Keep It Small

The first thing we decided was to keep our wedding small. The first time we married, we had fifty guests, this time we had only twelve.

Having a small wedding not only kept the costs down (we spent less than $1000 for the entire ceremony and reception) and minimized environmental impact, but it also allowed us to really be with our guests. With our families living out of state, those in attendance were only our closest friends who were actively involved in our lives.

Big weddings actually are traditional. In times past, when people lived in small villages and everyone knew each other, the entire community would come to the wedding. Today, however, our personal communities are defined by reasons other than geography. Since the purpose of a wedding is to announce to one's community that you are now husband and wife, it seems like a fitting guideline to invite whoever is in your community, whatever size that is. When our minister and best man married, they had 200 guests, because they were both worked in businesses that involved lots of people.

Our advice is to consider who you want to be present at your wedding and why you want them to be there. Choose guests who are meaningful to you, whatever the number.

You can also choose to have no guests at all. The two of you can simply go off to a romantic spot and make your vows together (along with your minister or justice of the peace, of course). Legally, there needs to be two witnesses, but beyond that, anyone else is optional.

When my parents got married back in 1954, both of them worked and neither could take time off for a wedding and honeymoon. So after work on a Friday evening, they and their parents went to a small church and they got married. Afterwards, they all went out to dinner to a nice restaurant. They went away for the weekend for their honeymoon and were back to work on Monday morning. And they stayed together until death did them part twenty years later.

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