I am a church choir director and have a choir of about 35 to 40 members. There are a few that I am close to and a lot that I am simply an accquaintence of. Some of these choir members were even present at our engagement.
I already figured that if I invited just a few that I would have to invite them all. The problem is that if I invite them all with their spouses we are looking at between 60 and 80 people. We are paying for the entire wedding ourselves and are both only school teachers so adding that many guests is really not in the budget. (Our list is already around 170 to 200....we have large families).
A few weeks ago, while I was pondering how to pay for these guests a few ladies in the choir came up to me and said that they understood how expensive inviting everyone in the choir plus SO's would be (I never expressed this to them....they came to me on their own). They suggested that the 3 of them would get the choir together and explain this and that they would all come to the ceremony but instead of going to the reception, they would throw a choir party for my FI and I after the honeymoon. (Kind of a potluck type thing with music, etc.)
This would solve all of my problems but the stickler in me still thinks that it is bad ettiquette to invite someone to the wedding and not the reception. However, since they came up with this on their own and most seem to be agreeing with it, is it an exception? If I accept their offer will it be in bad ettiquette?
Also, if we go through with this idea, should I still send them invites but with no reception card?