To feel that I can’t get married…

You sound like me when I got married at 22 with only my mum and little brother in attendance.
I left my home town and was too busy living my life to stay in touch with everyone 🙄 so decided we would elope in secret. Only, he told his friends and family a week before the wedding 😫. The small registry office wedding was his , relatively large and richer friends and family members and just us - it was embarrassing at the time.

I, ironically still have my friends from when I was 4 years old ( I'm 54 now and I moved back home years later) and they all would have attended if I asked 🫣.

I haven't thought about this in years ( the marriage lasted 10 minutes 🤭) but I wanted to let you know, I understand your pain, but the wedding itself is irrelevant ,in hindsight 💐.

As long as you don’t book Wembley Stadium for the reception, you’ll be fine.

Oh bless you @weddingembarrassment - advice from an old bird:

wedding 1, ££££’s would’ve been instagramworthy if IG had been a thing back in the 90’s. Cathedral wedding, fancy cars, 150ish guests to the day, more to the evening. Didn’t know everyone who attended. ABBA tribute band, string quartet, Frank Sinatra tribute act, choirs in the cathedral, Designer dress, Cartier wedding rings, destination honeymoon … the works. I had knickers that lasted longer than that marriage..I often imagine how much that money would’ve been worth if I’d invested it.

wedding 2 , an illness necessitated it. Put together in 6 weeks- off the peg dress, high street dresses for the DD’s. 24 guests to a registry office then a lovely private dinner. No band/DJ etc just a lovely dinner where everyone sat around the table was a ride or die. It was a lovely day. No honeymoon.

please choose the day that you want, not what is expected. Trust me, spending time with people that matter on your special day is utterly priceless.

That seems like plenty! Ditch the evening-only guests and have 30 or however many it is.

We had 40. No evening do. No bridesmaids. No cars. We wanted small, minimal fuss. Ceremony and reception at the same place and the venue wasn’t huge so we filled it nicely. Just felt like an intimate meal with friends and family, which was what we wanted.

I think that’s a lot of people! We had two at ours, friends who just happened to be staying with us. Then we got divorced 🤷‍♀️.

Weddings are whatever you want them to be. They can be tiny, massive, full of everyone you’ve ever met and a few you haven’t, they can be close family including all your 20 siblings, your 20 in laws, your 40 aunts and uncles etc, they can be extended family and friends only which adds up to four people, they can be two strangers (although apparently register offices don’t like this as sometimes you can’t find two strangers at the last minute and it holds things up), they can be anything. As long as at some point you both sign the legal document then it’s all good. I don’t even think we took photos at ours 🤔.

I don't think you should feel self conscious about it - I've been to a couple of gorgeous small weddings and I didn't judge the couple for not having many friends, I felt honored to have made the list. Hosting people is expensive! And with a smaller guest list you actually get to spend time with everyone.

We had 50. We got married at 5pm, followed by a jazz band, champagne and canapes, then a 4 course dinner, open bar and finished the night with fireworks. We didn’t have a separate evening do, everyone came to the whole thing which we could afford because of lower numbers. It was lovely!

So on your side alone you have about 25-30 people. That’s a totally normal number. Dh and I invited 60 ish people between us. I’d consider that a fairly standard wedding, not a small wedding.

Love a small wedding

Theres some lovely intimated venues.
Friends hired a small resturant and created a small dance floor.

We all ate together on couple long tables.

It is much more chic and elegant to have a smaller guest list. Just plan your ceremony, followed by a fantastic lunch, and everyone will have a lovely day. Do you really need a "night time bit"? They are generally a bit tacky, tbh. Or you could just make it a relaxed "at home" event, with a few drinks.

Use your imagination, OP, and you'll find it works much better not to have too many guests - for a start, you'll be able to have a proper conversation with everyone!

God, this made me cringe. A wedding is for you, not a performance for the society page, and you certainly shouldn't invite people just to fill a space. My mother had a big wedding and hated it - she was furious that my paternal grandfather had invited so many of his business friends.
Tell everyone that you contemplated something bigger, but that ultimately you felt it was far preferable for something intimate and meaningful. And get a smaller space. I once went to a lovely wedding at a small historical inn with probably about 20 people crowded in.

You’re looking at a day guest of around 20-25, and another 25/35 at night. Absolutely zero wrong with that. In fact many venues offer packages aimed just for that size, other venues specialise in weddings at that size (a friend got married in a botanical garden with 35 max guests). Registry offices often have rooms up to 25/30 that are beautiful, then you could all go for a meal rather than a huge party. Make it personal to you! Please stop fretting about guest numbers and get married if you both want to.

edited to add that I’m currently about 8 weeks away from wedding and thoroughly wishing I had a smaller audience despite dearly loving every guest we’ve invited and thinking hard about what we wanted before committing to what I’ll call a medium sized wedding 😂. the anticipated stage fright is real, so don’t think it’s necessary easier with larger numbers!

We got married with two witnesses. It really doesn't matter.

Tbh when I got married most of our guest list was aunts uncles cousins as we are both from large families. We had around 80 to the day and of that dh had his five friends and partners and i had my 2 friends and their partners/ kids . So 7 friends between us but with plus ones and kids that equalled 18.

The thing is do you want to commit to each other or do you want an event to show off at? I don't mean to be nasty but a wedding was traditionally a commitment to each other in the sight of God with the people closest to you who committed to supporting your union.

It's not an excuse to spend ££££ on pointless tat and a dress and an expensive place and a horse and carriage or whatever just to show off.

If you love each other, a small intimate wedding with say a nice restaurant meal after for 15 to 20 is much better than your cousin's 7 year old spending hours knee sliding across the dance floor, Brian from your office hitting on every woman there, the bad DJ and the awful choreographed first dance that most weddings end up with.

It doesn't matter who is/isn't there how many you've got sat on your side of the church...it's the start of your lives together

We only had 50 people at our wedding and it was the perfect number. In actual fact if we done it again I'd probably have smaller numbers and do it very differently

We had about 60 people at our wedding, it was brilliant.

one of the nicest weddings I’ve attended was one where 30 guests were invited. Immediate family and a handful of close friends. It was a smaller venue and it worked perfectly.
if I were you id just have family and dh close two friends and make it a smaller more intimate do. You will all be super comfortable with each other. Find a venue that caters for your needs. You could look at some entertainment in the evening if you are worried about creating an atmosphere.

I had 100 people at my wedding and I got divorced 😂

it really doesn’t matter OP, the day is about you and your vows. The party is nice to have but I know many people who had small family and close friends only courthouse affairs with fewer than 10 people. Absolutely lovely and you haven’t spent a fortune.

enjoy your day, celebrate each other and best of luck with married life 🩷

Just book a smaller venue and have a great time 😊

Just say you want a small wedding with those closest to you. Or 'elope' or get married abroad.
The number of friends you have seems normal to me.

I had 8 people at the registry office. 13 in total for the 'reception' in my garden.

I'm probably not the right person to answer you really but that's too many people for me!

I don't like fuss or ado so when I got married there was a grand total of 8 including the Bride and Groom! 😂

We even had a wedding blessing ceremony abroad - 4 in total!

It doesn't matter! Do what you want to do - it's your day x As long as you're in love and he treats you well, that's all that matters x