Jessica and Dylan Lu were elated when they became engaged in March 2024. The prospect of having a traditional wedding with a ceremony, cocktail and reception, however, wasn’t as thrilling.
“We wanted our wedding day to feel meaningful and have some of the most important people in our lives there without throwing an elaborate affair,” Ms. Lu said.
The pair, who live in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., subsequently booked the “Ceremony Only” package at La Venta Inn, an event venue atop the Palos Verdes Peninsula dating back to 1923. They wed there on Aug. 14 before seven guests, all of whom were family.
Afterward, Ms. Lu, 27, a product manager, and Mr. Lu, 28, a mechanical engineer, served a wedding cake they had baked the night before. Then they all went in a limo “to all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue and sushi and did karaoke and drank beers,” Ms. Lu said. “It was such a lively and memorable way to wrap up the night.”
The two are among a growing contingent of couples choosing to forgo conventions like cocktail hours and formal receptions in favor of exchanging vows and heading out — or home.
Event planners, wedding industry experts and event venue managers attribute the change partly to the early years of the pandemic, when large celebrations were put on hold. Now, according to these experts, this practice is continuing to gain traction.
The idea frees couples from the stress, time and cost that comes with planning a reception. It also allows them to limit their guest count and have only their nearest and dearest present (or no one at all).
A recent survey of 315 engaged or married couples by the wedding platform Joy indicated that reception-free weddings have increased by 200 percent, compared with data compiled last year. Respondents cited the desire for a more personal event as the overarching reason.
“When you take away the extras, the vows become the centerpiece,” said Vishal Joshi, Joy’s chief executive.
Jennifer Allen of Just Elope in Dallas said she did eight weddings in 2017, when she started. “The first year of Covid, that grew to almost 100,” she said. “And I’m on track to reach 135 this year.”
Prices range from $500 for Ms. Allen to officiate a ceremony in a venue couples book themselves to $7,000, which includes a venue rental fee, décor, a photographer and a cake.
“Some of my newlyweds go straight from the ceremony to the airport and leave for their honeymoon,” Ms. Allen said. “And others go home to watch their favorite shows.”
Jocelyn Voo of Everly Studios in Manhattan, an event planning company focused on small ceremonies, echoed that Covid made “small, nontraditional weddings become far less taboo, and City Hall weddings are now cool.”
La Venta Inn, where the Lus were married, had received so many requests for pared-down weddings that they introduced the “Ceremony Only” package this year. The price for up to 100 guests runs from $4,000 to $5,500, depending on the day of the week, and covers use of the facilities and the in-house sound system.
Destination weddings are also part of the small ceremony bump.
Dana Lewis of DWD Travel & Destination Weddings in Fort Worth, Texas, said she has worked on several small-scale weddings in the last year and is currently planning at least a half dozen more. “These couples want just a ceremony and a very simple dinner — no fanfare,” she said.
Ashley Smith, 35, an accounting controller, and Ryan Schlegel, 33, a senior finance manager, live in Arlington, Va., and hired Ms. Lewis to plan their nuptials this month at the Fives Hotels & Residences, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
The day will entail a short ceremony in the property’s oceanfront gazebo and a sit-down dinner for their 10 guests. “It’s less about the money, but saving some is a bonus,” the groom said.
“We have seen friends get married over the years who are so stressed out by the planning,” Ms. Smith said. “I didn’t want to go through that.”
In early June, Lindsey Katon, 37, a baking content creator, and Patrick Needham, 39, a software engineer, exchanged vows at the Brooklyn City Clerk’s Office and went to dinner at the Italian restaurant Cecconi’s that evening with their immediate families. Ms. Voo planned the wedding.
The couple celebrated with their friends over drinks the next day at Harriet’s Rooftop & Lounge at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. “In the end, you realize that it’s one day,” Ms. Katon said. “And why not make the perfect day for us?”
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