Need some help/advice on the ceremony/reception issue

strwberrykisez21

Okay for starters I never said that we already booked or paid for this location it is just our number one spot that has great meaning to us as a couple and our family.. my fiance saved someones life here and it is a beach we have both grown up at.  I should also clarify that we are getting married in the grass overlooking the beach at a small park so not the whole beach, which even if it was we wouldnt have much room since all of the beaches by our families are public.  Originally we thought that we could have the 200 people at the ceremony however the place only allows for up to 70 chairs for people (we talked to the location again today and they clarified the chair situation which turns out to be 70). This is where we ran into a problem..the location could hold the 200 we are just not allowed to put more chairs because they said if it rains our backup location (an indoor hall at the beach) only holds the 70. The reason for the 70/200 difference is because the MOB and MOG both told me that they did not expect many to come to the acutal ceremony my mother believes only 30 people will show from my family (I have a very small family) that are not included in the bridal family and the MOG also told me that she didn't expect more than about 40 people to come from their side of the family either. My mom also clarified that all of the friends she invited already said that they would most likely only come to the reception and same thing with the MOG's friends. 

 We do not have another location because everything else we looked at is already booked or our parents are unwilling to pay for.  Like I said before I do not want to limit the people at the ceremony it just so happens if we choose this place then we would have to.  We can technically invite everyone to the location but if the day turns on us and the weather is bad then we would have to resort to the 70 only chairs in the inside venue..which is really why there is a limit.  We are allowed to rent extra chairs for outside but if something bad happens that is when we will be in trouble.  The only other option we have is to have the ceremony at our reception hall and pay an extra 600 to do that and in that case we lose 2 hours of our reception because the way our hall works is we have 5 hours from the time the reception and our ceremny starts and you are only allowed to add 1 hour after that for a total of 6 hours.  The way my family and his our set up there is no way that even a 5 hour alone reception is enough for our families so that is why we opted out of the cermeony/reception deal plus it is alot more expensive!