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Wedding Etiquette Forum

Courthouse/JOP wedding question.

Hello ladies, a little background. I normally lurk but I do post occassionally (mostly on local board). I'm 24, engaged a little over a year.

Originially we were planning for an October 20th, 2012 wedding. After some unforseen circumstances (lay offs/medical bills ect) we decided to push it to April 20th, 2013. We've gone back and forth on this repeatedely, and with the stress of planning and the financial costs of a wedding we have decided to do a courthouse/JOP ceremony on October 20th. We are going to the courthouse to get out license next weekend, I'll buy a cute dress, get a bouquet, and marry the man of my dreams in october.

My question is this, we are only having my mom, dad, and his mom attend the ceremony, so 3 total. My mother wants to invite the extended family (some of whom are out of state) to the house afterwards for a 'reception'/party type thing. So my question is, is it rude to not invite everyone to the ceremony but then invite them to a hosted reception afterwards. Keep in mind we can only have a few witnesses so we are only having our parents, but we'd still like to celebrate with the rest of our family afterwards. Is this rude? And if not, how do I word it on the invitations?

Re: Courthouse/JOP wedding question.

  • Not rude; what you're talking about is a truly private ceremony, so it's totally okay to then invite more people to the reception. 
  • Like others said totally ok.  And October is a great month and 10/20 is my birthday so I say go for it.  :) 
  • Thank you so much ladies for your responses, I just wanted to double check to make sure I wasn't breaching any kind of etiquette, happy that i'm not and I can't wait to become Mrs.Locke in October!!! :-)
  • Stack's  birthday is enough reason to celebrate that day.


    and yes, an intimate wedding such as this can be followed by a somewhat larger reception.
  • Is the reception the same day as the wedding?  If so, I'd word it


    invite you to a reception to celebrate the marriage of
    Corrinne 88
    and
    Corrinne 88 FI


    Please make it VERY clear that it's a reception only, and if people are traveling from out of state you'll want to make it more than mingling with cheese and crackers.
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