At the moment under Government guidelines there are 25 people (including the couple and Celebrant) allowed to attend weddings, but with numbers coming down it is looking likely that more people could attend weddings in 2021, but in my opinion I would advise couples to look at smaller venues to be on the safe side, and then when things are a bit safer have a sequel wedding to celebrate. This would be how I would approach it if I were planning on getting married during these times, plus it would give me two days to plan and organise (and two dresses)!

There are many benefits to having a smaller wedding, myself and my husband decided to have one last year and it was the best decision we ever made. I wanted to get married with my feet in the sand and as we love Fuerteventura, it was our ideal location, plus he lives in flipflops even in the winter! We are both not one for a fuss either, so smaller numbers suited us. We did the Registry Office in March for the legal bit and only invited our immediate family and best friends. Everyone came back to our house, we put up a gazebo, hung a few decorations, had made a curry that morning, and had the best night. We all drank, ate, and danced our hearts out. In April we flew to Fuerteventura for 2 weeks. We had friends and family fly over, there were 30 people in total and it was the dream. We flew in on the Saturday, got married on the Monday and then had 12 days holidays to spend proper quality time with the people we love the most. A Celebrant based on the island did all of the organising for us. She set up the ceremony on the beach, got us a local makeup artist, set the beach up and done the wedding ceremony. We organised our own hotel and reception, as we knew what we wanted. 

In my opinion there are a lot of benefits to having a small wedding:

1. They are truly intimate. You will get to spend much more quality time with your guests. At bigger weddings you do not have the chance to meaningfully interact with your friends and family, as there really is not enough time.

2. There is a lot less fuss with a small wedding. This means that if saying ‘I do’ in front of lots of people terrifies you, then it is a lot easier to do it with less eyes looking at you. It is also a lot easier to organise, which means less stress. 

3. Smaller weddings are a lot kinder to your wallet. In the bluntest of ways, less guests equals less cost. You can save lots of money or you can spend the money you would have spent on a large wedding on nice extras to make your day even more special. 

4. You get to choose quality over quantity. The money you save on having less guests means that you can spend extra money on raising the quality of the things that matter to you, more expensive meals, a nicer bottle of champagne, a better photographer or more expensive flowers. 

5. It allows you to focus on the main reason everyone is there, to celebrate the love you have for each other and that you get to say ‘I do’ surrounded by the people who know and love you the most.

6. Having a Celebrant officiate the ceremony after you have done the legal bit at the Registry Office also opens up more options on where you can have the ceremony, as we do not need a license. Celebrants are flexible with times and I will only ever do one wedding a day, so if the time for the ceremony has to change for any reason then that would be ok. 

As an industry, we have all had to adapt to these changes and more venues are now offering attractive packages for micro weddings. I have looked at beautiful venues across Ireland that offer gorgeous settings for smaller weddings and have picked my favourite ones to share with you.