Wedding Forum - How to not offend people...

Due to our limited budget and both of us having large families we've decided that for our wedding breakfast we're just going to have our immediate family and very close friends (around 16 guests).
We just can't be bothered with all the politics of it and if we invite one aunty or uncle we'll feel we've got to invite all the others and their kids, and then you can't invite that person without inviting this person and so on and so on and before you know it we've spent an arm and leg on a big wedding that we don't really want.
We really like the idea of just having a nice cosy family meal and being able to spoil the people who mean the most to us, and then in the evening we're having a big party which everybody will be invited to.

The trouble is that some of our guests will be expecting invites to the whole day and we really don't want anybody being upset or offended.

We're getting married in our local church and would love anybody who really wants to witness our marriage to be there.

So, how do we do the invitations to basically say in a nice way "you're invited to the church and the night do but we just want our immediate family there for the wedding breakfast"????

great idea mrs h. most of the important people are coming to the church anyway for us but i think im just going to spread word around to grandparents etc that everyone is welcome to the church in the day if they want to come x

I agree with Mrs H!! Brilliant way to put it xx

Mrs H that's brilliant, I was hoping for a little poem of some sort. Fab! xx

Mrs H, you're right, I always have a habit of saying of saying more than I need to and feeling I need to justify myself to people. I'll just not mention it unless anybody asks x

Yes well personally I'm not a fan of the formal meal and sitting next to people you've never met, eating a meal which isn't great and everybody moaning that the chicken is dry or the veg is soggy and sipping on your glass of wine because you don't know whether you're just getting the one glass or whether they might come round and top you up in a minute. I know I wouldn't enjoy it as the bride either because I'd be worrying about whether people were enjoying it or not.

You could always send the evening invites out and put something like 'you are more than welcome to join us for the ceromony at xyz etc'

I've been to a few weddings where just the family have gone for a meal, it was fine, we just migrated to the nearest pub until the evening do xx

Mrs H 2B, that's what I'm doing. You can't please everyone ClaireH717. But remember that it's your day! We're inviting everyone to the church and then to the evening do... but only half to the wedding breakfast. I'm just doing separate invitations.

I have this exact problem hun x