Wedding Invitations & Paper

Rescheduled and Downsized

Hi! Hoping someone can have a good suggestion for me here!

My fiancee & I were supposed to get married this past May in Mexico. Not only was that cancelled, but so were our first and second reschedule! We have now moved our wedding to July 2021, locally, not a destination anymore. Our new venue only holds 120 people and we originally invited 250. Luckily, we were expecting 115 in Mexico so that worked out okay. However, everyone else that was originally invited now cannot be. We wold like to extend the invite to those people to come to the church portion of the wedding only. My parents will have their house open with appetizers/cookies/drinks after the church for those guests before they meet us at the hall for pictures. My fiancee & I, & our bridal party will be going to another location for pictures before heading to the venue for family pictures.

Any suggestions on how to word an invite for them. We were thinking something along the lines of an explanation of downsizing due to covid and the location changing but we want to share our special day with them.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Rescheduled and Downsized

  • Hi! Hoping someone can have a good suggestion for me here!

    My fiancee & I were supposed to get married this past May in Mexico. Not only was that cancelled, but so were our first and second reschedule! We have now moved our wedding to July 2021, locally, not a destination anymore. Our new venue only holds 120 people and we originally invited 250. Luckily, we were expecting 115 in Mexico so that worked out okay. However, everyone else that was originally invited now cannot be. We wold like to extend the invite to those people to come to the church portion of the wedding only. My parents will have their house open with appetizers/cookies/drinks after the church for those guests before they meet us at the hall for pictures. My fiancee & I, & our bridal party will be going to another location for pictures before heading to the venue for family pictures.

    Any suggestions on how to word an invite for them. We were thinking something along the lines of an explanation of downsizing due to covid and the location changing but we want to share our special day with them.

    Thanks in advance!
    If you cancelled your previous plans then send out entirely new invitations then you should be okay to only invite a smaller number of guests. 

    If I’m reading the bold correctly, you’d invite everyone (all 250ish) to the ceremony and host all of those at your parents’ for refreshments. Assuming this happens at a non-meal time then that’s fine. You can then host a private dinner/reception with whomever you want by inviting them directly to the reception. Anyone that is invited to the ceremony needs to be hosted appropriately for the time of day. 

    I wouldn’t put anything in the invitations about downsizing and still wanting to celebrate. It may make people who aren’t invited to the later portion feel bad. I would just invite people to the ceremony/refreshments and leave it at that. 
  • We were planning on sending one invite to those invited to the ceremony and reception and a different one to those just invited to the ceremony. The people invited to the whole thing were the ones who were actually attending the destination wedding in Mexico. Everyone is already aware that we have had to downsize since rescheduling. We just weren't sure on wording of ceremony only invites
  • We were planning on sending one invite to those invited to the ceremony and reception and a different one to those just invited to the ceremony. The people invited to the whole thing were the ones who were actually attending the destination wedding in Mexico. Everyone is already aware that we have had to downsize since rescheduling. We just weren't sure on wording of ceremony only invites
    Here's the thing. You have to avoid creating tiers. You'd invite everyone to the ceremony and the reception at your parents' house. Then you send a separate invitation to the private dinner only to those who are invited.

    You need to be very careful to call the part where you host everyone the reception. The private dinner is not the reception, it's a separate event with a separate guest list. 

    Not inviting some people to a separate event is ok. Telling people that they aren't invited to the main reception is very rude and hurtful. 
  • The PPs are correct.  You cannot have a tiered event where some people are invited to just the ceremony and maybe refreshments afterward, while others have a different invitation that invite them to the reception at your venue later.

    Even if you do a refreshments reception for everyone at a non-meal time and have a private dinner later, you also need to be careful that it is truly a more intimate gathering.  Because it would still be hurtful to invite half the people to dinner.

    It's also fine to create a new guest list because the previous events did not go on as planned and it is now a new day and venue.  Especially if there are people who had to decline the original destination wedding, but are closer friends or family as compared to people who did accept.
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