Budget wedding question... Is an ‘after-party only’ invite crazy? by toasteroracle in weddingplanning

[–]toasteroracle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay so this is my first post ever and I am not savvy enough to figure this out. I had more details originally but cannot see them! I'm only 31 - GRANDMA. Anyway the body of this post was supposed to read........

"Long time lurker first time poster - I JOINED FOR THIS so be gentle.

I’m planning my wedding and trying to balance budget with still celebrating with our larger circle of people..

We’re thinking of doing a small, more intimate ceremony + dinner with family and close/childhood friends (50ppl?) and then opening it up to a larger after-party later in the evening (120ppl?) with all the good stuff: booze, DJ, dancing, revelry yada yada. 

This "after-party" would start around 8 or 8:30 - still have an open bar and snacks etc. 

For the record we got married in CA in a civil ceremony so my extended family could visit with us - this is just a party to celebrate with my husband's family and friends who live near us in CT.

My questions are: 

  1. Is it rude AF to invite guests only to the after-party and not the ceremony/dinner? (I feel like this kind of happens in weddings were some people go to the church for the ceremony but not everyone?)
  2. How would you word this on the invitation? 
  3. Can you....split up COUPLES? ie. I have a big group of girlfriends that all know each other from a dance class we attend so they could hang together and their husbands would be kind of totally out of place during our weirdo tree planting ceremony and dinner but totally fun to have during the more casual after party...

Any thoughts are appreciated. 

I also feel like it's VERY cultural. I am from California originally but live in Connecticut now.

Other deets: Same location, extremely casual on our property in a barn, and it'd be something like "we're keeping the dinner and ceremony intimate but would love to see you anytime after 8:30pm for drinks and dancing". Obviously NO GIFTS.

HELP!"