Take Heart! 

No matter the changes brought in and the number of guests in attendance, or where you can hold your celebrations – what matters most is the love surrounding you both. Never forget that the important thing is the marriage not the wedding.  But before we do anything else here’s an at-a-glance reminder of the current advice:

In the first instance, choose a Covid-secure venue for your wedding breakfast or celebrations. Not your back garden or a marquee in a neighbour’s field. That sorted:

• You can have 15 guests at your wedding. This does not include the officiant, venue staff or suppliers.
• You can now have a first dance to celebrate your marriage.
• Your wedding breakfast must be a sit-down meal, held in a Covid-secure venue.
• Your venue will need to close between 10pm and 5am.
• Guests and staff must wear face masks when moving around the venue.

On the subject of face masks, there are companies that can create masks to match your outfit. It’s quite clever to be honest. You provide a pic of your fabric and they create a mask in the pattern and colour of your outfit. I did this for a recent wedding I attended. 

No matter what!
You WILL have a beautiful day!
And this become part of your fabulous story!

Planning a 15-Person Wedding

In this Hitched.Co.UK article about such an occasion as the 15-person wedding, they observe that it’s not everyone that wants the whole big, white wedding thing. Which is true. And no doubt it’s just as well because, at the moment, no-one can. 

While the definition of a ‘small’ wedding is a matter of personal viewpoint, a general figure is between thirty and sixty guests. A micro wedding though is the term for one with 20 guests or fewer.

If you’re struggling to get your head around having a small wedding rather than the big splash you’d dreamed it’s worth remind yourself why small is beautiful:

• You could well save a lot of cash. And that in turn will let you …
• … spend more money on the bits that matter the most to you
• With a small wedding you can create an intimate and more personal day. One that allows you to …
• … spend more individual time with loved ones
• And of course, fewer guests means less stress and a relaxed atmosphere.

And of course, a small guest list doesn’t mean all aspects have to be small to match! So – if you want to – go big on the dress

the flowers, the cake, the invitations, the venue, the shoes.

Small Wedding Planning: Top Tips

The aforementioned article on Hitched gives 7 top tips for planning a small wedding. In summary the main points suggested are:

• There are lots of venues that host micro weddings. The venue should be exclusive use to you while you are there.

• With a 15-person guest list you have to be super-selective. Thus every single person you invite should be someone close to you and that you can’t imagine marrying with them not present.

• Hire a planner/venue decorator to make sure the day flows and you don’t have to worry about food, drink or decorations.

• Think about a weekday wedding – although do consider people’s professions. This won’t work if your very closest-couldn’t-possibly-get-married-without-her-there friend is a teacher!

• Make the most of the experience you CAN have. Whatever your wedding looks like it’s going to be – don’t rail against it. Instead go with it and push from your mind what was going to be. Focus on the good stuff and make the most of: food, music etc.

Whether you’re planning a 15-Person Wedding or fewer guests than that, Fabulous Functions UK can and will create for a you an atmospheric and amazing day. We guarantee it will linger in the memory in the best possible way. Read this account by a guest at a minimony wedding close to our hearts at Fabulous Functions UK and you’ll see what I mean!

Call us on 0044 7511 842 451 or drop a note to hello@fabulousfunctionsuk.com and let’s talk!

More like this.
If you liked this blog then you may like the blog about attending a 15person wedding written from the best mans point of view. Visit An Intimate Minimony Wedding to find out how beautiful they can be.

Happy reading!

The Sequel Wedding

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic continues to exercise us all – in and out of the wedding industry. We’ve already tackled aspects of the situation a couple of times on our blog in our article about changing wedding plans and a feature about creating a Covid-friendly intimate wedding set-up.  But the buzzword now, to work around the restrictions we have, is the sequel wedding. So, in this post we’ll have a look at the sequel wedding – what it is and how to do it.

Covid-Compliant Weddings

So, we have to embrace the reality of weddings with fewer than thirty guests in a Covid-compliant venue. The reality is that for the moment, no wedding can have as many as thirty guests.

Let’s examine why:

Say the capacity of the Covid compliant ceremony room is going to be around 25 people. Remove the registrars from the equation and you’re down to 23. Then there’s the photographer – now you’re at 22 people. And that number has to include the entire wedding party – bride, groom, witnesses, bridesmaids and guests. 

But there is a way to get around this problem – and that’s the sequel wedding.

What Is A Sequel wedding?

The sequel wedding simply refers to a couple hosting several sequential ceremonies/celebrations.

This isn’t a new concept however. Many other cultures and religions have had such a system since … well since for ever. But now, with our pandemic restrictions, British couples are embracing the idea. Indeed, we’re doing this very thing in our own family. My son had his marriage ceremony late August and his wedding celebrations will be at the start of September in 2021.

And that’s an important distinction to make in any event, as we wrote in this blog, Your Marriage or Your Wedding, earlier this year.

The sequel wedding concept shows every sign of being the new norm for 2020 and into 2021 too. Following so many months of being unable to see friends and relatives in person, few are now willing to limit the joy of a wedding celebration to one event.

Thus, we’re going to see more and more of what Hitched.Co.UK describe as ‘minimonies, micro weddings and elopements joining big reception celebrations for a sequel wedding.’

It’s typical then for the marriage ceremony to have only the closest of family and friends present, with a larger guest list invited to a second ceremony. And following up those two is a large reception.

Irrespective of Covid, some couples have elected to follow a pattern something like that anyway. A small church or registry office marriage followed a small gathering to mark the occasion. Then a larger party, on a different day, at a chosen venue.

And now, in the midst of Coronavirus, there’s a rising trend of couples opting to host, as described above, a minimony or micro-wedding on their original wedding date – or later this year on a re-arranged date. And then they’re planning for a bigger, sparkling, sequel wedding celebration in 2021.

The New Wedding Jargon

Now for definitions of these new wedding words – so you’re clear on what we’re talking about.

Minimony

This is a cut-down version of your postponed wedding. It’s your legal ceremony or commitment ceremony held by a celebrant your vicar, priest or registrar. You’ll have your minimony in the presence of a few loved ones – either in person or virtually. 

Everything will be as you planned it for your original date. You’ll make your vows, have your first dance, have a photographer for a few hours and even a put a knife in to a cut-down version of your wedding cake.

With a minimony your guest list has enforced and severe limitations on it. So the guests you had to cull get an invitation to a follow-up wedding when large groups can meet once more.  At the follow-up event you’ll have another ceremony, where you’ll walk down the aisle and exchange your vows, this ceremony can be conducted by a celebrant, followed by a reception.

Micro-wedding

I’ll forgive you for wondering what the difference is between this and a minimony.  Yet bear with me – there is one. 

Whereas a minimony is a Covid-compromise, a micro-wedding is a wedding with fewer than 20 guests by deliberate design.

A common feature of a micro-wedding is the absence of a reception at a later date. The couple concerned are simply choosing to have intimate wedding day in the presence of their very nearest and dearest. 

Though of course, many couples are feeling the desire to host a big party in celebration of being able to reunite. Often, they don’t have another ceremony but they do have a ‘sequel reception’ with the emphasis on ‘party’ rather than a second wedding day.

Get In Touch

Are you planning a minimony or a micro-wedding? In either event, we at Fabulous Functions UK are here to help. Why not get in touch and arrange a no-obligation consultation?

And if you want to get an idea of how we work and what we do checkout our Instragram and Facebook feeds for inspirational images.

Featured photograph curtesy of Steffen Milsom Photography