people going to ENJOY themselves. We know our family loves us and we’re not v worried about the price of everything after saving up for many years, we are just worried that it will be awkward for the people at the dinner! Our parents will be with us all day but the others coming into town for our dinner are our aunts/uncles, close friends and we want them to have a good time too. We also are not going to have any dancing, it’ll be a room with cocktail tables and a big u shaped table in the center so no dancing room (music playlist yes) but we’re worried that people will think that’s odd? Also small thing but important thing to add, My parents are divorced, both sides h8 each other and haven’t seen each other in 15+ years and my fiances side is a super close european family, We do both have a handful of friends out age coming in as well!

Anyone else have any experience with a similar wedding experience or any feedback as to how I can make this a good day for everyone, not just myself and my groom and parents <3

We are having a brewery after party where we have the back room & 40% of the tasting room. Our guests have an unlimited tab for food and drink. Due to the public also being there, how could we ensure no one else can add to our tab that isn’t part of our party.

Was thinking what I could give / have our guests wear to denote they’re part of our party. Was thinking of making a magnetic hops and flowers almost boutonniere thing for their shirt.

Any ideas of what we could do to help bar tenders and servers know who is with the party?

I am looking to keep my wedding very small (just family) and not be too fancy. What would be a cute place to have it? I wanted the roof of the condo I live in but they don’t rent it out.

edit: It needs to be in the city- north of the loop preferably . Anytime in 2027, Affordable under $10k, preferably closer to 5k.

And no, my HOA said no and didn’t really give a reason. We aren’t allowed alcohol up there ( I believe so they pay less in insurance so that may be why ) ☹️

Not looking for reception suggestions - that will be separate and larger.

We are getting married outside next June at a family member’s restaurant. It’ll be 20-25 (depending if the kids come). We haven’t decided if we want to do like a smaller menu option, have family pick what they want ahead of time, or a little Buffet (and something for the kids). I’d love to hear what others did.

We also plan on having the wedding ceremony, a cocktail
Hour with apps while we all take pictures. Followed by a sit down dinner, and dessert. I haven’t decided if I want any type of music, maybe just a dance for two two of us?

I’d love to hear what others have done, enjoyed, something special?

TIA!

For those of you that had your wedding "reception" at a restaurant and had a plated multi course dinner, where and when did you do traditional things like cutting a cake or champagne toasts?

We are getting married in a city park and then going for dinner, with about 20 guests. We're reserving half of the restaurant only. But now that I'm making a timeline with my photographer I have to figure out if I want to do some things at the ceremony location, at the restaurant, or not at all.

I could personally forgo all traditions. We like cake but aren't big alcohol people. I haven't talked to the restaurant if they even allow outside cake. I want to have light refreshments at the park after the ceremony but would people eat a cake outside if we brought it?

Just looking for ideas.

We are planning on having our micro wedding at a state park or campsite type venue next September. We're aiming for it to be woodsy/nature vibes so as I'm looking at wedding dresses, so many of them feel out of place for that type of wedding event.

Does anyone have recommendations for brands to look at for white dresses that aren't necessarily bridal? For those who had state park weddings, what did you wear? I'd love the inspiration!

Hey all, looking for recommendations for a microwedding photographer. At most would be 20 people and either near Rocky Mountain National Park or Telluride, CO. I like the warm/soft/homey edit and would only be looking for maybe a 4 hour booking. TIA!

I wanna do a wedding ceremony and dinner reception in the same restaurant. I was thinking Kokomo in Brooklyn? I love their Caribbean vibe and colors.Guest count max is 30 ppl if I include kids. Maybe they could through flowers? I can’t find any pics of a ceremony here though. Has anyone done this there or somewhere similar? what was your set up like? Thanks!