There are many advantages to holding a small wedding with only your closest friends and relatives. Number one is, of course, lower costs. From the reception venue to the amount of bomboniere, small weddings are cheap compared to full size weddings. Small weddings also give you the opportunity to give more attention to detail to everything from food to styling, and since you’re saving so much money by not catering for excess guests there is room to splurge on those things that are most important to you. Here are some ideas to make your day extra special.
Finding a small wedding reception venue 
For brides planning an intimate wedding of under 80 people (the minimum at most reception venues), many find themselves flustered and stressed about finding an ideal location for their small but beautiful wedding of their dreams. Finding a suitable ceremony location is not so difficult, but reception venues can be a bit tricky, which is why you should start your planning well ahead of time.
No matter how specific your needs are for your small wedding, there is bound to be a venue to suit. For example, a friend of mine required that her wedding venue be pet friendly, as she wanted to share her wedding with her Maltese Terrier. She also wanted to have an intimate cocktail reception with only her immediate family and a handful of friends in attendance, amounting to about 15 guests.
Rather than looking for specific wedding venues, she thought outside the box and searched instead for pet-friendly B&Bs and hotels in Sydney that would allow for a small cocktail reception and for her much-loved pet to be there too.
She was surprised with how welcoming the hotels and B&Bs were for her concept and her wedding. In the end she had a small cocktail reception at the bar of a hotel in North Ryde.
Try and have a clear idea of what you and your fiancée want out of a venue: do you want a dance floor, scenic views, or an out-of-town location? Write your list of ‘must-haves’ as this will help when you start researching venues.
Restaurant reception venues
Restaurants are a fantastic choice for small wedding receptions. Many restaurants have private dining rooms for function hire, often charging a fraction of the cost of a full-size wedding venue, and come with hassle-free on-site catering. Some restaurants may not even charge you room-hire and have a set menu per person that you can pay, which makes things even easier for you if you are on a tight wedding budget.
Backyard wedding 
An option that is often underrated by brides is having a backyard wedding. Now, I know what you’re thinking… your fiancé by the BBQ grilling some snags while you, the girls, sit in the backyard sipping chardonnay as the kids play and scream in the background… but it doesn’t have to be like that.
Backyard weddings can be beautiful and make for a gorgeous intimate wedding. Think of your or your parents’ garden strewn with fairy lights and a handful of beautifully decorated tables adorned with flower arrangements and tea lights along with linen in your wedding colours. If done well this idea could save you hundreds and look a million dollars.
Backyard weddings give you the freedom of catering exactly the way you want, free from the constraints of a restaurant’s menu or cuisine. A fun idea is to incorporate your favourite meals into the menu, working with a caterer to create the perfect banquet. Due to small wedding numbers you may even want to think about asking friends or family to contribute a plate — or perhaps bring along their home-cooked speciality that you also love? 
Entertainment is one area where you can really save money if you opt for a backyard wedding. Simply compile a list of your favourite songs on your iPod, plug into a good set of outdoor speakers and dance the night away. If after live wedding entertainment, a full band could overpower a small group, so find a singer/guitar player, a duo or a singer with a backing track to croon those tunes you love.
Photography for small weddings
As you’ll be saving money in other areas of your small wedding, photography could be something you can splurge on. Imagine having a full photo shoot with all of your wedding guests included? With a small wedding, it’s possible. If trying to cut costs even more, an alternative is to place disposable cameras at each table and ask your guests to capture moments from the night and return the cameras at the end of the night.
Just remember: the smaller the wedding the smaller the costs. So whatever it is you’re dreaming of for your big day, chances are you’ll be able to afford the very best.
Are you planning a small wedding? What are your ideas for making your day extra special?
Leaving disposable cameras on the table is a great idea.
Make sure you get ones that have flash capability and that automatically recharge
the flash after each shot!
I’ve found some cameras require you to hold down a button to recycle the flash function.
Make the camera as simple as possible to use for your guests. With digital cameras that everyone carries these days they usually just set and forget and the camera does everything for you. Simple disposable cameras operate manually and your guests may not be familiar with its operation, especially after a few beverages