Love in the Little Details: How To Plan a Micro Wedding With Special Touches
What exactly is a micro wedding? Rather than a traditional celebration with hundreds of guests, this increasingly popular style of wedding emphasizes intimacy and coziness — it’s a smaller affair featuring a curated guest list of no more than 60 of your closest friends and family. But despite its smaller scale, a micro wedding can still share in all the same special, time-honored traditions as a larger celebration.
At Twenty Mile House, our micro-wedding venue in California is located on 200 private, forested acres, embracing the intentionality of small weddings. Brides and grooms have been hosting their smaller-scale nuptials with us for decades, not only because our unique on-site lodging for up to 54 guests fits the bill, but also because our in-house wedding-planning experts know just how to throw a great party, no matter the size.
Learn all of the insider tips, tricks, and steps to plan the micro wedding you’ve always wanted.
#1: Curate Your Guest List
Since a micro wedding is a more intimate event with a much smaller guest list, invitations are typically reserved for immediate family and very close friends. You’ll want to invite no more than 60 people. We know it can sometimes be difficult to choose who makes the final wedding lineup, so we like to think of it as “curating” your guest list, rather than simply paring down names. For example, sit down and really analyze who in your lives you can’t imagine experiencing your wedding day without, regardless of their relationship to you and your partner. Those are the people who get an invitation.
#2: Set Your Budget
It’s worth setting your budget and prioritizing where you’d like to splurge and where you’d prefer to save, which is a nice advantage when you have a smaller guest list. For instance, instead of planning a budget-friendly buffet dinner with well drinks for 150 people, you can serve up an extravagant, multi-course, plated meal with an open bar featuring only top-shelf libations for your 12 micro wedding guests. Determine what matters most to you and your fiancé and reserve more of your budget to make those special elements stand out.
Another option is to check whether your venue offers all-inclusive packages. For example, Twenty Mile House offers three distinctly priced, all-inclusive packages to choose from. The pricing of these packages includes the use of our stunning outdoor wedding venue, wedding-day coordination, and all vendors needed to have the micro wedding of your dreams.
3: Choose a Unique Venue
When you’re hosting a micro wedding, you have more flexibility in your venue, so this is your chance to get really creative. Look for a space that fits your style and theme — romantic and woodsy; vintage and rustic; elegant and timeless; quirky and irreverent. Since you’re accommodating fewer people than a traditional ceremony and reception, you can go wild with nontraditional venues. Consider the backyard of a historic home, a picturesque winery, a charming art gallery, a vintage games museum, or even a private room in the restaurant where you got engaged.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Twenty Mile House, with its private, lush grounds and on-site cabin accommodations for up to 54 guests, so you’re able to host an entire wedding weekend, during which you can share in complete togetherness with your nearest and dearest from beginning to end.
(Note: For Sunday through Thursday weddings, there is a minimum of 50 guests. However, we are happy to accommodate smaller groups with a customized pricing plan.)
#4: Customize Your Ceremony
Whether short and sweet with a focus on just the essentials (and maybe a glass of champagne for everyone watching the magic unfold) or a longer celebration that embraces family traditions or features interactive elements, micro weddings are the perfect moment for a truly customized ceremony.
With just your closest friends and family in attendance, you have the flexibility to add in heartfelt touches to your ceremony that go beyond the basic exchanging of rings and reciting of vows. Incorporate toast-like remarks from guests or consider telling the origin story of your love. For a twist on the popular unity ceremony, which symbolizes the joining of two lives, couples can read select passages from their favorite book, finish a painting together, water a potted tree that will grow stronger over time (green thumb not required, but definitely beneficial), or even craft and sip a unity cocktail.
#5: Incorporate One-of-a-Kind Touches
A smaller guest list means you can devote more time to hyper-personalized elements that would otherwise be too difficult to manage for a larger wedding. Think handwritten notes to each guest thanking them for being there, or luxe welcome gift baskets full of local, handpicked goodies.
For the reception, consider setting up stations with interesting activities that encourage involvement, such as tarot card readings or palm readings from a fortune teller. Hire a perfumer to blend and bottle custom scents for each guest. When it’s time to step out onto the dance floor, a curated playlist of songs that have meaning to you and your beloved, as well as your invited inner circle, will surely get the energy going.
#6: Invite Your Four-Legged Friends
Compact wedding celebrations often equal a calmer, more comfortable setting where your furry friends can be part of the festivities. Your special day certainly wouldn’t be the same without your dog — they’re part of the family, after all. First, confirm your venue’s pet policy (Twenty Mile House welcomes dogs at our outdoor wedding venue with pre-approval), then dress Fido in his finest and plan for him to make his grand entrance down the aisle or stand by your side while you read your vows. Make sure to have plenty of treats and toys on hand so your pup is just as happy as you are.
#7: Incorporate Pre- and Post-Wedding Events
Multi-day wedding celebrations packed with things for guests to see and do are trending right now. And for weddings with pared-down guest lists, coordinating a slew of entertaining events is not only less stressful, but it also lets you explore experiences geared toward bonding with the group. Activities such as a morning yoga session before the rehearsal dinner, a welcome party with lawn games, newlywed trivia, a photo scavenger hunt, late-night snacks around a bonfire, wine or craft beer tastings, and a decadent morning-after brunch encourage everyone to spend quality time together and create a truly unforgettable experience.
Celebrate Your Happily Ever After One Tiny Toast at a Time With a Micro Wedding at Twenty Mile House
A micro wedding might have a smaller guest list than a traditional wedding, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less grand. From one-of-a-kind details and bespoke moments to splurging on what matters most to you as a couple, hosting a micro wedding offers plenty of benefits.
At Twenty Mile House, our in-house wedding planners are always ready to dream up even more ideas to help make your special day perfect. Reach out to us and schedule your tour of Twenty Mile House today — we’d love to show you around.
