Reception after Paris ?

Knottie53898593

Hello Ladies, 

I need guidance and advice. We are eloping in Paris but we don't know what to do as far as having a reception. I was thinking of taking our family (around 40) to a nice restaurant in Chicago and having a "reception" style party. I would like to wear my wedding dress but i am not just not sure. I am lost as to what to do! Is there a dad/daughter dance? 

ps. There will not be a gift registry at all. We just want to celebrate our marriage with our family. 

jenna8984

Knottie53898593 said:

Hello Ladies, 

I need guidance and advice. We are eloping in Paris but we don't know what to do as far as having a reception. I was thinking of taking our family (around 40) to a nice restaurant in Chicago and having a "reception" style party. I would like to wear my wedding dress but i am not just not sure. I am lost as to what to do! Is there a dad/daughter dance? 

ps. There will not be a gift registry at all. We just want to celebrate our marriage with our family. 

Are you telling everyone that you have eloped, and they will know going to the party that you're already married? That is the most important part here because people will get pissed if you come back and try to make this into a "wedding" where you pretend to get married. But it doesn't sound like that is your intention at all.

I think that sounds lovely and you could hang a few pictues of Paris and your actual wedding. I would probably skip the father/ daughter dance and skip first dance. People on here are split about wearing your wedding dress, but I personally say who cares. If you spend a lot on it and you love it, then I don't think it hurts anyone for you to wear it.

plainjane0415

jenna8984 said:

Knottie53898593 said:

Hello Ladies, 

I need guidance and advice. We are eloping in Paris but we don't know what to do as far as having a reception. I was thinking of taking our family (around 40) to a nice restaurant in Chicago and having a "reception" style party. I would like to wear my wedding dress but i am not just not sure. I am lost as to what to do! Is there a dad/daughter dance? 

ps. There will not be a gift registry at all. We just want to celebrate our marriage with our family. 

Are you telling everyone that you have eloped, and they will know going to the party that you're already married? That is the most important part here because people will get pissed if you come back and try to make this into a "wedding" where you pretend to get married. But it doesn't sound like that is your intention at all.

I think that sounds lovely and you could hang a few pictues of Paris and your actual wedding. I would probably skip the father/ daughter dance and skip first dance. People on here are split about wearing your wedding dress, but I personally say who cares. If you spend a lot on it and you love it, then I don't think it hurts anyone for you to wear it.

Everything @jenna8984 said.  Sounds like you are on the right track, as long as there are no reenactments of wedding stuff at your reception party you should be good And yea if you want to wear your dress wear it!

levioosa

Sounds good, as long as you don't try to recreate the wedding! (No spotlight dances, cake cutting, etc).  I personally don't care about the dress thing; it's an expensive dress just to wear for one day, so I say wear the hell out of it while you can. 

Make sure you tell everyone that you have eloped.  You may send out invitations asking people to share in a "celebration of marriage." As long as you host everyone's food and drinks properly at the dinner, you should have a great time!  Congratulations!

LondonLisa

Knottie53898593, I'm sure you have looked into this, but are either you or your Fi French? Or have an EU passport? It is very hard for non-French residents to get married in France. If you are not French, or do not have a parent living in France, you need to have special dispensation to get married in France (which is really hard to get). You both also have to have lived in France (and have proof of residency, such as a utility bill) for 40 days before the ceremony. 

You need to show your proof of French residency at the mairie or else they will not perform the wedding. I just don't want you showing up to get married and realising that it is a redtape nightmare if you aren't French!

All your documentation must be in French by a certified government translator. If you and your Fi don't speak French, they may not perform the ceremony, as you legally cannot agree to something if you do not understand it. They do not offer civil weddings (the only legal wedding) in France in other languages.

jenna8984

@londonlisa great points!! Even Kim & Kanye couldn't pull it off and had to move it to Italy for those reasons.

artbyallie

A reception is held to thank people for attending your wedding. If you are truly eloping, there are no guests and therefore no reception. If anyone comes with you to France for your wedding, you need to host them, which doesn't have to be any elaborate party. Just buy them dinner. And wine, because it's France, duh.

If you want to throw a party at home, nothing is stopping you, but it shouldn't resemble a wedding ceremony or a wedding reception. No wedding gown, no attendants, no cake-smashing, spotlight dances, or bouquet-tossing. Definitely have cake, though. Just don't do the newlywed feed-each-other thing.

lovegood90

If you're eloping, you don't get a reception. The reception is meant to thank those who attended the ceremony. It's fine to elope, but then you forgo all the pre wedding parties (showers, etc) and a reception. You can't have it both ways.

Dreamergirl8812

I agree with PPs. Throw an awesome party. Nothing wrong with a party. I personally think it's weird for a married woman to dress like a bride by wearing a wedding dress (it's not a wedding) but it isn't rude or terrible or anything.

Some people might side eye you if you do wear it. Especially if it's at a restaurant where random strangers will say "Congrats on your wedding!" and you'll be like "Thanks it was a month ago!!"

CMGragain

Elopements do not have receptions.  You give this up when you elope.  You can have a party to celebrate your marriage at any time, but no wedding reception.  That means no formal wedding dress because you will not be a bride and it isn't your wedding day.

You might want to prepare formal marriage announcements to mail out after your ceremony, but if you are mailing them from France, you will need to pay a lot of postage.  You can always mail then when you get back to the USA.

Bride's Full Name
and
Groom's Full Name
announce their marriage
Date
Paris, France

If everybody knows about your plans, you aren't eloping either.  It would be a private destination wedding.  Eloping is when no one knows about your marriage plans.

southernbelle0915

I got an invitation to one of these this week.

They called it an "after-party" (not a reception) and had a picture from their actual wedding on the invitation. So it was obvious they eloped and there was no confusion. If you do this, you might consider something like that.

Also, I agree with @Dreamergirl8812 about the wedding dress. It's not bad etiquette, but I find it weird since it's not a wedding. It'd be like if DH and I had an anniversary party and I wore my wedding dress. Just odd.

[Deleted User]

I went to a celebration of marriage event once. He was in the Navy, he was getting deployed and they didn't want to wait, so she found a dress and basically eloped, only her parents were there as they were local.

Fast forward many months down the road, the grooms family wanted to have an event to celebrate with their family & friends. I loved seeing the bride in her dress, I thought she was beautiful. And to be honest, that's one of my favorite things is to see a bride in her dress. They did a few of the traditional reception things like toasts and I think they may have had a cake too. But they had made it known on the invite that this wasn't their "wedding" but a celebration of their marriage. At the time I didn't realize doing the cake part was probably a big no no, but as a guest who loves sweets, I liked having some cake to eat.

lyndausvi

Erikan73 said:

I went to a celebration of marriage event once. He was in the Navy, he was getting deployed and they didn't want to wait, so she found a dress and basically eloped, only her parents were there as they were local.

Fast forward many months down the road, the grooms family wanted to have an event to celebrate with their family & friends. I loved seeing the bride in her dress, I thought she was beautiful. And to be honest, that's one of my favorite things is to see a bride in her dress. They did a few of the traditional reception things like toasts and I think they may have had a cake too. But they had made it known on the invite that this wasn't their "wedding" but a celebration of their marriage. At the time I didn't realize doing the cake part was probably a big no no, but as a guest who loves sweets, I liked having some cake to eat.

Some people here say no cake.

I think they are full of shit.  Cake is served at all kinds of parties.   Going way - lets have cake.  Having a baby, cake.  Birthday?  Cake. Graduation? Cake.  Anniversary? Cake.

For the life of me I will never understand why a celebration of marriage can't have cake.  Sure I would find it a little silly to feed cake to each other, but cake should never be banned at any celebration.

Cookie Pusher

lyndausvi said:

Erikan73 said:

I went to a celebration of marriage event once. He was in the Navy, he was getting deployed and they didn't want to wait, so she found a dress and basically eloped, only her parents were there as they were local.

Fast forward many months down the road, the grooms family wanted to have an event to celebrate with their family & friends. I loved seeing the bride in her dress, I thought she was beautiful. And to be honest, that's one of my favorite things is to see a bride in her dress. They did a few of the traditional reception things like toasts and I think they may have had a cake too. But they had made it known on the invite that this wasn't their "wedding" but a celebration of their marriage. At the time I didn't realize doing the cake part was probably a big no no, but as a guest who loves sweets, I liked having some cake to eat.

Some people here say no cake.

I think they are full of shit.  Cake is served at all kinds of parties.   Going way - lets have cake.  Having a baby, cake.  Birthday?  Cake. Graduation? Cake.  Anniversary? Cake.

For the life of me I will never understand why a celebration of marriage can't have cake.  Sure I would find it a little silly to feed cake to each other, but cake should never be banned at any celebration.

CMGragain

There is no issue with serving a cake, however the cake should not be an obvious wedding style cake with a bride and groom topper.  The cake cutting CEREMONY should not be done, since you will have been married for some time.  I like cake, too!

Elopements do not usually have formal white wedding dresses, either, though this is not a hard and fast rule.  .