Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

(Founder and Ed­i­tor-in-Chief, Trinidad­Wed­dings.com)

A mi­cro wed­ding usu­al­ly has a guest list of 20 peo­ple or less (some ex­perts al­so say 50 guests or less). Mi­cro wed­dings fol­low a sim­i­lar for­mat to that of a tra­di­tion­al wed­ding (cer­e­mo­ny and re­cep­tion) but have few­er guests and of­fer more flex­i­bil­i­ty.

What does more flex­i­bil­i­ty mean? It means you can choose pro­gramme el­e­ments you re­al­ly want and not be held to the “tra­di­tion­al wed­ding tem­plate.” You can have a streamed cer­e­mo­ny with no guests in­vit­ed and choose to in­vite guests on­ly to the re­cep­tion. You can have a cer­e­mo­ny and re­cep­tion in one lo­ca­tion, with a small guest list. You can choose not to do cer­tain el­e­ments such as the garter toss or cake-cut­ting or you can short­en up (or even elim­i­nate) the speech­es. It’s en­tire­ly up to you!

So, the ques­tion is, are mi­cro wed­dings cheap­er?

The an­swer is “yes” and “no”–be­cause it de­pends on three things:

• Your guest list

•The el­e­ments you want and;

• The style of wed­ding you’re hav­ing (for­mal/ca­su­al/se­mi-for­mal)

Yes–mi­cro wed­dings can be cheap­er if:

• The re­cep­tion hours are less

• The el­e­ments cho­sen are not as ex­trav­a­gant

• The style of your wed­ding is more ca­su­al

Mi­cro wed­dings can be more ex­pen­sive if:

• You want to in­vest in drone footage

• You choose live-stream­ing ser­vices

• You choose an un­usu­al venue, where you have to bear the trans­porta­tion/shut­tle/ac­com­mo­da­tion costs for your guests.

• The el­e­ments you want are ex­pen­sive/ex­trav­a­gant (e.g. cham­pagne/cus­tom-made items, high-end rentals etc)

Re­mem­ber, some of the ba­sic el­e­ments you will need still have to be booked. Bar and cater­ing costs can go down (since you’re cater­ing for few­er guests); how­ev­er, ser­vices like venue costs, of­fi­ciant’s fees, wed­ding co­or­di­na­tor fees, make-up and hair, en­ter­tain­ment, trans­porta­tion, light­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy will re­main rel­a­tive­ly fixed/the same as they were be­fore the pan­dem­ic (un­less the hours booked are less–as is in the case with some venues, en­ter­tain­ment, pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy).

Flow­ers and dé­cor costs, how­ev­er, can be low­er be­cause, for ex­am­ple, you may on­ly need cen­tre­pieces for three ta­bles in­stead of 20. How­ev­er, if you are choos­ing most­ly im­port­ed flow­ers and a com­plex de­sign, the price per cen­tre­piece or bou­quet will still be rel­a­tive­ly the same unit price of what you would have paid, be­fore the pan­dem­ic.

Small­er guest size al­so means that your cake can be small­er if you’d like. This can re­duce costs if you’re on­ly hav­ing one cake tier in­stead of five.

If you have few­er guests, the good news is that even if you choose to spend more per head (let’s say a pre­mi­um open bar and a gourmet, five-course menu), then your over­all wed­ding costs will still be low­er, com­pared to do­ing a pre­mi­um bar and a gourmet menu for a larg­er guest count.

Check out the Trinidad­Wed­dings’ Wed­ding Coach ser­vice at:

www.trinidad­wed­dings.com/

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