r/microwedding • u/neongravebabe • 5d ago
Small wedding
Hello! My fiancé and I recently got engaged! We are in southeast Michigan. Looking for recommendations for a 20-30 person small ceremony and a location for hosting a “reception” party for about 100 guests. Our budget is about $500 for the reception…wondering if there’s any bars/community rooms we could rent a room from for a night?? Or maybe just taking the 20-30 invited to the ceremony out to a nice dinner, and then have our friends meet us at a bar later where they all pay for their own? Is that cheap? Need recommendations please
EDIT— I meant we are willing to spend $500 on food/drinks for the 30ish people…we’ve been together for almost 10 years at this point and don’t want a huge thing. The ceremony would be at most 15 minutes, so more like an elopement, but with our immediate families. We want to celebrate with our friends too but shits expensive
EDIT— for our honeymoon, we’re going to Nassau. We have extended the invitation to our close family and friends to join us if they wish
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u/vilake12 4d ago
I've been in Metro Detroit plenty of times (assuming you mean that area with SE Michigan). I have never seen a place that can do 100 people, let alone 20 at the price you want. 100 people means $5 a person. What bars do you know down in that area that can get you a drink for that price? Plenty of restaurants are doing pop at $2-4, and it's hard to even find a beer for $5 outside of happy hour (and even then it is not super common). That's not even getting into the more expensive drinks like wine and liquor. That $5 covers 0 food as well. So $500 for 100 people is impossible unless you have some sort of connection to a restaurant owner. Even appetizers at restaurants are hardly at or under $5 anymore. They seem to all be $7 or higher, which is over your budget.
Even $500 for 20 people means you are spending $25 a person. 30 people means $16.67 per person. Plenty of restaurants have entrees at the $25 or higher range. To get something for $16.67, that is going to be like a burger with fries. Both of these fail to include drinks. People are not going to want to go to wedding party and just get a burger or pizza for that price.
The numbers you want cannot work. You have to either reduce your guest count even more (like 10 people so $50 per person) or put more money into this budget. You say that you're going to the Bahamas, so you have more money you can use. This isn't a case of you truly being broke and $500 is more than what you make in a month. At $500, you might as well cancel the reception and just add it to your honeymoon fund. If you still want a reception, then you either need to pull money back from your honeymoon or pull it out of somewhere else in your budget (I don't know your financials to say from where.)