I'm probably way overthinking all this, so bear with me.
I really do not want to get married with 150+ people staring at me, and my fiance and I had decided to do a civil court ceremony around 10-11AM with just our parents, siblings, and grandparents. Then we were gonna do a lunch with them, take photos, etc. Just have a nice intimate family thing for the morning/lunch. But we still want to spend time with the rest of our family and friends, so we were planning an early afternoon (~2:30ish) reception with a variety of appetizers, finger foods, and deserts instead of a full meal. Then we were gonna go to a fancy dinner just the two of us in the evening after the reception.
So I guess my main question(s) would be this: if you were invited to the reception after a family-only private ceremony, would you expect a full meal, or would appetizers and stuff be sufficient? Would you still have fun with a set up like that, some beer and wine, and say yard games? We are also undecided on how to handle or even if we should set up registries and cash gifts and all that because of the odd arrangements- do you feel like you would still give a gift with all above details considered (keep in mind that everyone on our guest list is either close family or close friends)?
I feel like I'm forgetting a lot of stuff, but I guess we'll see!