Families live very far apart and don't have money to travel

knottie494a41edfaa6781a

Hi everyone!

I just got engaged and I have been trying to figure out the "big picture" for my wedding plans. Both my future husband and I have large families, however, most of his family is located in the midwest (along with all of our friends) but all of my family is located in Puerto Rico. When my older sister got married about a decade ago, she got married in the midwest and my family had to fly in. However, a decade has passed and my grandmother is too old to travel, and my cousins have a bunch of kids who make it hard/expensive to travel. I really want to be able to celebrate with them.

Since I am very close to my family, I was hoping that the following would be the "big picture" for our wedding.

1. Have a very small ceremony here in the Midwest, with parents, siblings, and aunts (approx. 25 people) - since it would only be like 6 people from Puerto Rico attending, we would be able to pay for their flights here. We would not have a bridal party. 

2. The same day of the ceremony, have a reception in the Midwest for my fiance's family, our friends, and our family friends.

3. A week later, have a reception in Puerto Rico with my family

I am a graduate student, so we are on a slim budget. We are also not religious and have always liked the idea of an extremely intimate ceremony. 

What I am wondering about is what would be most polite to do in terms of invitations. How do I phrase save the dates for the majority of our guests, who will be coming to a reception but not the ceremony? Does it make sense to let people choose which reception they want to come to, or should we make separate invites and pick which reception to invite people to? 

It's a bit of a nontraditional setup, but I'm hoping for advice on how to phrase invites and whether or not to let people choose which reception to attend. 

MobKaz

knottie494a41edfaa6781a said:

Hi everyone!

I just got engaged and I have been trying to figure out the "big picture" for my wedding plans. Both my future husband and I have large families, however, most of his family is located in the midwest (along with all of our friends) but all of my family is located in Puerto Rico. When my older sister got married about a decade ago, she got married in the midwest and my family had to fly in. However, a decade has passed and my grandmother is too old to travel, and my cousins have a bunch of kids who make it hard/expensive to travel. I really want to be able to celebrate with them.

Since I am very close to my family, I was hoping that the following would be the "big picture" for our wedding.

1. Have a very small ceremony here in the Midwest, with parents, siblings, and aunts (approx. 25 people) - since it would only be like 6 people from Puerto Rico attending, we would be able to pay for their flights here. We would not have a bridal party. 

2. The same day of the ceremony, have a reception in the Midwest for my fiance's family, our friends, and our family friends.

3. A week later, have a reception in Puerto Rico with my family

I am a graduate student, so we are on a slim budget. We are also not religious and have always liked the idea of an extremely intimate ceremony. 

What I am wondering about is what would be most polite to do in terms of invitations. How do I phrase save the dates for the majority of our guests, who will be coming to a reception but not the ceremony? Does it make sense to let people choose which reception they want to come to, or should we make separate invites and pick which reception to invite people to? 

It's a bit of a nontraditional setup, but I'm hoping for advice on how to phrase invites and whether or not to let people choose which reception to attend. 

The ceremony typically is the lowest “budget” item for a wedding.  You plan on hosting a reception the same day as your wedding ceremony.  Is there a reason you cannot invite guests from the reception to the wedding ceremony? 

charlotte989875

I think you invite all guests to each part and let them decide what they can travel to or afford. You may be surprised what people are willing to travel for. What you shouldn’t do though is only invite people to one or the other, especially if that means not inviting them to the ceremony. 

banana468

You really need to combine 1 & 2.   It's going to be OK to IMO to do #3 because that's a logistical issue but you really can't tier the guests and have some people to the ceremony and then a crowd at the reception. 

MyNameIsNot

We had a similar situation. My H's family primarily live in South America. Flights are expensive, and most would have had to get visas to come. My family is out of state, but driving distance. They were ok to come to where we live, but wouldn't have been able to make the trip abroad. It was a hard decision, but we decided that our current city was the best option for the wedding. We invited everyone to our city for the wedding (most of my family made it, a few of H's did), and then had a second celebration party in South America where we invited all of H's family plus my immediate (my family wasn't able to go, but that's ok.) 

I get that you're trying to make it "fair" that if your family can't be at the wedding his shouldn't be there either, but the way you have it set up is poor etiquette. Either extend the ceremony to include everyone invited to the reception that day, or just elope with the two of you or parents only and have both parties on separate days. 

In reality, trying to make it even just isn't practical. If you're going to get married near his family, invite everyone to the wedding there and make the second event a celebration near your family. You don't necessarily need to invite everyone to the second celebration (although I would invite his closest), but you should invite everyone to the actual wedding.