I really need to stop posting on the etiquette boards... they seem to eat us DW brides alive. Apparently everything about a DW is not good etiquette and they 'hate the idea' of an AHR at all.
Whatever. Moving on.
My grandmother lives in Vermont and I am very close to her. She is not physically well enough to travel to Hawaii for the wedding. Actually, a lot of the reason for us deciding on our DW being parents only was because I didn't want her to feel alienated that she wasn't coming but other grandparents/friends/etc. were. She's also not able bodied enough to make the drive or flight from VT to MD for our AHR. I have a few other family members in VT too who we would love to celebrate our marriage with, but aren't able to drive all the way down for our AHR, and we don't feel right expecting them to travel so far just for a dinner party anyway.
So my question is this: Is it okay for us to go up to Vermont either right before or right after the wedding and have a celebratory cookout/dinner with our family so they don't feel left out? Is anyone else doing something like this? I'm not talking about a formal thing at all, just going to visit and spend time with them at this special time in our lives.