Courtesy of WSJ
Weddings: Honey, I Shrunk the Wedding --- Couples Cut Costs -- and Guests -- With `Intimate' Ceremonies; The Revenge of the Uninvited
OF ALL THE HUNDREDS of tasks involved in planning a perfect, storybook wedding, one loomed large for Cynthia O'Brien -- wiggling out of inviting everyone from her boss and co-workers to her fiance's chums.
Then she hit on the solution: Shrink the ceremony and move it to Anguilla. "The more people that got involved, the more the process of becoming man and wife was too stressful," says the Seattle sales manager.
This summer, the best weddings may be the ones you're not invited to. After years of yearning for the blockbuster affair, even people with a ton of money are planning minute ceremonies in far-flung locales or near home. Some wedding consultants say it's just part of the 9/11 effect, with soon-to-be newlyweds wanting intimate affairs in these dicey times. Others blame the economy. And then there's the reason nobody wants to admit: Some couples just don't want you at their wedding.
"It's like the un-wedding," says Alan Fields, a wedding-guide publisher and industry watchdog. Brides and grooms are "trimming the extra spectacle of it all."
According to Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, a group of luxury properties, weddings of 50 people or fewer have jumped 75% this year. Even tinier ones, with under 20 guests, are up 20% at the tony Meadowood hotel in Napa Valley. Small weddings are so hot that some of the best-known wedding planners want in on them now, offering discounts to couples throwing small nuptials. In all, the average wedding size in the U.S. has shrunk about 15% since 1995, says the Association of Bridal Consultants.
But while small celebrations are supposed to keep out the wedding machine, they're not exactly headache-free. The happy couple still has to find printers willing to make just a handful of invitations, convince wedding halls to take their skimpy business, and put in all that quality time with their nearest and dearest. There's also the risk of regretting -- years down the road -- that The Big Day wasn't really, well, that big.
And it's not as if all those uninvited guests won't notice the empty mailbox. When Mike Bedenian told his best friend his Hawaiian nuptials would be a family-only affair, the friend took matters into his own hands -- and flew there himself. "He said, `I'm going,'" says the 32-year-old art director from Highland, Ind., who says the friend booked a room near the bride and groom and babysat the other guests. "He was adamant."
Intimate celebrations, of course, are nothing new to the wedding business. During the roaring 1990s, many a chic couple decided to hold their festivities in exotic or distant locales such as Fiji or Italy to show off or be different. But wedding consultants say many of those couples made a point of holding larger second weddings or receptions close to home. Now, for reasons that range from financial (some people think it's cheaper to throw a small wedding, even if it's 5,000 miles away) to family peace-keeping, small is becoming big this season in the nuptial business.
The Ritz-Carlton says it's seen so many small weddings at its foreign properties it's hiring "wedding concierges" to handle the kind of details -- from legal paperwork to finding a church -- that a wedding planner for a large ceremony would normally take care of. (One recent request in Jamaica: Find wedding waiters who would dress in togas and carry the bride and groom into the reception on silver platters laden with fruit). The Long Bay resort on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands has added a new "Intimate I Do" wedding package for up to 10 guests, expanding on its "Island Eloper" package for two.
And then there's the "virtual wedding" package offered by some Marriott resorts. For $250 to $500, the hotel will post a streaming video of your wedding on the Web so friends and family who weren't invited can watch you exchange vows from back home. (One issue: In the past, there's been up to a 24-hour delay before the video actually got fed to the Internet.)
While getting an e-mail invite to watch a wedding online is the kind of affront that can spark a family feud, it's more than the Degliantoni clan got last year. When Lisa, one of the family's daughters, announced she was tying the knot in an El Paso, Texas, chapel with just two friends present, she not only got angry e-mail from her sister telling her she was a "bad" sibling, her mother also called to tell her she'd broken her father's heart. "There's this element that by not imitating tradition, you're disrespecting your family," says Lisa Degliantoni.
Still, for Peter Stroble and his new wife, Diana, trimming the guest list was the best way to spend quality time with their friends during their nuptials in Bermuda. The couple cut out the extraneous folks with a set of severe ground rules: Bride and groom could ask along only four friends each, plus immediate family. Total attendance came to about 50, a third the size of their engagement party. "It was very clear who got invited and who didn't," says Mr. Stroble, of Seattle.
Small ceremonies have gotten so popular, some resorts are seeing a parallel retreat of the huge weddings typical of the late 1990s. In the last two years, the Hotel Del Coronado near San Diego has seen a 20% drop in wedding parties of more than 100, while the W Hotel in Seattle has lost almost a third of its 100-person-plus nuptial bookings in just the past 12 months. Many clients say "it's more important to have fewer people around them and more quality time with them," says Jolene DiSalvo, the W's director of sales and marketing.
But for would-have-been guests such as Pamela Goodman, not making the cut is the best news of all. When Ms. Goodman's best friend called to tell her she was planning a wedding ceremony with no guests, Ms. Goodman was delighted, but her first thought was the $400 she'd be saving. "It's great not to spend the money on an ugly bridesmaid's dress," she says.
OF ALL THE HUNDREDS of tasks involved in planning a perfect, storybook wedding, one loomed large for Cynthia O'Brien -- wiggling out of inviting everyone from her boss and co-workers to her fiance's chums.
Then she hit on the solution: Shrink the ceremony and move it to Anguilla. "The more people that got involved, the more the process of becoming man and wife was too stressful," says the Seattle sales manager.
This summer, the best weddings may be the ones you're not invited to. After years of yearning for the blockbuster affair, even people with a ton of money are planning minute ceremonies in far-flung locales or near home. Some wedding consultants say it's just part of the 9/11 effect, with soon-to-be newlyweds wanting intimate affairs in these dicey times. Others blame the economy. And then there's the reason nobody wants to admit: Some couples just don't want you at their wedding.
"It's like the un-wedding," says Alan Fields, a wedding-guide publisher and industry watchdog. Brides and grooms are "trimming the extra spectacle of it all."
According to Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, a group of luxury properties, weddings of 50 people or fewer have jumped 75% this year. Even tinier ones, with under 20 guests, are up 20% at the tony Meadowood hotel in Napa Valley. Small weddings are so hot that some of the best-known wedding planners want in on them now, offering discounts to couples throwing small nuptials. In all, the average wedding size in the U.S. has shrunk about 15% since 1995, says the Association of Bridal Consultants.
But while small celebrations are supposed to keep out the wedding machine, they're not exactly headache-free. The happy couple still has to find printers willing to make just a handful of invitations, convince wedding halls to take their skimpy business, and put in all that quality time with their nearest and dearest. There's also the risk of regretting -- years down the road -- that The Big Day wasn't really, well, that big.
And it's not as if all those uninvited guests won't notice the empty mailbox. When Mike Bedenian told his best friend his Hawaiian nuptials would be a family-only affair, the friend took matters into his own hands -- and flew there himself. "He said, `I'm going,'" says the 32-year-old art director from Highland, Ind., who says the friend booked a room near the bride and groom and babysat the other guests. "He was adamant."
Intimate celebrations, of course, are nothing new to the wedding business. During the roaring 1990s, many a chic couple decided to hold their festivities in exotic or distant locales such as Fiji or Italy to show off or be different. But wedding consultants say many of those couples made a point of holding larger second weddings or receptions close to home. Now, for reasons that range from financial (some people think it's cheaper to throw a small wedding, even if it's 5,000 miles away) to family peace-keeping, small is becoming big this season in the nuptial business.
The Ritz-Carlton says it's seen so many small weddings at its foreign properties it's hiring "wedding concierges" to handle the kind of details -- from legal paperwork to finding a church -- that a wedding planner for a large ceremony would normally take care of. (One recent request in Jamaica: Find wedding waiters who would dress in togas and carry the bride and groom into the reception on silver platters laden with fruit). The Long Bay resort on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands has added a new "Intimate I Do" wedding package for up to 10 guests, expanding on its "Island Eloper" package for two.
And then there's the "virtual wedding" package offered by some Marriott resorts. For $250 to $500, the hotel will post a streaming video of your wedding on the Web so friends and family who weren't invited can watch you exchange vows from back home. (One issue: In the past, there's been up to a 24-hour delay before the video actually got fed to the Internet.)
While getting an e-mail invite to watch a wedding online is the kind of affront that can spark a family feud, it's more than the Degliantoni clan got last year. When Lisa, one of the family's daughters, announced she was tying the knot in an El Paso, Texas, chapel with just two friends present, she not only got angry e-mail from her sister telling her she was a "bad" sibling, her mother also called to tell her she'd broken her father's heart. "There's this element that by not imitating tradition, you're disrespecting your family," says Lisa Degliantoni.
Still, for Peter Stroble and his new wife, Diana, trimming the guest list was the best way to spend quality time with their friends during their nuptials in Bermuda. The couple cut out the extraneous folks with a set of severe ground rules: Bride and groom could ask along only four friends each, plus immediate family. Total attendance came to about 50, a third the size of their engagement party. "It was very clear who got invited and who didn't," says Mr. Stroble, of Seattle.
Small ceremonies have gotten so popular, some resorts are seeing a parallel retreat of the huge weddings typical of the late 1990s. In the last two years, the Hotel Del Coronado near San Diego has seen a 20% drop in wedding parties of more than 100, while the W Hotel in Seattle has lost almost a third of its 100-person-plus nuptial bookings in just the past 12 months. Many clients say "it's more important to have fewer people around them and more quality time with them," says Jolene DiSalvo, the W's director of sales and marketing.
But for would-have-been guests such as Pamela Goodman, not making the cut is the best news of all. When Ms. Goodman's best friend called to tell her she was planning a wedding ceremony with no guests, Ms. Goodman was delighted, but her first thought was the $400 she'd be saving. "It's great not to spend the money on an ugly bridesmaid's dress," she says.
