In the months of wedding planning, I’ve come across a good number of acquaintances and wedding vendors who talk about the rising popularity of small weddings in Cebu. Seems like more and more young couples have decided to stray away from the tradition. Our wedding coordinator shared that she had at least three recent events that only had about fifty guests. And I cannot help but be completely jealous. How did these couples manage to orchestrate that?! That’s what I want, an intimate wedding!
I have always wanted to have an intimate wedding and I have been very vocal about it. I learned a lot of things about weddings through Friends and it was also through Rachel Green that I first got an idea of how magical a private wedding could be! Remember her made-up story on how she and Ross got married on a cliff during sunset? Swooning!
Whenever I think about the possibility of tripping over while I walk down the aisle, I’m comforted by the thought that, should it happen, the witnesses are all close enough to me that we can just laugh it off together.
Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately, I don’t know yet) for me, the intimate wedding I’m planning right now is not as intimate as I thought and planned it would be. We are keeping it with no more than ninety guests. That’s waaaay beyond my four-attendees fantasy, but believe me, it’s much smaller than most typical Filipino weddings. Google what Barrio Fiesta is and you’ll get an idea. Definitely not my thing and here are the reasons why:
It’s easier to organize.
I’m not an event planner by profession but I’ve organized enough events in the past to know that the more people involved, the harder it becomes. More people means more ideas, more opinions, more schedules to consider, more personalities to deal with. Therefore, more headache!
An intimate wedding is wallet-friendly.
Fewer guests don’t necessarily mean bigger savings. It still depends on how costly your other details are. In our case, having only fewer guests allowed us to book a reception venue known for its excellent food. It’s pricier, but with a sort of food critic for a groom, we’d still have chosen the same venue but would have spent more have we had a longer guest list.
I don’t socialize just for the sake of it.
It’s quite blunt but that’s me. I’m not very good at chitchatting with people I’ve just met or whom I hardly remember on a yearly basis. I believe that a wedding, even my own, is not a good enough excuse to go through such ordeal. Sorry. Not sorry.
I don’t want to feel awkward.
For me, a wedding is the ultimate day of PDA. Family and friends will see you being kissed by a man who just made a vow to always love you for all eternity. They will hear the story of how you met and how you’ve ultimately become the most important person in each other’s lives. It’ enchanting! It’s a reason for celebration! But I wouldn’t want to do all that in front of people I barely know. E.g.: those relatives whom you cannot even recognize when you run into in a mall, those acquaintances who haven’t even seen you tipsy, and those who do not even know you’re old enough to be married!
I would like to think that true friends will understand.
This is perhaps the most therapeutic reason I got. At my age now, I’ve come to terms with the different types of friends I have. For one, there is my inner circle. They, of course, complete my bridesmaids and those first few people to know the date. Then there’s my other really close friends, the ones who’ve witnessed me and my groom-to-be grow together through the years—and not just on Facebook. And then there’s those support system kind of friends. They are not always there, you don’t talk as much, but they always have a special place in your heart because they are always one call away. This is where I struggle. I have a lot of friends in this third category but then, we have enough family members and relatives (and I seriously mean the close ones) to fill in the attendees. So while I decide on the final guest list for my planned intimate wedding, I guess I’ll just take the risk of believing that true friends will understand and be happy for us, with or without invites! ♥
