Our 10 Best Small Winter Wedding Ideas

Small, intimate weddings can be beautiful any time of the year, but there’s just something about a small winter wedding. From the food to the company, the long winter nights, cozy blankets, and mugs of hot cocoa, tea, and mulled wine, there’s nothing like a winter wedding.

That doesn’t mean planning a small winter wedding is easy!

Check out our 10 best small winter wedding ideas to make sure you create the perfect wedding day for you, your partner, and your guests.

Handwritten Winter Wedding Invitation Pictured With Flowers and Rings: The Every Last Detail

Send Handwritten Invitations

The right invitations set the mood for your upcoming nuptials. They can get expensive fast, but if you’re hosting a small winter wedding, paying for fewer invitations means you can go all out on their design.

Include fancy things like ribbon and wax seals, but it’s especially beautiful if you take the time to hand write your invitations. If you have good handwriting, write them yourself and include personal messages to each guest. Or, spend money on a calligrapher to get the script just right.

Intimate Dining Space Featuring a Staircase and a Couch: French Wedding Style

Think Outside the Box For Your Venue

You have a lot more venue options when you’re hosting a small group on your wedding day. Many brides and grooms opt for a ceremony at home, but there are other options too!

If you don’t want to have your wedding at home, consider:

• Reserving a room at a restaurant
• Renting an Airbnb
• Renting a smaller space within a large venue
• Exchanging vows at a beautiful spot in nature

Small Fur Wedding Ceremony Benches Decorated With Wispy Florals: The Wed

Have Fun With Seating

Many small wedding ideas challenge you to think outside the box when it comes to the details. Seating is one of those details! With fewer wedding guests, you don’ have to choose straight rows of chairs and rectangular tables at your ceremony and reception if you don’t want to.

Arrange chairs in a half-circle or create lounge-like seating for your ceremony. Consider creating a cross or an L-shaped table arrangement at your reception so everyone can sit together. Swap out chairs for benches or cover hay bales with blankets at your ceremony or reception.

Bride Wearing a Patterned Cape Walking With the Groom: A Practical Wedding

Dress For the Season

Formal wedding wear usually includes sleeveless, or almost-sleeveless, designs and lightweight, flowing fabric, which can get extremely cold at a winter wedding!

Consider heavier fabrics, like wool, when it comes to suits, while long sleeved dresses can keep the bride and bridesmaids warm. If you really have your heart set on a strapless number, incorporate a fur stole, cape, or shawl into your wedding day look.

Wedding Guests Serving Themselves at the Table, Family Style: Brides

Dine Family Style

Plated dinners are always a classic wedding dinner choice, while buffet-style meals are easy and convenient. When it comes to winter wedding ideas, we recommend hosting a family style dinner.

Family style dinners evoke a sense of closeness and familiarity that you don’t get with other types of dining styles. With fewer people and guests that are more likely to know each other, it’s also easier to set up a safe family style dinner that guests are comfortable with, which is important in a post-Covid world.

Intimate Winter Wedding Ceremony With Floral, Candle, and Fabric Details: Zoey Louise Design

Dig into Décor Details

Smaller weddings mean decorating smaller spaces. Smaller spaces require fewer decorations, which means you can really dig into the details and decorate your ceremony and reception spaces in a magical way.

Cover tables in sparkling glass tea light candle holders and candlestick holders. Use sumptuous velvet table runners or create a stunning floral chandelier using a wire rack. Set tables with silverware that has fancy handles and go all in on decorative glass charger plates.

Bride and Groom Kissing in Front of a Fireplace Decorated With Candles: Rebecca Anne Photography

Get the Lighting Just Right

The sun goes down early in the winter, which means you may be getting married and spending most of your reception in the dark. You can really set the mood at your winter wedding by getting the lighting just right.

Everything from fairy lights to Christmas lights, hanging geometric glass lanterns, and rattan lanterns can provide romantic lighting in a way that matches your winter wedding theme. Candles can create the perfect ambiance too. Just make sure you follow the regulations at your venue and local fire safety laws.

Wedding Ceremony Chairs With Rolled Blankets Decorated With Pinecones: Intimate Weddings

Incorporate Ways to Keep Guests Warm

If you want your small winter wedding to feel cozy, you have to find ways to keep your guests warm. You can provide them with pocket warmers if you’re hosting your nuptials outside, while blankets are practical and look beautiful draped on the backs of chairs at your ceremony and reception.

Consider serving warm drinks, like tea, hot cocoa, and mulled wine. Fireplaces, fire pits, and heat lamps can also warm up your wedding.

Grooms Wearing Green Patterned and Solid Suit Jackets: Caitlin O'Bryant

Layer Textures and Patterns

Using different textures and patterns can really make your decorations come alive. In the winter, choose heavy, posh fabrics like wool, flannel, and velvet for tables that are scattered with hobnail tea light candle holders. Create dynamic floral arrangements with fir branches, rough pine cones, and smooth berries.

This tip works for attire too! Combine a lacy wedding dress with a fur stole or tweed pants with a velvet jacket for a textured wedding day look.

Peach-Colored Bridal Bouquet on a Green Velvet Chair: Junebug Weddings

Pick a Palette That You Love

Don’t feel like you have to pick a traditional winter wedding color palette of red and green or white and silver. There are a lot of beautiful color combinations out there that are perfect for a winter wedding!

The trick is to incorporate winter-friendly details, no matter what palette you choose. For example, emerald, mauve, and blush is beautiful for a winter wedding, as long as you skip spring florals, like peonies and hydrangeas, and use blooms like amaryllis and ranunculus instead.

Small winter weddings don’t have to be small on style. When you follow the tips on our list, you can plan the beautiful, cozy, winter wonderland wedding of your dreams.