Your wedding should be one of the best days of your life, and with proper planning, it can be. For many, nothing less than luxury will suffice. If you know you want a luxury wedding, you’re off to a good start and on your way to a magical night. But luxury weddings come in all shapes and sizes. Luxury can mean small and intimate or massive and elaborate.
What Qualifies as a “Luxury” Wedding?
Luxury weddings have a whole other “wow” factor than traditional weddings. They are simply on another level, and everyone in attendance notices. The attention to detail is 10 times more meticulous, and luxury weddings typically cost at least $1,000 per guest. Event planning service professionals who specialize in luxury weddings create an opulent environment that only these high-end weddings can offer.
For Andrew Roby Events, this means providing white glove service with Andrew’s full attention. He handles the wedding planning from start to finish personally instead of delegating it to another member of our wedding planning team. It’s like having a dedicated concierge service.
With luxury weddings, perfection is the ultimate goal. From the flowers and the stationary to the food presentation and dinnerware, it’s all about the details. Given your investment, your wedding deserves to be a truly indulgent experience. But this can mean different things for different people.
As you decide whether to hold a massive event or a small one, here are some things to consider.
Choose Your Luxury Venue
When planning the size of your luxury wedding, one of the most critical elements is the venue. Choosing your perfect venue could help you decide the size of your wedding guest list, and it might choose it for you, by default, based on how many people the venue can accommodate.
When searching for a venue, you should be able to envision your big day there. It should feel right. In addition, think about convenience. Does the venue make it easy to decorate the way you want and create the luxury ambiance you desire? A fancy banquet hall or ballroom is often the perfect choice for offering the ideal mix of luxury and convenience.
A luxury banquet hall should have advanced lighting and sound, elegant tables and chairs, exquisite décor, and flexibility to customize your event. The venue should also have competent and helpful staff. The venue should almost be like a luxury blank canvas that you and your wedding planner can transform into a wedding that suits you and your partner from every angle.
Understand the Different Wedding Sizes
Within the last few years, the terms micro wedding and elopement have come to the forefront of the wedding industry. Many event planners have even started branding themselves as micro-wedding planners.
But not everyone knows what this means. If you’re planning for a luxury wedding, then you’re most likely not the elopement type. Here are the typical guest counts for each wedding size:
- Elopement: Two people plus a photographer
- Micro Wedding: 20 people or fewer
- Intimate: 21-50
- Small: 51-100
- Average: 101-175
- Large: 175 people or more
Weigh the Benefits of Each
When contemplating your wedding size, make a list of pros and cons. Consider a small and intimate micro wedding that feels more like a dinner than a wedding reception. If this is not your thing, maybe you’re a “bigger is better” type of person. Or maybe you’re somewhere in between? Here are a few thoughts on each wedding size.
Micro Wedding
You can still have the ultimate luxury with a micro wedding. This wedding would be just for your immediate family and your closest friends. One of the most significant benefits of such a small group is that you’re only sharing with those you love most. Your guests will feel honored that you love them enough to have them by your side on your big day. Keeping the wedding at a micro level is often a great way to mitigate nerves, relax and be yourselves since you feel comfortable and at ease with the guests around you. On the flip side, you have to draw a line somewhere on the guest list, and some of your uninvited friends may be hurt. It may be hard to decide where to draw that line. Twenty people is not a lot. You may not even have space for friends if you have a large family.
Intimate
Intimate is like a micro wedding plus a few special guests on top of your closest family and friends. This might be the default for you if you have a huge family and want to invite some people beyond just your family. With an intimate wedding, you can still enjoy concierge service and every luxury detail of perfection; there will just be a smaller crowd to appreciate it. An intimate wedding can quickly become more extensive if you get carried away with the guest list. With an intimate wedding, you have more wiggle room than a micro wedding while still having the small and intimate feel. You can still accomplish the dinner vibe instead of the party vibe if that’s what you’re going for.
Small
Some couples find themselves shooting for an intimate wedding but wind up with a small wedding because they realize their guest list filled up faster than they thought, and they just couldn’t leave specific people out. A small wedding could be a suitable happy medium if you and your partner disagree about having a micro or a large wedding. A small wedding is a great way to keep it intimate and only include people you know, but expand beyond just family and best friends. If you and your partner both have huge families, but you still want to invite only people you know well, a small wedding might make the most sense.
Average
Most venues can accommodate an average-sized wedding, with the space feeling neither too cramped nor awkwardly spacious in relation to the crowd size. With an average guest list, your wedding won’t seem overly small if some people don’t attend. Keeping the guest list average is a very safe way to make it feel like a wedding party without getting lost in the crowd and being unable to talk to everyone.
Large
With a large wedding, nobody misses out. You can invite everyone you know plus some. If you picture a massive party for your wedding, then an extensive guest list is the way to go. A large wedding is your chance to go big and show off your luxury perfection to as many people as possible. Some people’s circles are so large that they can’t possibly do anything less than 175 people, and sometimes large weddings are the most fun! People often feed off each other’s energy and keep the night lively and memorable.
Right-sizing your luxury wedding comes down to what you picture for your special day. The luxury element can exist no matter how big or how small your guest list is.
- Think about your dream venue.
- Ponder the different wedding sizes and weigh the benefits of each one.
- Find a wedding planner who feels right and will bring your vision to life in the most luxurious way possible.
At Andrew Roby Events, we speak every language of luxury. Our work doesn’t just mimic what is trending in the industry, as we focus intensely on our clients’ originality, personality, hosting style, customs, and traditions. Your luxury wedding should be all about you. Whatever size wedding you choose, we’ll make sure that it’s a massive hit.