Micro weddings have experienced a boom in popularity since the pandemic, with many couples looking towards smaller, more intimate gatherings to celebrate their wedding. They can be casual or glamorous, but are always fun.
If you don't want a big party but still have loved ones you want to be there for your special day, a micro wedding with 20 or fewer guests is a fantastic option.
A micro wedding might be perfect for you if you'd like to include your nearest and dearest, and a lot of the typical wedding traditions, in your special day, but don't want to have the stress that comes with trying to coordinate dozens or even hundreds of people to come together for one event.
A micro wedding can give you all the benefits of an elopement, but without the risk of excluding and offending your close family and friends.
There's a lot of flexibility when it comes to micro weddings - they can be as laidback or as fancy as you'd like them to be. You could plan for 10 guests to attend a quick ceremony followed by dinner at a restaurant, or you could plan essentially a traditional wedding with all of the expected elements (full ceremony, cocktail hour, catered reception with entertainment, etc.) but scale it down to just 20 guests.
Either way, micro weddings allow you to have a more personal and less stressful wedding experience, providing plenty of opportunities for you and your partner to connect with each other and with your guests.
Micro weddings became much more normalised and popular after the pandemic, but, just like elopements, a lot of their current popularity also comes from shifting priorities, with people wanting to spend less on their weddings in order to save for honeymoons or buying a home, not having as much free time to plan a large scale event, and putting less stock in a lot of the more traditional aspects of larger weddings.
Micro weddings focus on quality over quantity, allowing couples to put more effort into creating a meaningful, emotional experience with close friends and family rather than staging a big production.
Hosting a smaller wedding also gives you the capability to invest in finer details, upgrades or customisations that create a higher quality, more personalised experience that just isn't possible with large guest lists. That may mean choosing a venue that isn't suited to larger groups but is perfect for a more intimate ceremony; having a more gourmet menu, as you're catering for less guests; getting bespoke wedding attire; or hiring unique reception entertainment that you couldn't if you had more guests.
A lot of vendors now offer packages for elopements, micro weddings and small weddings with inclusions and pricing that depend on the number of guests invited. It can be a good idea to look into these different packages and help use them as a guide for the scale of wedding that you'd like to host. They can also help you figure out which events and traditions you'd like to include in your day - for example, how many hours will the photographer need to stay to capture all of the moments you'd like them to? Do you want a package that includes entertainment for a cocktail hour? Will you want styling for a sit down meal at a reception? Seeing what's typically offered and the recommended timeframes that these vendors have for different sized weddings can really help you organise and plan your own day.
Alternatively, micro weddings can be held at State Marriage Registries. The possibilities for ceremonies and the particulars for these will vary state by state, so make sure to check your local registries office website, but often they'll offer a package that's a relatively fuss free, cheaper option.
In Victoria, for example, you can have a 30 minute long, personalised wedding ceremony with a provided celebrant, the couple, a professional photographer and up to 8 guests (or up to 55 guests, depending on the room you choose).
This can be a fantastic choice if you want to avoid the fanfare and complexities of a larger wedding all together, or if you'd rather keep the legal parts private, or separate, from a larger celebration you want to hold at a later date.
intimacy & connection
Having such a small party size allows plenty of time for you to connect as a couple and to experience every part of the day together, while also spending meaningful time with each of your guests. It creates an environment where you can truly enjoy the company of your loved ones and bond without the stress of hosting a huge event and trying to manage a large crowd.
This sense of intimacy and closeness can amplify the emotions of the day and reinforce not only your love as a couple, but the love you both have with your closest family and friends.
lower cost
Due to their smaller size, micro weddings are generally much cheaper than traditional weddings with large guest lists. You can avoid having to pay for a more spacious venue, and catering and drinks for so many extra guests, which are undoubtedly some of the most expensive parts of any wedding.
Micro weddings allow you to strip your celebration back to the core things that are most important to you as a couple, allowing you to invest in finer details or upgrades that create a higher quality, more personalised experience - or to things outside the actual wedding day, such as your honeymoon, buying a home, or other experiences that you'd prefer to splash out on.
less stress
The smaller size of micro weddings also requires a lot less coordinating between different people - from vendors to extended family to your bridal party. Keeping it super small can make wedding planning much less stressful and easier to manage, and can stop you from getting too overwhelmed with all of the details and logistics required for larger weddings.
Having a smaller guest list can also mean that the timeframe for planning can be shorter than what's required for bigger events, as it's easier to coordinate smaller groups of people.
freedom & flexibility
Micro weddings allow more flexibility than traditional weddings, and give you the freedom to make decisions without worrying about pleasing a wide array of people. It's easier to coordinate smaller guest lists, and keeping the invites low can allow you to have your wedding at some unique locations that just aren't suited for large groups.
With a micro wedding, you're not locked in to the traditional wedding day schedule - you can skip the extra fuss of traditions that don't hold personal meaning for you, and avoid societal and familial/cultural expectations. Or, alternatively, you can include every single tradition and all of the stereotypical wedding day activities imaginable, because having a smaller guest list allows you more time throughout the day and is more budget-friendly.
Either way, having a micro wedding lets you focus on having a wedding day that's exactly as you want it to be.
potential hurt feelings
It's natural to want to be included in the big life moments of people that we love, and your extended families and wider friend groups may be expecting to be part of your wedding day. Hearing that you've decided to have a micro wedding and they didn't make the guest list may make them feel hurt or excluded, which can lead to tension in your relationships.
Depending on your personal circumstances, you may be able to mitigate this somewhat if you explain the reasoning behind your decision to have a micro wedding to them before you get married, so they're not finding out second-hand from others.
You could also try to find ways to include them in other, more casual, wedding-adjacent celebrations, such as by having a larger engagement party with more guests.
limited celebration
Having a micro wedding means that you’re skipping the big traditional wedding celebration, which might be slightly disappointing when society has an expectation of weddings being a huge party. And even if you're deadset on wanting an intimate micro wedding and don't enjoy being in the limelight with large groups, there may still be a sense that you're missing out on the joyous atmosphere that can come from celebrating a milestone event with a larger group of loved ones.
The smaller guest list can make micro weddings more subdued affairs, rather than the raucous parties that larger weddings can be, but that does depend on the personalities you invite - and if you're interested in a micro wedding, you may be looking for a more relaxed, calmer celebration rather than a late-night rager, anyway.
A micro wedding is a perfect choice for couples who value intimacy and flexibility for their big day.
You can choose to include aspects of a traditional wedding day, such as a full ceremony, cocktail hour, catered reception with entertainment, etc. or you can keep things super simple and have a legal ceremony before sharing a meal with your nearest and dearest.
A micro wedding allows you to pick and choose which aspects of a wedding day are important to you as a couple, and you get to share them with your closest loved ones, making it a wonderful choice for a modern wedding.
The only real difference between a micro wedding and a small wedding is the size of the guest list, so there's a lot of overlapping info in the next article in this series. The logistics get a little different when you start planning for medium weddings and the guest list goes above 50 invitees, though, so feel free to read on to compare.
