Yeah, as hirlau says, this is a question of attending and not holding. I don't know what people like to hold, but my wife and I had relatively informal and only 50 guests. The reception was held at a B&B, so nowhere to dance, but there was music. I'm not a huge fanatic of "tradition" and needing to create some sort of obligation.
BIL is getting married and they're debating the same things. Fortunately (in my view), they're smart enough to know that they're "getting married" and not "having a wedding", if you know what I mean. They understand the former is more important than the latter. I think they're getting pressure from other family members to ramp up the size.
When I got married, my dad's sisters were pissed because he was from a family of 9 kids and they felt entitled to be taken to a wedding. That's a mentality I won't understand ever, if someone says a wedding is too small for me to be invited, I cheer. His (my dad's) sisters pushed him to the point that he was asking me to increase the size of the wedding and he'd pay the extra cost for the sisters. I told him to tell them that I made the guest list and there wasn't room for more, and it wasn't brought up again after about the third time. I personally thought it was kind of a tactless thing to do to lobby to be invited to something, all other issues notwithstanding.
So, anyway, I brought this up because I know most people are too polite to say anything about ...well, really anything. So they get dragged to a wedding ceremony and reception that is 10 hours long and leaves your ears ringing, and nobody says anything about it. It also burns up an entire day for everyone, which I think is presumptuous.
