Small Ceremony vs Dance

I personally wouldnt like it. we had my fiances friend invite us to his 1 hour ceremony in the morning then we had to leave afterwards and we just found it rude. my fiance who was close with the groom yelled at him afterwards lol. he was super offended. as a guest i want to enjoy all aspects with the couple and share with them. i dont want to be like second by just being invited to a part of it and plus it would be weird showing up when everyone is already there.... i would personally just invite whoever you can to both the ceremony and the reception that way people dont feel left out.

View quoted message It was the same for us and i invited only immediate family, not overseas or extended due to budget and his side was 10 out of 14 that attended. Do what you can and have to know the other family members will have to understand the situation of your financial basis.

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Him and I both are wanting just our close family and friends at our ceremony, then the rest of the distant family can join for the after party. But mentioned in previous, just do not want to step on toes.

He has a huge family, as for me I would maybe having 10 people family and a few friends. Which is fine with me. Just to invite his whole family would be over 150 people.... Even though our wedding is next year, this year kind of through a wrench into savings lol......

Thank you!

You can do anything you want including 2 events with guests invited to the after party and those to the ceremony only.

You choose who you want present for the ceremony only and reception party after dinner only. Family and wedding for both will be a given. Its all about the budget you set.

This was my plan pre-COVID, and now that we got married in a tiny ceremony on our original date, most of our guests at our reception in October won’t have been at our ceremony! Do whatever feels best for you!

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Thank you!

This is exactly why I am asking, as well never been down this road before ha-ha. A lot of them are going to be his family, most of them make an appearance if invited or not he has stated. They love family gatherings, but at the same time I do not want people to feel excluded at all!

I’ve been a “B lister” at two weddings (ie invited to the dance but not the ceremony or dinner). I didn’t really mind as I wasn’t super close with either couple. And it was very much a “no pressure” invite—I didn’t even end up going in one case and there was absolutely no expectation that I give the couple a gift in either case. The dance I did attend was cash bar for everybody so it wasn’t as if I was forced to buy my own drinks while everyone else drank for free.


Personally, I still don’t think I’d go this route. I’d be too concerned about the potential awkwardness if dinner runs long, and dance-only guests start showing up and are forced to loiter outside of the reception space / watch dinner and cake wrapping up. And as Hank said, it gets even more complicated if your bar and/or late night food is priced per person.
But that’s just me. Dance-only invites certainly aren’t unheard of in my area. And I think they can be done if a) that portion of the guest list are more casual acquaintances and you extend the invite as a nice / no-pressure gesture; and b) you leave some buffer time between the start time you give those guests and the anticipated end of dinner; and c) it’s a cash bar event.
Good luck!

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There's always that one random who feels entitled to be the centre of attention for everything

That being said, I wouldn't invite someone to just the dance portion of the reception. To me, the reception is a packaged deal: dinner + fun. As a guest, I would feel more offended by being invited just to a dance than not being invited at all. Even if I choose to attend, there would be so many etiquette things I would feel awkward about. Do they expect me to give a gift? Do I give one anyway? Do I help myself to the late night food? The open bar?

As the wedding couple, what numbers do you give you venue as they're technically serving X-number of people. There are just too many headaches to deal with.

If you have randoms that you don't want to pay for their plate, I would just invite them to the ceremony and that way, there's no expectation of a gift.

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That is what I did with my coworkers casually invited them, they are not obligated to attend if they wish not to. There is at least one in the bunch that is full of it haha!

That is what we want, as we want to celebrate with everyone, we are not ones to want to over do it either. We are only wanting our close family and a few friends to be there. To be honest a lot of people we do not talk are only showing up for the food! Lol..

They are welcome to come to the dance and celebrate that way with us! If they wish to. He has a huge family so to invite all of them would cost us a fortune!

I've seen both happen.

An old co-worker of mine got married and verbally invited the entire office to the ceremony at the church but not the reception. As co-workers, we got along fine and we were friendly and spoke during work but none of us were particularly close outside of the office so it made sense to me. The invite was casual enough that those who us who wanted to go felt like we were part of the celebration without the pressure to mingle/make small talk with people we don't know and there was no expectation of gifts. Only one person in the office was offended but she was also a drama queen who demanded people's lives revolve around her. She wouldn't stop complaining about his "lack of etiquette" but everyone in the office wrote her off as nothing more than childish.

I was only invited to my future brother in law's wedding for the reception part, and not the ceremony because they held it in a Civic Centre and as those who's done City Hall weddings know, they tend to be small and can only accommodate something like 40 people max. So ceremony was immediate family only and his only friends there were people in the party. No big deal for me, as I was able to watch the ceremony on video a few months later, had an amazing dinner, still got to party with the guy and I didn't have to kill time between the morning ceremony and the evening reception.

So I’ve heard of people inviting people just to the ceremony and not reception... I’ve never heard of anyone inviting people just to the dance and not reception.


In my opinion it is kind of in bad taste asking someone to come only for the “after party” option (so basically after dinner) especially if you had other people there for the rest of it. I understand with Covid-19 things did change a bit, however i personally would not invite someone if I could not have them there for the dinner portion as well. That’s just my opinion and it obviously varies. At the end of the day do what you think is best and what matters to you. Don’t worry too much about other people’s feelings