Small and Intimate Weddings in Dublin
Updated September 2026
Anglers Rest, Dublin
A small wedding in Dublin usually means somewhere between eight and forty guests, one room rather than a ballroom and a day built around a long meal instead of a running order. Dublin suits this better than almost anywhere in Ireland, because the city is compact enough that everything happens within walking distance and there are restaurants, townhouses and small rooms that take a group of thirty without making it feel like a scaled down version of something bigger.
The mistake I see most often is planning a small wedding as though it were a big one with people removed. It is a different shape of day.
What counts as a small wedding
An intimate wedding Dublin couples plan tends to fall into three sizes. Under 12 guests, which is a table. Between 12 and 30, which is a room. And 30 to 50, which is a small wedding that still behaves like a wedding, with speeches and some dancing.
Each of those needs a different plan. A table of ten needs no schedule at all. Thirty people need somewhere to stand before they sit down. Fifty need a room that can be cleared for music later.
Work out which of the three you are before you look at a single venue, because the venue conversation goes differently for each.
Why the day is shaped differently
A small wedding has no crowd to move, so the day runs on conversation rather than on a timetable. There is no room turnaround, no receiving line worth the name and no forty minutes lost getting people from one place to another. That gives you back two or three hours and the question becomes what you do with them.
The best small weddings I have photographed spend that time on a long meal. Food arriving slowly, people swapping seats, speeches happening between courses rather than in a block. The day has one centre of gravity rather than five stages.
The risk is the opposite: a small wedding with a big wedding schedule bolted onto it, where thirty people sit through ninety minutes of formalities designed for a hundred and fifty. If you have cut the guest list, cut the running order with it.
If you want a sense of how the hours normally fall, my wedding day timeline guide is built for a full sized day and a small wedding is that with roughly a third taken out of the middle.
Where to have a small wedding in Dublin
Fitzwilliam Place Dublin Wedding
Dublin has three types of space that work for small weddings: restaurants with a private room, Georgian townhouses and small hotels and rooms with a licence attached such as Dublin City Hall. Each takes a different group size and each has a different feel.
Restaurants with a private room work for eight to thirty and they are the least wedding shaped option, which is the point. You get good food, no venue coordinator and a bill that looks like dinner rather than a wedding invoice. Book the room, not the table and confirm you can have it for the afternoon rather than a two hour slot.
Small hotels and townhouses handle twenty to fifty and give you somewhere for people to stay and get ready. The Merrion Hotel sits at the upper end of that. My Dublin venue guide covers the range.
Licensed ceremony rooms such as Dublin City Hall let you marry somewhere beautiful and then walk to lunch, which is the single most reliable small wedding structure in the city.
Theatres and unusual rooms are worth a look if your group is under fifty. A Smock Alley Theatre wedding shows what a room with character does for a small group.
What it costs and where the money moves
Cutting a Dublin guest list from 120 to 30 does not cut the cost by three quarters, because a lot of what you pay for does not scale with headcount. Photography, clothes, flowers, music and the ceremony itself cost roughly the same either way. What falls is catering, drinks and the size of room you need.
The money that comes off the catering usually goes two places: better food per head and a longer photographer. Couples with thirty guests often eat considerably better than couples with a hundred and fifty, for less in total.
I have written openly about what wedding photography costs in Ireland and my coverage options include shorter days that suit a wedding finishing at eight rather than midnight.
Coverage: how many hours you actually need
Merrion Hotel Dublin.
Most small Dublin weddings need six to eight hours of photography rather than the ten or twelve a full sized day takes. A day that starts with you getting ready at eleven, marries at one and sits down at three is finished as a photographic story by about seven.
The exception is a wedding with a proper party attached. If thirty people are still going at midnight, that is worth covering and it will look nothing like the afternoon.
What I would not do is book two hours. Small weddings are made of long unstructured stretches and the good frames come out of the third hour at the table, not the first.
Small wedding formats in Dublin: a comparison
| Format | Guests | Typical length | Where it happens | Coverage that fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registry office and lunch | 2 to 12 | 4 to 5 hours | City centre, on foot | 4 to 6 hours |
| Ceremony room and restaurant | 12 to 30 | 6 to 8 hours | City centre | 6 to 8 hours |
| Townhouse or small hotel | 20 to 50 | Full day | City or edge of city | 8 to 10 hours |
| Elopement, two of you | 2 | 2 to 4 hours | Anywhere | 2 to 4 hours |
| Small wedding with a party | 30 to 50 | Full day and night | Venue with a late licence | 10 hours plus |
The awkward part: telling people they are not invited
Cutting a wedding list in Dublin is a social problem rather than a logistical one and it is the part couples find hardest. The approach that causes least trouble is deciding a rule and applying it without exceptions, then telling people early and directly rather than letting them find out.
Rules that work: no colleagues, no plus ones for anyone you have not met, family only, or a hard number. Rules that cause trouble: deciding case by case, or telling people there might be a second event unless there definitely is one.
Say it as a fact rather than an apology. Most people take it perfectly well.
What I would do with your day
I would get you a long lunch and very little else. Ceremony in the morning, a walk through town with your people, then sit down at one and stay there. I would photograph the table, the speeches happening between courses and the two or three moments in the afternoon when somebody says something they would never say at a dinner party. That is the whole day and it is plenty.
You can see how these run in my Dublin work.
Frequently asked questions
How many guests is a small wedding?
In Dublin, a small wedding usually means eight to forty guests. Under twelve behaves like a dinner, twelve to thirty fills a room and thirty to fifty still supports speeches and dancing. The number matters less than picking one and building the day for it rather than shrinking a large wedding plan.
Are small weddings cheaper in Dublin?
Less than people expect. Photography, clothes, flowers, music and the ceremony cost roughly the same regardless of headcount, so cutting from 120 guests to 30 does not cut the bill by three quarters. Catering and drinks fall sharply, which is why couples with small weddings usually eat far better for less in total.
Where can you have a small wedding in Dublin?
Restaurants with a private room take eight to thirty, small hotels and Georgian townhouses take twenty to fifty and licensed rooms such as Dublin City Hall let you marry in the city and walk to lunch. Book the private room rather than a large table and confirm you have it for the afternoon rather than a two hour slot.
How many hours of photography does a small wedding need?
Six to eight hours suits most small Dublin weddings, since a day that marries at one and sits down at three is photographically finished by about seven. Two hours is too short, because the best frames come from the long unstructured stretch at the table rather than from the ceremony.
Can you elope in Dublin?
Yes. The two of you plus two witnesses is a legal marriage in Ireland and Dublin makes it straightforward because the ceremony, the photographs and lunch all happen within walking distance. Notice periods still apply in full, so the paperwork takes exactly as long as it would for a wedding of two hundred.
Do small weddings feel less like a wedding?
They feel like a different thing rather than a smaller thing. There is no crowd, so nobody is performing and the conversation is the event. Couples who worry about this beforehand almost never mention it afterwards, though it is worth deciding early whether you want speeches and music, since a room of thirty carries both easily.
About the author. I am Kevin Kheffache, a documentary Dublin wedding photographer based in Dún Laoghaire. This Is Reportage has ranked me in the top 30 wedding photojournalists worldwide and the top 3 in Ireland and I am a Fearless Photographers top 50 photographer and the founder of Doc Day, one of Europe's largest wedding photography conferences.