Skip to content
BigDaySite

BigDaySite is not open yet. We are preparing it with a few pilot weddings, so what this page describes is not available to the public yet.

Evening guests: inviting them to the party only

Day guests, bridesmaids and evening-only guests at one wedding, each with the right arrival time and only the parts of the day they are invited to.

The situation

Take a fictional wedding. Anna and Tom marry at 13:00 in the village church. Twenty family members and close friends, and the four bridesmaids, stay for drinks and family photos, then the wedding breakfast and the speeches at The River Garden. Another twenty-five friends are invited for the evening only, from 20:00, in time for the first dance and the evening food. The bridesmaids start earlier, with a photo shoot at 10:00.

Getting the words right takes an evening. Keeping 20:00 right on the invitation, the website, the reply form and the calendar entry is harder: put the whole day on one shared page and an evening guest turns up during the speeches.

How you will set it up on BigDaySite

  1. Add the ceremony and the reception as two events, and give the reception its parts: drinks and family photos, the wedding breakfast and speeches, the evening reception, the first dance and the evening food.
  2. Invite family, close friends and the bridesmaids to both events, with every part.
  3. Invite the evening guests to the reception only, with their arrival time set to 20:00.
  4. If you want the bridesmaids' photo shoot on their pages, add it as a third event and invite only them.
  5. Open the site as one of the evening guests and read what they will see.

What an evening guest will get

The ceremony, the drinks, the wedding breakfast and the speeches will appear nowhere they can see. If some of your evening guests are also welcome at the ceremony, invite them to it as well: they will see the ceremony and 20:00, and nothing in between.

What it costs

This will work on every plan. Free will allow up to 50 invited people and two events, so it covers this wedding: 49 people, a ceremony and a reception. The bridesmaids' photo shoot as its own event would be a third event; Essentials will cover up to 200 people and five events. See the plans

Read next