Where to start.. I am originally from NY, he is from and we live in Maryland. We are in our 40's and both are amoung the youngest people who will be invited to our wedding (read half of our invite list is retired already). This is our first (and only ) marriage. Also, the size of my family and friends from NY is 3 times the size of his. Taking all factors into consideration (which I have not listed) we are not having an engagement party or a bridal shower, and this does play a role in the rest of our decision making.
We settled on a small coastal town location near Delaware to have the wedding which is almost a central location for all our guests. But given the distance from NY (about a 3 hour drive), it is really a destination wedding. Our rehearsal is the night before, we will all be in town both nights, and we know from some investigative work that most of our guest list from NY is not able to travel to our wedding, so we negotiated with my parents to throw a second reception a month after our wedding in NY for those who we really want to share our day with, but won't be able to make it. Most of them have already expressed they really do appreciate this.
So, do I send EVERYONE an invitation to our Maryland wedding? Or since we already put the word on the street about the NY reception, do we send the NY guest list only marriage announcements and invites to the NY reception?
Please no comments about how rude it is to have two receptions and call them two receptions. I want my NY friends and family to feel as if they were a part of our special day, we have all waited a long time for this. But the facts are most of our NY list for one reason or another, simply can't travel for to our wedding.