Every year more of my favourite weddings are the small ones. Forty chairs, one long table, a dinner that goes on because nobody wants to leave it.
A tiny guest list buys you the things big budgets chase: the venue you actually love, flowers without rationing, a photographer for every hour of the day. Most of all it buys attention — yours, for every single person in the room.
How to cut without wounds
Draw the line by circle, not by person: family, the friends you see in ordinary life, and no one you’d have to introduce yourself to. Announced early and applied evenly, a small list offends far fewer people than couples fear.