The Rise of Intimate Weddings: How to Host a Small Wedding That Feels Big

More couples have embraced smaller weddings, focusing on big details and spending quality time with the most important people in their lives. In this blog, we will look at the rise of intimate weddings and how to host a small wedding that feels big. 

What is considered a small wedding?

Small weddings tend to include approximately 10 to 50 of your closest family and friends.

Focus Your Spending on Details for Intimate Weddings

A major attraction for intimate weddings is the cost savings. With fewer guests to feed, you can focus your spending on the details that help create a captivating wedding atmosphere. Some small wedding ideas that can really make an impact include the following:

• Hire the best photographer you can afford for a stellar wedding album.
• Share meaningful, personalized guest favours since you won’t need as many.
• Handwrite your invitations, or hire a calligrapher to do it for you.
• Include a welcome box for guests with wine, sweets, and high-end toiletries.
• Create DIY touches for your tables.
• Customize your seating, such as renting a vintage living room set where guests can chat over drinks.
• Rent high-end tableware, or hit the consignment shops to create individualized vintage table settings.
• Rent a fun vehicle to transport your guests, or go all out with a few vintage vehicles.
• Invest in a bespoke cocktail menu.
• Opt for the good stuff for your toasts.
• Include family heirlooms such as historic wedding photos in vintage frames.
• Place handwritten menus at each place setting.

Customize More at Small Weddings

Customization adds an intimate touch that shows your guests how much you appreciate them. This might include:

• Placing a private note at each table setting, signed by the two of you, thanking guests for attending.
• Customizing your menu at intimate wedding venues to offer something for everyone.
• Producing customized appetizers with guest names, such as truffle fries wrapped in newspaper with a customized wooden fork, or mini-charcuterie boards that guests can take home.
• Hand-embroidering guest names on linen napkins as a customized placeholder.
• Placing a customized quote at each place setting based on the guests’ interests.
• Creating a customized playlist featuring your guests’ favourite songs and albums.

Invest in a First-Class Menu for Intimate Weddings

Small private wedding venues with in-house chefs allow you to create a compelling wedding menu. You’re more willing to splurge on a guest list exclusive to the dearest people in your lives. Whether you up the number of courses, include exclusive wine pairings with each course, or create a casual menu with an upscale twist, this is your chance to indulge in a truly special wedding feast.

You can also consider unique food offerings, from a food truck at midnight to a trip-around-the-world buffet. A growing trend for small weddings is family-style dinners sans the head table. Everyone sits together at a single long table, sharing large platters of food, which creates a companionable atmosphere. If your wedding is more upscale, the long table still works, with guests served by elegant waitstaff.

Up the Ante on Entertainment at Small Weddings 

You can create your ideal wedding atmosphere by hiring unique entertainment. Whether it’s a violinist at your ceremony, a jazz trio over cocktails, or a toe-tapping country band after dinner, this is your chance to go all-out to create the exact type of celebration you envisioned.

You can also get artsy by showing a classic black-and-white movie during dinner, displaying an art installation or mini-gallery of your favourite artists, or even having a random improv team entertain you over drinks.

Elevate Your Wedding Attire at Intimate Weddings

Just because the wedding is small doesn’t mean you have to dress down. Invest the money you save in wedding attire that reflects your personalities. Whether that is an ultra-sophisticated look, a quirky sense of style found scouring local vintage boutiques, or a comfortable look in a high-fashion white pantsuit.

Combine Your Ceremony and Reception

Small weddings allow you to find intimate wedding venues ideal for both your ceremony and reception. This creates a stress-free wedding day when no one worries about travelling from the ceremony to the reception. Your guests can also enjoy cocktails or champagne as they arrive, creating an immediate celebratory feel to your wedding event. There’s no waiting for the bride and groom to arrive after the ceremony, as you’re already there.

If you want to spend a little time alone, Château Le Jardin’s small wedding venue options include a private suite. Retreat in private to toast your new lives together, refresh yourselves, or even change into a different outfit before rejoining your guests.

Impeccable Service for Small Wedding Venues

Couples are painfully aware of guest reactions at small weddings. With such an intimate setting, you witness every detail, good or bad. To avoid cringeworthy moments, you need to ensure your small wedding venue offers impeccable service. You want to see nothing but smiles from the ceremony to the moment you bid your guests farewell. A few emotional tears are, of course, to be expected, but cranky grimaces are not okay!

Choose an Intimate Venue for Small Weddings

You don’t have to sacrifice the most desirable features and standards included at a high-end wedding venue in exchange for a small venue like a restaurant or private room at a vineyard. However, you can find full-service wedding venues with flexible spaces that allow you to create a very classy, all-inclusive wedding day when every detail meets your expectations.

Smaller venues often add unexpected fees and limitations that significantly impact your budget and plans, from cake-serving fees to restrictions on entertainment and decorations. You still want the same types of features at your venue as you would when planning the typical full-scale wedding, including:

• Customizable menus with the assistance of a world-class chef.
• Stunning architectural features include soaring ceilings, large windows that flood with natural light, fireplaces, and charming gardens.
• Everything taken care of under one roof to reduce stress, including catering, seating, tending and servers, set-up/tear-down, flexibility for customized decor, etc.
• A convenient location.
• Space for both the ceremony and reception.
• A private outdoor space.
• A private entrance and lobby.
• A private bridal suite.
• Unmatched service.

Fortunately, Château Le Jardin offers all of these things and more.

Contact Château Le Jardin for Your Ideal Wedding Venue

Use these small wedding ideas to create a unique celebration that is big on unmatched experiences. They’ll help you “put on the ritz” with the extra details that create unforgettable moments at small intimate wedding venues.

Château Le Jardin is an elegant wedding venue ready to accommodate weddings of all sizes. Click here to learn more. You can also call us at 1-888-529-8573 or book a consultation online.