Can you invite people to the church but not the reception?

I think that if you know certain people who are christians and would find the church part a very special part of the wedding then yes. Invite them to just the church.

90% of the people i know feel that the church is the least important part of the wedding (yes, i know - dont get me started, I have had many a hissy fit over this, as it should be the most important part)

You just dont want to end up annoying people who arent christians who feel that if they were to celebrate your marriage, that their preferred way of doing it would be to do it at the reception rather than the church

Yes - you absolutely can do this!!

We are having a civil ceremony (limited guests) followed by a blessing (everyone invited), day reception (limited numbers), evening reception (everyone invited).

We have been surprised and really pleased by the number of our evening guests who have told us they are definitely going to come to the church for the blessing - people totally understand the limitations of numbers and costs!

We invited all our guests to the ceremony and reception but only 55 to the wedding breakfast. Everyone has accepted our invitation to ceremony/reception and not just reception only.

They will have about 2 hours to amuse themselves whilst we have the WB as we are having the speeches and cake in the evening which starts at 5.30pm.

It's not necessarily 'normal' but there is absolutely no reason that you can't do a similar thing. Ours happens to be a civil ceremony and blessing in a hotel so it's 'as good as' a church ceremony, if that makes sense.

I agree with moonpie, the ceremony is the msot important part of the day - the wb and reception are in many ways irrelevant as you can't have either without the ceremony - otherwise it's just an expensive party.

Being in the New Forest, assuming the weather is reasonable then guests have said they'll go for walks, drives or a picnic - or just hang around in the bar and enjoy themselves.

If we had invited everyone to the wb it would have added over £3000 to our overall bill which we just couldn't stretch to.

Both of my friends recently did this. Oh and I went to the ceremony (one friend had a church, the other a civil ceremony) and we went out for dinner together before going back for the reception. One of the receptions started at 6.30pm as they bride wanted everyone to hear the speeches.

Some of my friends came to the church service then went for lunch before coming to our evening do. I was really touched that they did this. I think you should do as you wish - invite them if you want to.