You spend months planning every little detail of your wedding, thinking over every decision until it feels perfect. Then when the day comes, it’s over in a flash. After the party ends and the vows are spoken, what do you want to remember most about your wedding? If your answer is the memories you made with each of your guests, then a small wedding might be right for you.
Intimate weddings give you more time to spend with your nearest and dearest and make the planning process so much simpler leading up to the big day. Before you start planning a small wedding, make sure you know what having a more intimate celebration means for your wedding planning so you can make the best decision for yourself!
What Is A Small Wedding?
More and more couples find themselves planning a small wedding for many reasons. Planning a smaller wedding means hosting a more personal event for a smaller number of guests. Typically your immediate family and closest friends make the cut for a small intimate wedding guest list.
With a more intimate celebration, you have more time to spend with your loved ones and more opportunities to make the event special for each and every one of your guests.
Why Choose A Small Intimate Wedding?
It’s important to know what perks come with choosing a small wedding so you can plan the wedding you want. Everything from your wedding budget to your guest’s experience changes when you choose to have an intimate wedding.
Make Your Wedding Planning Easier
At the beginning of wedding planning, you should be crossing off two key tasks on your to-do list:
- Set your budget based on what feels most important to you about the wedding.
- Research your wedding vendor team so you can reserve them for your date early. Hint: start with your wedding venue because they book out dates very early!
Choosing the right vendors for your wedding isn’t an easy task. You have to sort through reviews, have face-to-face meetings to make sure you vibe with the vendor, and set contracts with each vendor.
The bigger your wedding, the longer your vendor list will be. You’ll be spending more time coordinating with your vendors or hiring a wedding planner to keep everything straight for you! If you want to keep things simple with wedding planning, scale down your event and have a more intimate celebration.
Spend More Time With Your Favourite People
Bigger weddings can feel impersonal at times and make it harder for you to greet everyone and soak in every moment of your wedding. Having fewer guests can ease the pressure of trying to connect with everyone that attends your wedding.
If you have anxiety about anyone you feel you need to invite to your wedding, like cousins that you rarely ever see or a rowdy uncle, then having a smaller wedding gives you an excellent excuse to leave them off of the final guest list.
If you feel worried about offending anyone on your guest list, not to worry – you can absolutely limit your guest list without burning any bridges. You should be completely honest from the beginning about wanting a smaller wedding. Giving anyone a false impression in order to avoid the topic only makes things unclear for your family and friends.
You should also stay consistent with who you choose for your guest list. Don’t invite one of your co-workers if you only plan on having close family and friends at your wedding. Stay clear and consistent on how you communicate and make decisions about your guest list!
Have an Easier Time Organising Your Wedding Day
Not only does having a smaller wedding simplify the planning process, but it also lessens the stress of the day with fewer moving pieces coming together on the wedding day itself. Navarra Venues has a Coordinator available to assist with the set-up and execution on your wedding day so that you can focus on having an amazing time during your wedding!
Personalise Every Detail of Your Wedding
With fewer guests in attendance, you can personalise their experience as much as you’d like so that your day is even more special for your whole gathering! You can personalise your wedding favours or write personalised notes to each guest letting them know how much you appreciate them being there on your wedding day.
Other ways to personalise your wedding could include custom cocktails for you and your partner, a unique seasonal cake, or opening up song requests with your DJ so your guests can hear one of their favourite love songs.
Focus on What You Value The Most
Your wedding should have everything you could ever wish for on your big day. It should be personal and should celebrate the life you have with your partner. Everyone at the wedding will appreciate the thought put into making your wedding day special. Knowing what is important to you about your wedding will help you stay on track during wedding planning.
We have a fun tip for you that could help you figure out what you value the most about your wedding. Have a meeting with your spouse-to-be and write down the top three-to-five things that you value the most about your wedding day.
What is the most important thing about your wedding for both of you? These could be the music, the food, the drinks, the people… the list goes on. Your answers will lead you to decide whether you want a grandiose wedding with lots of guests or a small and intimate affair for your close friends and family.
Can’t Decide On a Wedding Venue For Your Small Wedding? Here’s Our Top List!
Small weddings need the right space for your guests to build a warm ambience throughout the night. You want to make sure the space you choose speaks to you and your partner’s personalities and holds just the right amount of people.
Here’s our top list of small wedding venues that make a magical small wedding come to life.
Elizabeth Suite
The Vineyard
Rose Garden
The Den
Should You Plan a Small Wedding?
If this list of reasons to have a small wedding made you rethink your wedding planning, reach out to us so we can talk about venues that work best for smaller guest lists!
Navarra has wedding venues for intimate weddings to large-scale celebrations and can fully execute your wedding vision.
