Open Ceremony - Private Reception

FutureFranklin2012

Hello Ladies, 

I dont usually post here, Im mostly on the DIY board.
Im getting married in April and have a small issue.

We selected our reception venue as one of our first decisions.  We are getting married in a church that we attend and the reception will be at a Science Museum.  Its under an outdoor events tent with a brick floor. 

Originally we thought our max for the tent (with dancing room) was about 80 people and this seemed like more than enough for us.
As it turns out, we have stretched the room to about 90, and thats all we can do.

It has come to our attention that there are members of our church and some work associates, along with a few VERY distant family members- who would like to/ expect to be invited.

To resolve this, we are thinking that we will have an open ceremony at the church, and anyone who wants to support us, is welcome to attend.  We then intend to keep the reception private- by invitation only.

So, my question to you-
How should we communicate this?  Should we include a note like "Reception to follow by invitation only" on the invitation?  We were thinking about adding this to the programs.

Any other thoughts?
Thanks in advance!!
Tracy

kellyjasen

I have a smiliar problem.  I am doing a church wedding and inviting everyone, and then everyone is invited to a dessert-only reception immediately following at the church.  We are serving dessert, coffee, and lemonade.  After that, we are doing a private dinner reception for family, bridal party, and a few close friends who are traveling for the wedding.  I am still trying to figure out how to word the invitations for the private reception.  I am looking on the website, but most posts are from people saying how rude it is to do a private reception.  Yikes.  Most of the feedback I've received personally on the idea is that it is perfectly acceptable to do a later, private reception for a smaller group of people when you are doing a basic reception for everyone earlier in the day.