If you are Daddy's little girl and your parents have been saving since you were a babe in arms for a lavish wedding, and they still want to go ahead with that, then it would seem rude and ungrateful not to go for the works when it comes to your wedding. If the family is well-off and can afford it without bankrupting themselves then why not? However, if money is a precious resource to you as a couple and your immediate families, you might be better going for a quiet, more intimate wedding.
Money is not the only factor when thinking about the size of wedding you want to go for. You might be a theatrical, histrionic sort of person or couple who love to show off and have lots of people in attendance upon you. Conversely you might be a shy, unassuming sort of bride and groom, and maybe you feel uncomfortable with all the pomp and ceremony attendant upon a big wedding and all the traditions.
Some couples prefer their marriage ceremony in particular to be small and intimate, perhaps in a beautiful setting which is especially meaningful to them, with only a couple of witnesses or best friends and perhaps Mom and Pop too. Then they might have a bigger bash later to celebrate their marriage. This sometimes happens when couples opt to have a beach wedding abroad. It's likely they could not afford to fly absolutely all their friends and family to Barbados, for example, so the people who would have been invited to the "evening do" were it a conventional, at home wedding, would be the people invited along to the wedding celebration party.
For most people, budget is a major factor, and you really do have to have a good think about how many people you want at your wedding and how many trappings. How many marriages have you seen where the couple split up a year or two after the most lavish wedding on the planet? Throwing money at the big day does nothing to guarantee a good marriage, in fact if that money would have been better spent elsewhere, like a deposit on a decent home or a wonderful romantic honeymoon, perhaps the marital union might have started off on a more secure footing.
Big weddings are also the most stressful to organise. The bride and (traditionally) the bride's mother often have a nightmare journey to make sure everything goes smoothly on the big day, so that they can arrive on what should be the happiest day of their life feeling totally exhausted. It can cause all sorts of family disputes and fall-outs. The problem is that with a small intimate wedding, family members may get hurt at not being included, so in a sense the smaller the better if you are going to go small, just stick to the parents (and children?) and maybe just the closest friend of each of you. The trouble starts when someone says "I thought I was your best friend, not her", and all that!
There is a lot to be said for having a small and intimate wedding ceremony shared with only your real nearest and dearest, where you can luxuriate in the meaning of your vows, and then perhaps a bigger party afterwards or on another day.
