What is Protocol at Your Church?
 

Our daughter will be getting married and our extended family size is small. The groom's family is larger.

Due to budget constraints on our part the reception needs to be around 200 people which would be the number of both sides of the family and a few friends.

The groom's parents are on the pastoral staff of the church our daughter attends and they want to extend the invitation to everyone. A large number attending the ceremony would be acceptable, however a large reception is out of the question.

Here is the dilemma. What is the protocol these days for inviting the whole church to the wedding/reception?

Why not make it inivitation only reception.

Exactly, Thats what we did for my sisters wedding. She had it at the church but about an hour later... We did pictures and everything first... The minister just dismissed everyone and it went off beautifully. Just included RSVP's for the reception and made sure that the reception cards stated that it was an invitation only reception...

She had about 500 at her wedding and only 180 at the reception...

Another option but I do not know how well this will work... See if the grooms family will help to foot the bill for a seperate venue for the reception.. that will make it easier then having to worry about lingering guests who might be wanting a reception..... That way all you have to do is enclose a map to the reception site in the invites for the ones you are wanting there and then off from the church to the reception with only those invited!!!

Good luck

Do you have any idea how many people will be attending the wedding?

At my church (350-400 members), our praise and worship leader got married and invited the whole church (open invitation). But several consecutive weeks before the wedding the family asked the church through announcements and Sunday Bulletins to please sign up on the bulletin board in the foyer if they planned to attend the reception as well. Even thought the reception was open to everyone, this way they knew how many to expect.

If it were me and my budget would only allow for so many, and they were the ones wanting to have it open, I would ask them to share in the expense.

I'd say tell them about the limited budget, and if they wish to have additional people at the reception, let them help add some to the budget.

For some reason, most churches have a defacto protocol of "If you come to this church then your part of the church family and automatically invited to whatever wedding takes place between these four walls, including the reception -held in the church basement of course."

But the simple fact is that receptions are $$$!!! Unfortunately, most handle the cost by going cheaper and cheaper on the food (quality) ultimately ending up at something resembling more a pot luck then anything (a very evil word!).
But remember that this is for the bride and groom and thus should not be an event geared for the lowest common denominator. We had an open invitation to our wedding (and reception afterwards), except it was in Vegas so only those who REALLY wanted to come, made it -about 20+ people actually flew out with us.
The meal came to about 50 bucks per person, which was at the Rainforest Cafe, and was definitely better then your average church basement function.

Oh, do I know what you are going through there Blue Waters and wife!

Planning a little wedding myself and it does seem to be the mindset of people that the church folks just have "the right" to be part of it all.

Scale down the reception, maybe instead of New York Strip, you could have finger foods.

I think not including the church family in a church that you are going to be calling home is a mistake, especially if you are part of the leadership.

You could also pare down the numbers by having the reception off site. Those folks who want to share the experience will drive.

Hmmm, my favorite and the most dynamic posters are...

CC1
Pianoman
RgCraig
Brother Epley
Miss Brattified


See what I mean...

You just said exactly what I said, except are encouraging "dumbing down" where I am saying that the day is too important to the bride and groom to do that. It needs to be a day to remember, not just another day for the average church member who barely knows them to think "Ok, we had another pot luck in the basement.... I think it was a wedding but I'm not sure....."

Maybe if it is just too important to have everyone there, you can have a 2nd "reception" (but really a pot luck -Lordy, I hate that word!) the following weekend were EVERYONE is invited.
But keep the New York Strip for the real thing!!!! Lobster is good as well.....

What happend to the good old days when you could just serve punch and cake?

LOL!!!!

I attended a pastor's daughter wedding and about a thousand folks attended. They served cake and punch in the church multi-purpose room.

Later that evening, they had an invitation only sit-down reception off campus for their closest friends and family.

I think that ended along with the "custom" of kidnapping the groom on the wedding night. :)
At least outside of the Mountain folk.

I think these are good solutions! My daughter actually is saying that when she gets married she would prefer a cake & punch reception, it cracks me up how times keep singing back around. Whatever is different from the norm, that is what kids want!! I think most people really wouldn't care if they came to a wedding and didn't get a sit-down dinner reception.

Thats probably true.

Actually, I think most people DO care about the meal, or the "free" one at any rate. But why spend thousands and thousands and end up with the equivalent of a church picnic? My strong personal view is that a nice, intimate, sit down, high quality, meal with a relatively few people is much much preferable to having several hundred eating a bland piece of chicken or roast beef. Oh yes, and a good Merlot and white wine to match whatever meal is being served. Hey, it was good enough for Jesus.....

I think is the best solution. It takes forever to have photos done and greet everyone anyway...might as well just go ahead and serve cake and punch!

Then go to a second, invitation only reception for the main dinner/second cake.

This is exactly what I was going to suggest.... then saw your post... i think it would work great.

My wedding had over 400.. but I didn't give it a second thought with the reception because of Dad paying.

I could see doing something like Pianoman suggested here with my girls... because "church" family is family... and would definitely be inviting my church... and even my home church for my girls' wedding.

I guess that is what I'm referring to, that is usually what you wind up getting, because of cost restraints, and most people wouldn't mind missing out on that pleasure! LOL!!

Hey, hey...
Leave us out of it, okay?

j/k

I was trying to remember what that was called.... Shivery or Shimmery or something to that effect. Apparently I am not getting close in enough in spelling for Yahoo or Google to be any help.
I just remember is being done on an episode of The Waltons.

Don't forget the mints and nuts. :)

I was thinking the same thing.

I know, I chose to ignore that!! LOL! We are good people, us mountain folk!!

:toofunny :toofunny

Hon, you just tell your little wife not to fret. Get the mothers in the church to bake some bundt cakes and go to Sam's and buy a few bags of them baby winers and put them in BBQ sauce.

You can have a fabulous reception so everyone can come.

Maybe I'm the only here who thinks this way - but it was much more important to me just to have ALL of my friends and family share our special day with us than it was for a few of a few of us to be able to eat steak and lobster. I was very good with "potluck" food. No, we didn't ask others to bring things (altho you have to know my aunts and cousins - everyone DID bring, even tho they were told not to). My mom and I and my sisters cooked for a week ahead of time.

And it turns out it was a good thing they did. We invited 200 to our wedding reception and ended up with around 500. But hey! they all brought gifts - NICE gifts!! So who's complaining? And we all had a great time. And all these years later we have fabulous memories of people who loved us so much they were willing to risk crashing our party just to celebrate with us.

My point is that PEOPLE are much more important than food. If all you can afford to feed a large crowd is cake and punch, then if they love the couple, they will be happy with cake and punch. Invite them. Let your kids soak up the love and support from all of them. It will good for them.

Margie,

I agree with you.

What I'm running into is finding a place large enough for the reception - no matter what food we are going to serve. We have to rent a venue and you can't just rent space w/o having to use their caterers which is ridiculously expensive.

I know ours will all turn out just fine.

To rent a place in Houston is outrageous!

I've heard of a little white wedding chapel in Las Vegas. For the reception, you could go to one of those free buffets that people rave about.

Most of the chapels there have deals with various restaurants and buffets. :)

Is this a summer wedding? or late spring maybe? If so, have you checked to see if there are any local parks that have beautiful shelters they rent out? I know we have several around here.

Also, you might look into any state parks in your area. We have a couple here who have fabulous facilities. And you are not required to use their caterers :)

I think for myself, I will just elope if the time comes that I should marry...It should save alot of $$$$$! Though it might get me shot at since I live in Oklahoma!

We had a small wedding with 50 guests (most were family) and we would have considered having it even smaller in hindsight. I guess we could have gone $20k, 30k, or 50K in debt but we just aren't into the whole debt thing...

We had several comments that our wedding was refreshing because we kept it simple, yet elegant (we still had a string quartet, etc... we just didn't want a huge ordeal where you spend more time worrying about the details than actually enjoying the wedding). Most weddings I have been to in the last decade are so complex that the bride and groom are wandering around like nervous wrecks trying to make sure everything goes okay. I figured we had enough on our mind and it was OUR day, so why should we spend the whole day making it perfect for other people... we just wanted it to be perfect for us. (I know, we're selfish. lol)