To ask about your small (20 guests or less) wedding?

[xyz890]

Where did you get married? What did you do afterwards? How did you find somewhere small enough?

I've started looking for a venue for our small (civil) wedding, there will be about 18 guests plus us, so 20 in total. I'm finding it difficult to find venues as 'small' seems to be defined as at least 50 guests.

I wouldn't mind a registry office followed by a meal in a good restaurant. But all our local registry offices seem to have the atmosphere of a conference room in a third rate hotel!

I guess therefore that we will need to find a hotel or similar that has a licence for civil weddings and where we can also hold our reception. I don't want us to feel lost in a room that's designed to hold 50 or more guests though.

Inspire me!

Think we spent 3k all in but that includes panic buying all the flowers in Tesco the day before and my hotel the night before, and we had verrry nice booze

We got married in a pub in January this year. 20 guests plus the two of us. Ceremony at 2.30, dinner at 5, then had a few more arrive in the evening at 7.30. Had the ceremony in a lovely function room, had a separate bar area we could use for guests while doing photos, they turned the room around for dinner and again for evening. It was amazing! Cosy, relaxed and informal, exactly what we were looking for. Plenty of seats so no one had to stand for hours during the photos.

We just did music from an iPod and had no dance floor which suited our guests fine, we did a wedding themed pub quiz in the evening for entertainment! I highly recommend a pub wedding! Good luck with your plans OP!

We had 12 guests. Got married in a central London church. Lunch at the Lanesborough afterwards. Followed that by squashing everyone in to our small flat for tea and cake afterwards. It was the perfect wedding for us.

xyz890 Fawsley Hall is gorgeous and very accommodating for small wedding parties. DH and i married there about 6 years ago. We went for a late morning ceremony with tea/champagne served in the great hall before and afterwards, then a buffet lunch. Our spring weekday date was unbelievably affordable! They upgraded our honeymoon suite at no charge as well

Massive wow factor when guests arrive.

www.handpickedhotels.co.uk/fawsleyhall

www.google.co.uk/search?q=fawsley+hall+great+hall&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL6K_R39neAhUHIsAKHYMnCVEQ_AUIDigB&biw=1109&bih=547&dpr=1.25

The Great Hall is where your guests will gather. Google images in link.

I don't work for them i promise!

We live a couple of villages away from there and it's just a lovely venue for a wedding a posh meal or a coffee and cake treat :)

We had a v small wedding but it was a small, intimate church and then onto a small cottage-y venue with a gorgeous balcony with a view and delicious catering for the reception done by the venue- all was lovely. We didn’t have live music except for the organ at the church which was provided by the church (which we tipped heavily).

The bit that everyone remembered most though is that we hired out (us paying) an entire small boutique hotel for everyone to stay - and because it was small it was great for everyone to be all in one place for the weekend as many people had flown in from far afield.

My parents paid for it but all in it was (back in the early 2000s) less than £6k. So, very luxurious for 30 I’d say in those days!

I’d really echo previous posters to look for exclusive hires of smallish country house hotels which may have an area appropriate for a wedding ceremony, and either reasonable catering / wedding packages, or if they don’t, the ability to bring in your own caterer and entertainment, and perhaps make a weekend of it for your select group!

Congratulations & good luck with planning your big day! 😊

@Laiste Thanks so much. I'm about 15 miles from Fawsley, so not far at all. I've heard of it but never been. It looks lovely. I'd not considered it for such a small wedding.

I'm hoping nothing much has changed since we had ours. They have various lovely rooms which suit different numbers of people and will talk you through what you want, how many of you there are and allow you to send in your florist on the day to sort your decor for the ceremony/lunch ect.

Like i said we had DH and our guests gather in the great hall (11am ish) for tea/coffee/champers and then as i arrived in posh car the guests (21 of them) were ushered into the room where the ceremony was held. Looked just like a tiny chapel with all our lovely chosen flowers. Little isle to walk up. After the ceremony we all went out for photos and then the main bulk of the guests went back to the ceremony room which had been smoothly changed into an area with seating and little tables and the buffet laid out. Lunch, cake cutting, more drinks and speeches all in the same room. Lovely. Very intimate and the Fawsley staff could not have been more attentive and yet at the same time un-intrusive.

The the chapel room had to be cleared by a certain time (3/4ish?) but we were all welcome to go sit about in the great hall and natter/order more drinks. DH and i went up to our honeymoon suit at 6ish - wanted to chill out, get pissed and order room service and enjoy the massive bed the atmos

Best of luck

You could book rooms for some of the guests

aisle not isle, lol.

and suite not suit !