We're engaged! We met in high school when he moved here (the southeast) from San Diego, CA. Dated for a little while but were young and dumb and broke up and remained friends. Flash forward to our 30s, we're now 33 and he proposed last week! I said yes and we set a date of April 24, 2021. This will be both of our first marriage and there are no children (except the furry kind, we have already blended those, lol) involved. We want us, our parents, siblings, and a couple of very close friends there and that's it. Talking like 20 people max. Probably less. Whats the etiquette here? We would love for everyone to celebrate with us eventually but in smaller groups, and we have plenty of aquaintances but a small core group of "our people", but we just can't invite everyone and I want it to be small, very small. We have a venue, beautiful rolling hills speckled with trees aka the pasture, or if it's raining we can move things into the covered arena. He is getting a suit that he can wear again, I'm going to get a dress and wear my boots (the clean "going out" ones, not the muddy barn ones, lol) We are going to go to San Diego for our honeymoon the following week since this southern girl has never been to Cali before and we do not want his grandmother/ extended family traveling. This is all so exciting, but overwhelming to me. Where do I even begin to start planning this? Help! I want people to know about it, but I'm uncomfortable sending everyone something that says "Hey we're getting married, we wanted you to know but you cant come to the ceremony" I'm thinking small ceremony around 11am and then lunch to follow with the family, and then have a few more people come for a little party afterwards so the parents can make their way back home and leave us young uns to paaaarty :)  Any advice, help, tips, tricks ANYTHING is appreciated. 

Congrats! I've never planned a wedding but have several friends who have/are this year. With covid they just sent out their announcements and just put due to the circumstances they're keeping the ceremony to immediate family and will have a "reception" at a later date. You can do different ones for the people you actualy want to come. That's just how they're doing it, a lot of them are going to have a big bash next year. I think for a small group you've got a ton of time to plan & get ready. Pinterest would be my suggestion for ideas, tips, tricks. I get on their and pin things all the time just in case I get married someday. There's so much cool stuff and hacks/tricks on there. Weddings that I've helped friends with in the past, thats where we got all the ideas and did most of the decor DIY from there 

Congratulations and ditto what she said!

No suggestions except those that were already given .... but

CONGRATULATIONS ! ! ! ! ! 

Congrats to you both.  I myself would push that wedding date sooner so I could blame it on Covid.  I hope things are better in the Spring myself.  Good luck and do whatever you want remember it's your day, you only have to please each other.  Have fun and do what you want.

Congratulations!! I had a small destination wedding down at Disney World in Florida, there was about 25 people there altogether. It was very personable and a lot of fun, and we actually got a fabulous deal due to being military. 

I would suggest looking at Pinterest for Ideas and also Etsy has a LOT of stuff that you can customize and personalize. You'll want to pick out your colors and actually look up online what exactly you would want at your wedding, you would be surprised how much DETAIL goes into one (like table cloths, place settings, meals, what kind of silverware, your DJ, wedding planner if you need one, decorations, centerpieces if you want to wear a garter if you want to play "marriage games" if you want your best man/maid of honor to do a speech, father-daughter, mother-son dance, bouquets, corsages (maybe for the mothers), boutonnieres, your sign in book etc). Also if you have booze, you'll probably want a bartender! They certainly have it down to an art! 

For my boots, I got custom spur straps made with my new initials on them to wear at the wedding from Legacy Leather company, a custom garter (Marvel Avengers, make sure to get 2! One you can throw and one you can keep). I had a pretty expensive bouquet so we had an extra, cheaper one made to throw for the bouquet toss. If you want to save some money, Hobby Lobby has a lot of options as well as craft stores.We made some of our wedding signs. Oh, and then we got custom gifts for the Bridesmaids (Custom Disney wine glasses with embroidered names) and Custom flasks for the groomsmen off of Etsy, and our sign-in "book."

It's also funny, because for all the detail you put in your big day.. it flies by and you don't really remember all of those lovely details! I have heard that from so many people and I didn't believe them, but it is so true lol Oh and spend the money and get a GOOD photographer, I wish we did. Ours was alright but it took me a while to really like our pictures because her angles were really off on some of them. A good photographer will be worth its weight in gold. 

Hope this helps! 

Thank all of you so much for your replies and well wishes! Some really great ideas on pinterest and etsy for sure, thanks again for your help :) 

The details thing is so true, most of the weddings I've helped had just gotten basic table settings and basic tablecloths because they knew no one would remember that and it would still look good. Stuff like that can be a quick easy pick and spend your time on things that will be more prominent in photos like the flowers or centerpieces. I think all of them also did cups/flasks for the wedding party gifts as well, it seems to be biggest go-to idea. You can make custom can cozy's too to have at the reception for people to take. Then if you have beer there they can use them & everyone can take them home. I've had a couple do that & that's the little take home gift instead of how some people wrap up candy. I think they're usually $2-3 a peice to do 

Congrats!! We had a pretty small wedding (like 80 guests) and did lots of it ourselves to save money. We got lots of ideas off of pinterest/etsy.

We got married out in a field too and had borrowed wooden church pews from a local church (we paid very little to use them). There were really no decorations at the ceremony, which I think made it even more beautiful. 

For the reception, We rented tables/wooden chairs and white table cloths from a local company for very little. We ordered our flowers/bouquets/boutannieres in bulk from Sams which was a MAJOR money saver. The flowers showed up to my house the night before the wedding in cooled boxes. Then the morning of the wedding some ladies from my church/family friends did the arrangements. It was fall so we had gotten some baskets and different types of tin buckets to arrange the flowers in. Instead of renting dishes, my family had lots of Fiestaware and vintage china that we used instead, which was beautiful. Party favors for the guests were mason jar cups with a handwritten thank you note for coming and a container of Texas wildflower seeds. We thought this was an inexpensive but personal gift. We bought our alcohol in bulk from Costco (wine, beer, and then had two large glass dispensers of signature cocktails that we mixed ourselves). The most expensive thing was the photographer. We spent the money for a good one, and I'm so glad we did. Looking back, I wish we had a videographer but that was before they were popular. I have also seen people recently have a painter at their wedding which I think is so cool. 

It really is about you guys and what you want your day to be. You won't remember a lot of the small details so I wouldn't worry about it. As long as you have your partner and your people there, you won't care or remember what color the napkins are! I also wouldn't sweat having a small group at all. Tell people you guys are having a small intimate ceremony with your core group and plan to have smaller celebrations with other people later on. If they get offended then maybe they aren't as in your corner as you thought. :)

ETA: I have been to a few weddings where the ceremony was family only so the invitation usually has said "so and so invite you to a reception in honor of their union.... Reception to be held at X time at Y  location with celebratory dinner and drinks". Or something like that. I feel like If you put that, the people you are just wanting to come party in the afternoon will get the drift. 

We got married in 2012 and we limited our ceremony to immediate family only since my husband's extended family is massive. When we started counting, we ended up at 200+ without a single friend in the list and he does not want to be the center of attention ever. So, ceremony was immediate family then reception a week later with anybody that wanted to come.

I loved doing it that way. The ceremony was chill and laid-back without a zillion people staring at us. My husband actually messed up his one line and, instead of it being a big deal, it was just something to laugh at. We did catch some grief from a few people who were not invited but nothing too serious or relationship-damaging and COVID is the perfect excuse.

I sent out two different invitations - one for the ceremony and one for the reception. In your case, with no immediate reception, I would send out invitations to the people you want to invite and then an announcement type card to everybody else. That way they know you're thinking of them and there will be a celebration at some point. 

The only thing I would say to spend some serious cash on is the photographer. I love love love our wedding pictures and wish we had more of them. 

Congratulations!