Take the whole house
Ubud villa
A private villa with its own pool and garden. Ceremony, dinner and everyone staying on site.
Weddings
A short guest list is an advantage.
Under about twenty guests, the whole wedding fits inside one villa. No marquee, no shuttle buses, no seating plan that takes a month.
- Villa venues from USD 3,330 per couple
- Small guest lists
- Legal or symbolic
Where
Venues that suit twenty people.
A small wedding wants somewhere you can take over entirely, rather than a corner of somewhere larger.
Take the whole house
Ubud villa
A private villa with its own pool and garden. Ceremony, dinner and everyone staying on site.
The view
Uluwatu clifftop
Small clifftop resorts that run ceremonies for a handful of guests without feeling empty.
Dinner on sand
Jimbaran beach
Ceremony at the water line, then the seafood grills set out on the beach at dusk.
The first decision
Legal, or symbolic.
Everything else follows from this one. A legal marriage is a paperwork exercise in two countries; a symbolic ceremony is not.
Legal marriage
- Paperwork
- Documents from Indonesia and from your home country, including an affidavit of no impediment.
- Recognised
- Legally recognised, subject to both countries accepting it.
- Lead time
- Start months ahead. Document turnaround is the slowest part.
- Who to hire
- A local planner who has done the paperwork before.
Symbolic ceremony
- Paperwork
- None required.
- Recognised
- Not a legal marriage. It carries whatever meaning you give it.
- Lead time
- As long as the venue needs, which is usually weeks.
- Who to hire
- A celebrant and a venue. The rest is styling.
Many couples marry legally at home and hold the ceremony here. It is the most common version of a Bali wedding and it removes the paperwork entirely.
The admin
Start the paperwork first.
Small weddings are quicker to plan in every respect except one. If the ceremony has to be legal, the documents take exactly as long as they would for two hundred guests.
- 1 Documents, if it is legal Indonesian regulations plus your home country's, usually including an affidavit of no impediment. Begin this before you book anything else.
- 2 Verify every supplier Fraud involving people impersonating legitimate villa operators has been reported here. Confirm through an official channel before any deposit.
- 3 Watch the season April to October is dry. In the monsoon, a twenty-person ceremony can move indoors easily, which is one more advantage of being small.
- 4 Add something Balinese Traditional music and dance are straightforward to include and give guests something the venue alone does not.
Stolen villa photos and operators impersonating real ones have both been reported in Bali. Verify every supplier through an official account or a recognised platform before you pay a deposit.
Asked most often
Questions couples ask first.
Keep reading
The rest of the ceremony guides.
Same island, different ceremony. Start with the pillar guide if you are still deciding.
- Destination Weddings in Bali The pillar guide: beach, clifftop and jungle venues, and what a legal ceremony asks for that a symbolic one does not.
- Symbolic Weddings No legal documentation at all. Venue, celebrant, flowers, photography, and nothing else to file.
- Vow Renewal Packages You are already married, so there is no paperwork. Just a date, a setting and a dinner afterwards.
Tell us the number. We will find the house.
Send the month, the guest count and whether you need the ceremony to be legal. You will get venues and a real quote back.