Secret wedding.

shelbyhall70

My fiancé and I have finally decided we want a very small intimate wedding. We want to only invite our immediate family and best friends. We plan on sending invitations for a "surprise party" for my birthday to all of our other family and friends for afterwards and when we arrive we plan to announce at the party that we were just married. We still want little invitations that basically say you're invited to a secret wedding but don't spill the beans, but in a cute way. Any ideas on wording?

courtski2004

I'm a little confused--are you planning to get married by yourselves without your friends and family as witnesses or is the entire event the surprise? Or are only a select few invited to the ceremony and then the rest of the guests are invited to the 'reception'?

I want to clarify, just because it will change my response completely.

shelbyhall70

Well we've changed it up a bit. What we plan on doing is inviting a few people to the ceremony. Then we plan to send out an announcement that we've been married and we'll be having a celebration a week or so later. I'm just looking for suggestions on how to word the invitations to the ceremony in a way that basically says you're invited but we'd like you to keep it under wraps bc we were not able to invite everyone.

professorscience

Why are you unable to invite everyone to your ceremony but not your reception?

shelbyhall70

I guess it's less of us being unable and more us wanting a very small intimate wedding.

shelbyhall70

I guess that and with how large our guest list would be it would require a very large budget and venue to accommodate everyone an that is not my ideal wedding.

professorscience

The problem is that it's pretty rude to invite people to a reception who you didn't invite to your wedding. The reception is intended to thank your guests for attending your wedding.

To answer your first question, I don't have any ideas for your wording.

shelbyhall70

I personally do not believe it's anyone's place to tell me that it would be rude to want my dream wedding which IS small and intimate. And I feel the reception is more so a celebration and I do know that my friends an extended family are considerate enough to understand why having all of them with us would be lovely but beyond my financial means and would require me giving up MY dream wedding to accommodate someone else's feelings of needing to be invited. I know they'd all be more offended if left out completely and not asked to celebrate with us afterwards. Either way I was asking for ideas regarding the wording, not how I held the events themselves.

professorscience

Maybe the Etiquette or Invitations boards will help you.

Emmy1493

I go with the idea of having the wedding you can afford. It is rude to invite some guests to one thing, and others to another. It is good Etiquette to invite guest to both parts of the day. And it really is our place, you came here looking for ADVICE. If you didn't want it, don't post on the boards. Simple enough.

As for the wording, I second visiting the Invites board, but beware that you may still get the same reactions with this post. Good luck to you and your wedding planning.

courtski2004

shelbyhall70 said:

I personally do not believe it's anyone's place to tell me that it would be rude to want my dream wedding which IS small and intimate. And I feel the reception is more so a celebration and I do know that my friends an extended family are considerate enough to understand why having all of them with us would be lovely but beyond my financial means and would require me giving up MY dream wedding to accommodate someone else's feelings of needing to be invited. I know they'd all be more offended if left out completely and not asked to celebrate with us afterwards. Either way I was asking for ideas regarding the wording, not how I held the events themselves.

She didn't say that it was rude to want a small and intimate wedding. Along with that, telling people how to post and what they can or should respond to doesn't really go over well on the boards.

Have your dream wedding, whatever that may be, but also be open to making sure that you are hosting your guests properly in terms of good etiquette. Especially if what you want to do includes having a gathering after you've already been married for a week or more.

 

 

Emmy1493

courtski2004 said:

shelbyhall70 said:

I personally do not believe it's anyone's place to tell me that it would be rude to want my dream wedding which IS small and intimate. And I feel the reception is more so a celebration and I do know that my friends an extended family are considerate enough to understand why having all of them with us would be lovely but beyond my financial means and would require me giving up MY dream wedding to accommodate someone else's feelings of needing to be invited. I know they'd all be more offended if left out completely and not asked to celebrate with us afterwards. Either way I was asking for ideas regarding the wording, not how I held the events themselves.

She didn't say that it was rude to want a small and intimate wedding. Along with that, telling people how to post and what they can or should respond to doesn't really go over well on the boards.

Have your dream wedding, whatever that may be, but also be open to making sure that you are hosting your guests properly in terms of good etiquette. Especially if what you want to do includes having a gathering after you've already been married for a week or more.

 

 

This exactly!

crash2729

I would ditch the "secret" part all together. 

Also, the reception or (celebration, as you may call it) is typically the more expensive part of the wedding. 

Why not just do a ceremony with a cake and punch or even backyard BBQ with everyone you want to invite? Not inviting people to the ceremony typically doesn't make it cheaper.