20 Small Wedding Ideas to Wow Your Guests

A wedding is a beautiful day. It’s a time to bring together all your friends and family and shove it in their stupid faces how happy you are. Okay, probably not that, exactly. Regardless of how you feel about their faces, you want to put a few personal touches on there so you and your guests will remember your wedding day fondly. Here are some wedding ideas to help you do just that.

While you have extra freedom for the ceremony with a small guest list, your largest creative outlet is going to be the wedding reception. That said, you could definitely re-imagine a few of these and put them into the ceremony itself if you see something you like.

What to Keep in Mind

Make It Original

When it comes to classic men’s wedding bands, you want to go tried and true. Regarding ways to wow your wedding guests (try saying that five times fast), originality is key. 

Obviously, you can take cues from things that have worked for others. If, however, you just throw together a bunch of stuff you’ve already seen, chances are your guests have seen them, too. If that doesn’t bother you, go for it. If it does, get creative and think of ways to put your own spin on these wedding ideas.

Don’t Go Over Budget

You want to know what won’t wow your guests? Crippling debt. Okay, your debt probably won’t be crippling, but still. Your wedding day is exciting, but it’s only one day. Leave some fat on the bone here, or you’ll be eating top ramen on your honeymoon. Find a balance of excitement and responsible. It’s OK to spend money here – maybe even a tiny bit too much – but keep some impulses reined in a bit. 

Too Much of a Good Thing?

The point of these wedding ideas is that they’re small and tasteful. Pick a couple you love and go with them. If you take one of these wedding ideas and dial it up to 11, the idea will likely outweigh the size of the wedding. If you pick 10 of these and try to incorporate all of them, you’ll be walking a very thin line between fun and kitschy. 

Small Wedding Ideas to Wow Your Guests

Art and Décor

Take Polaroids

One of the best things about a small wedding is that everyone can take something home and feel like a large part of the event. When your guest list is short, it’s easy to get fun Polaroids of everyone in attendance that they can take home and hang on the wall. Alternatively, you can keep them all for yourself and make a fun wedding day collage. 

Handmade Centerpieces

If you’re artistic, this is a great way to save money, create something custom and send your guests home with a unique gift. This is also one of those things that would be next to impossible if you had a larger guest list. Unless you’ve got your own machine shop or something, you aren’t making large quantities of custom centerpieces.

Whether you want to carve something from wood, make something out of clay or just arrange flowers you picked into some aesthetic vases, handmade centerpieces add a great layer of intrigue and make your wedding reception stand out. 

Want to go the extra mile? Coordinate your custom centerpieces with all the little details of your wedding — from the theme colors to the type of men's wedding band you choose.

On-Site Artist

Of course, you want a wedding photographer. That’s a given. However, you also can bring in another artist for the wedding reception. Whether it’s a painter, caricaturist, or secondary photographer to get fun headshots of all the guests, it adds some extra intrigue. Plus, if you go with a portrait artist or caricaturist, your guests will have something to take home. 

Music

Live Music

This applies to both the ceremony and the reception. Smaller wedding guest lists mean smaller venues and a wider array of artists and groups who can perform. If you want your ceremony to be really beautiful, having live music for it instead of something pre-recorded really helps.

For the reception, this is the age-old debate of DJ versus band, but there’s really something to be said for the ambiance that live music creates.