Benefits of a smaller Wedding: our Top 5 Reasons to embrace an intimate day.
2020 has been a year of unprecedented turmoil for both the Weddings & Events Industry, and for hospitality. I don’t need to go into details here, but sacrifices have been made by many many people, and our hearts have broken for all of the devastated couples having to put their plans - often many years in the making - on hold.
Here at Three Wells, we are gearing up for our first 30-person Wedding next weekend, and its a mixture of nerves (will rules change - such a nail biting time) and excitement that we can finally host a celebration. I think we are all in desperate need of it.
Talking to the bride-to-be about their decision to go ahead, despite the restrictions, has got me thinking.
Are small Weddings really such a bad thing?
We are all aware that these days Weddings are costing couples more than ever, with research suggesting the average Wedding spend in the UK has risen to a staggering £30,355. With increasing pressure to ‘out-do’ our peers, brides (and yes grooms!) across the country are dropping more and more cash with the aim of delivering the ‘ultimate Wedding party’.
But does it need to be this way?
Table setting at a recent Three Wells Hotel Wedding
Here at Three Wells, we’re firm believers in the philosophy that bigger doesn’t mean better – and we want to treasure the one thing that makes every Wedding special: the joining of two people in a lifelong commitment.
So read on, and I’ll try my best to convince you of why small Weddings can be every bit as wonderful as those big bashes.
Less guests, less stress.
Whilst it doesn’t necessarily hold true that having fewer guests will make the experience stress-free (and 2020 has been testament to that!), there is certainly a lot to be said for it. Gone are the days where guests are happy with a church buffet - these days catering for events can turn into a planning nightmare, with a plethora of allergens, intolerances and the down-right fussy (And yes we have had a Mother of the Bride eating chicken nuggets so don’t think it won’t happen). Aside from the food, the issues surrounding where to house people and how to get them all from A to B can be greatly reduced when you lower your numbers.
Perversely, you can end up offending less people should you choose not to invite them with a smaller wedding – invite 150 people and every person you’ve met in the last five years holds out an expectation, yet reduce your numbers to 30 and suddenly people have no expectations of being on the list outside of your immediate family members and closest friends.
Smaller Wedding, smaller budget.
Again, not a guarantee but I don’t think anyone can argue that inviting fewer guests is highly likely to drop your overhead costs. On top of the lower venue charges, you can greatly reduce your outgoings on food and table wine – and in fact, you have more flexibility to choose the menu you really want to eat rather than pumping for the option you can merely afford. From invites to table decorations, there aren’t many parts of a Wedding where smaller numbers can’t equal less spend.
Create a more relaxed and intimate environment.
Saving those precious invites for your very nearest and dearest means that the chances are, you’ll be able to spend your Wedding day with the people who love and cherish you for exactly who you are – rather than spending hours of your time circulating a room full of people you felt
obliged to invite, or worse – are meeting for the very first time!Less people often encourage the guests who are invited to join together and mingle rather than splitting into smaller groups and parties, resulting in a more relaxed environment full of positive energy.
On top of this, many smaller venues, Three Wells included, will offer exclusive use to their Wedding parties – meaning you can enjoy the freedom of having the whole place to yourselves. At the end of the day, no one really wants to be bumping into strangers – or another bride - on their Wedding day.
Getting to spend time with those dearest of guests!
Tying into our last point, but such an important point to make. So many times at Weddings, you end up feeling like you’ve barely spoken two words to the Bride and Groom themselves. With so much to fit in, between the ceremony itself to the photographs, the sit down meal, the speeches, the cake cutting and right up to the first dance…there are precious few periods where you can really connect with your guests. And this is certainly true of larger Weddings,
where it can be an impossible task to fit in exchanging pleasantries with all of your guests, let alone anything more personal.More flexibility.
Speaking from experience as not only an owner of a small wedding venue, but as someone who chose to get married in one, I feel pretty confident in making this claim. Yes of course we too have Wedding packages and Wedding Breakfast Menus and set prices. But we’re also always emphasizing to our couples how much flexibility there is with this.
Want to drop the prawn cocktail and opt for tomato soup? Of course you can.
Think your guests would rather grab a pint from the bar over table wine? Not a problem.
Reckon you might still be dancing the night away at 4am? Bring it on.
I’d like to think we always work with couples according to their budgets, adjusting options and generally making life as easy as we possibly can for them – in fact, we’re often the ones nudging to reduce the buffet numbers, because honestly, even though we make less profit, it’s
awful to throw all the leftovers in a bin and at the end of the day we’ve been down this road enough times to judge pretty accurately how much food can be consumed at nine in the evening
So there you have it. That’s out top 5 – and I can think of a heap of other reasons why you should consider scaling down your guest list!
I fully appreciate that for great many brides, having the choice taken away from them is the worst part, and I am in no way trying to make light of the situation. This year has cost our industry hundreds of millions of pounds in lost revenue, and there are so many wonderful independent businesses who won’t survive.
We would like to take this opportunity to encourage anyone reading this to keep making plans. Keep paying deposits. Keep talking to your suppliers. Hold on to hope, go ahead with smaller ceremonies where you can (AND throw larger parties later!). You never know, your income could be make or break for a small business this year.
And fingers crossed, when we talk about this year in the future, we will discuss resilience, we will talk about how we pulled together. We will celebrate the extraordinary and even - possibly - end up feeling like we were forced to prioritize and that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
If you want to chat to us about our Wedding services then please get in touch or download our Wedding Brochure.