I recently had a chat with Erin Bishop, owner and principle planner of Filosophi, an award winning event planning company based in Vancouver & Kelowna, BC, where we discussed everything you need to know about planning your micro-wedding.

I’ve had brides tell me, ‘This is the wedding I dreamed of and I never would have been able to do it with 150 people, but now I get to do it guilt free.’

–Erin Bishop

Erin, is there a difference between a micro-wedding and an elopement?

Yes, I believe there is a difference between a micro-wedding and an elopement, but that line has been blurred. To me an elopement is the bride and groom running off to have a wedding ceremony and potentially a dinner. You still have the necessary vendors (photographer, officiant, musician, etc.,) but the wedding party is basically the bride and groom and maybe one or two friends with them.  

My definition of a micro-wedding is when most of the elements of a normal wedding are still there just with much less people.  So still having a ceremony with decor and guests, still having a reception with a dinner, with tables and decor, and some sort of goings on. Depending on the group size it might not necessarily be dancing, but maybe some music and games. There’s still tables with place-cards and all the little details. Rather than the more average size of 100-150 people this could be between 20-50 people.      

Since couples are looking to have smaller events, Filosophi has created some new packaging around micro-weddings. For us it’s an elopement if it’s under 10 people and it’s not a fancy, highly set up dinner after, and it’s a micro-wedding if it’s under 50 people. 

What services do you offer couples for micro-weddings and elopements?

A lot of elements of planning a micro-wedding are the same as planning a regular wedding. So, in a way it doesn’t matter if its 20 people or 50 people. We still need to source all of the vendors and design a table, even it is just one instead of 20. But, we have come to a place where we have created packages that scale down our regular packages to suite the scope of micro-weddings. So, we do have packages specifically for micro-weddings and packages specifically for elopements. 

Micro weddings are kind of fantastic for people who want to have a stylish, personalised, and opulent experience for their guests, but don’t have the budget to do that for 150 people. If you are suddenly just working with 30-40 people your budget goes so much further and you can do those really special touches. A lot of people are really starting to see the appeal of that this year.

–Erin Bishop

How far out from their micro-wedding or elopement should couples be seeking out a wedding planner?

In a perfect world I would say two months or more. We are currently planning a small 30 person wedding for someone that is still over a year away. The more time, the merrier. The least time that would be comfortable would be a month, but two months would be my choice as a minimum. If you leave it too late there is a good chance you will have to be more flexible in terms of venues and vendors and things like that.

Have you found that couples are happy to have a micro wedding/elopement instead of a larger wedding or are most couples waiting to have a larger wedding?

Our clients fall on both sides of the spectrum, with some opting for a micro-wedding and others postponing. However, the couples who are postponing are already locked in with deposits to certain venues and vendors and scaling down wouldn’t necessarily make the most sense. So, aside from the financial side of things being a big driver, they’ve also had this vision in their minds of having a big party and it’s hard to let go of that. The other half are feeling relief at being free of having a bunch of their parent’s friends or old friends they never really see but feel they should invite coming to their wedding. I always say a wedding is about the marriage and the two people getting married, it doesn’t have to be about how many people are there. Every couple and family is different though and some people just wouldn’t want to have a wedding unless their extended friends and family can be there with them.  

Are micro-weddings here to stay?

They will be here to stay for a good chunk of people for whom that makes sense and I hope that’s the case as well because I really do enjoy them. Especially for those clients who don’t like the idea of everyone’s eyes on them all day and a big wedding feels uncomfortable, now they’ll have an option that’s different than what used to be the only norm.