Advice please :)

jlraber

Hello! My fiance and I just recently got engaged.  We are planning for a May wedding so we are getting started right away with planning!  I want a wedding with family only.  Even with family only, the number of guests is about 100.  However, my fiance's dad is a minister and he wants us to hold an open invitation for everyone at the church to attend the ceremony.  I am completely against this idea.  We also just booked our venue for the ceremony which holds 110.  We want to do the ceremony with family only and then have a reception afterwards which would include more people (mostly from the church).  I think that this would be ok since the ceremony is family only, no friends.  There would be no reason for anyone to be offended because only family would be at the ceremony.  Thoughts?

lyndausvi

In order for that to work you need to only invite your immediate families or have a reception guest list of 1000 people. 

Some people are not okay with not being invited to the ceremony.  I'm fine with not being invited to the ceremony and only the reception if I'm part of a LARGE MAJORITY also not invited to the ceremony.  

For example,  my cousin had 8 people (parents/siblings) invited to his ceremony.   The reception was about 70 people.  That was okay to me.

I would not be okay with 100 people being invited to a ceremony and 180 people being invited to the reception. 

ETA - I also find in general, "church people" tend to care more about the ceremony than the reception anyway.

jlraber

The reception list is 250 people.  I think that is significantly higher than 100?

lyndausvi

Sorry, but no. 

  You need to be more like 10-30% of your reception list.

lyndausvi

 I have a large family, I get it.  But when you are at 100 people, what is another 100 more? 

 I had 140 people at my wedding.  There could have been 10 or 400, I was so focused on DH it would not have mattered at that point.

jlraber

@stagemanager14:  You are correct, the wedding will not be at the FIL's church.  I purposely did it somewhere else so I would feel not pressure to have to invite people from the church.  I still want all of them to celebrate with us, but I always dreamed of a small chapel wedding.  That is why I would like the other 150 guests to be at the reception.

jlraber

@lyndausvi:  I have always wanted a small chapel for my wedding.  I found the perfect one that sits 110 and will seat the 100 guests that are family only.  So, having more guests isn't really an option at this point.... just not sure if maybe we should do something the next day with the church people?  The problem also is that we are from Ohio and will be moving out to Cali the day after we get married.  We want everthing to me in the same day.  We want everyone to be included, but we want the ceremony to be just family.

lyndausvi

Forget about the church people.  I would not invited them at all.

Getting rid of the church people makes that 150 go down to IDK.. 80?  Now you have 80 people, some who might be as close as extended family not make the cut.

The reception is the most expensive part anyway. So cost wise it doesn't make sense.

lyndausvi

To answer your question though.    I would get  not being invited to a wedding of a close friend if only their siblings and parents were only invited.   

I would not get it if 100 members of their family were only invited. 

violet355

if you're ceremony is at another chapel/church then it's a public place and you can't keep people who want to see the ceremony out of a church.

however...you could tell him that you would rather not have an announcement in his church bulletin, but you can't keep him from telling someone that asks him specifically when/where your wedding is.  Perhaps not so many people from FFIL's church will come then?

why would you invite all of them to reception?  you can feed 250 people but not invite 150 of them to a church?

JanoBean75

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_advice-please-14?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:2a7bb287-285d-4a4d-96fc-8fe6f1baf073Post:5565f9cb-b31f-4d87-8e82-3ea9c5343405">Re: Advice please :)</a>:
[QUOTE]To answer your question though.    I would get  not being invited to a wedding of a close friend if only their siblings and parents were only invited.    I would not get it if 100 members of their family were only invited. 
Posted by lyndausvi[/QUOTE]

This is how I feel -- if my best friend invited every cousin and their spouses, every aunt, uncle, second cousin, etc. but not me? I'd be upset.

I also feel 100 guests is pretty standard and not small. 20 is small. 50 is small-ish. 100? Not small.

mkrupar

I'm sorry, but 100 people is NOT a small ceremony in the least. That is pretty average actually. So what you're proposing to do would not be ok from an etiquette standpoint. Either only haver immediate family only at the ceremony, then invite all 250 for the reception, find a bigger ceremony venue to fit all 250 people, OR cut your reception list to only the 100 people invited to the ceremony.

Any of those options are ok, your idea, not ok. 

Kristin789

You want to invite 100 people to a ceremony NOT in FI's father's church.

That's fine.  If you were having the ceremony IN FI'S FATHER'S CHURCH, you would need to put an open invitation on the bulletin board, etc.  But you are NOT.  So you choose the 100 people you want to invite to the ceremony - it is NOT open to others.

Then you want to have a ceremony with MORE than the 100 people who saw the ceremony.

That's not fine at all.  People who get an invitation to go to the reception AND NOT THE CEREMONY will either not come at all or resent being invited to a gift-collection event when they didn't even see the ceremony.

A friend of mine planned a huge, expensive reception / party for her daughter, after a smaller group got to go to the ceremony.  She invited 250 people to the reception party, which was a dinner cruise on one of the big party boats here.  Only about 40 people showed up, and that was basically the WP and sig others and very close relatives who DID go to the ceremony.  The other people just won't go.