Wedding Announcement?

nicole loves chris

I know I may get some flames for this after reading similar posts, but wanted suggestions if possible. I was wondering if there is an ok way to do a wedding announcement? FI and I have huge families and won't be able to invite everyone we'd like, not to mention we know many of our potential guests won't be able to make it to a cross-country wedding.

We have a wedding website and I would love to share pictures with people we know will be unable to make it, namely FI's family from NJ since the wedding will take place in CA. We definitely don't want to seem gift grabby, and in no way actually want gifts when we "announce" our marriage, but I was curious how to go about actually doing the announcing, per se, so people could see pictures and all that. I'm guessing an actual announcement card in the mail would be the tacky way to do it, so how should I go about telling our guests we're married, and if they'd like to see pictures they can go to our website? Do I send out a few personal emails? Word of mouth from FMIL and FFIL? Just let them ask us?

I would hate to seem like I'm sending them an announcement after the fact to rub it in their faces that they weren't invited, or to make it seems like all we want are presents. FI and I are just happy to finally be getting married. We've postponed our wedding, and have now been engaged for a year and a half and would love for people who couldn't be with ust know about our big day.

Any suggestions? =]

InferiorToKaos

I sent out wedding announcements to the people we didn't invite that we though would care to know about it.  We sent it with a link to our wedding address where we had planned to put a video of the ceremony, and also has all of our wedding and honeymoon pictures.  I don't think it seems gift grabby, but I guess it would depend on who I got it from.

Brie2010

I honestly don't think these are really necessary anymore.  Put some pictures up on Facebook and tag the people in them.  Before you know it, your uncle's neighbor from 20 years ago will know you've gotten married and will have seen the entire album.

Seriously, every time my mom has gone to tell distant relatives or other aquaintances that I got married, they say, "Oh, I know, we saw the pictures on Facebook."  They'll get the idea and you won't look gift grabby.

foreverlove2010

We're planning on sending out announcements to those who couldn't make it or those who we want to know but couldn't invite. I don't think it'll come off as gift-grabby. Like PP mentioned, just include the website for those who want to see pics.

aMrsin09

We had a small 14 person wedding and sent announcements to those that would have been invited had we done the big party.

Announcements don't carry the "must send a gift" tradition that Invintes do.

nicole loves chris

Thanks for the reassurance and advice, ladies! I suppose I just assumed from reading previous posts about wedding announcements that they were considered taboo. We definitely don't want to offend anyone or make it seem like we're asking for presents, but would love to be able to announce our marriage. We thought of maybe just doing a Christmas card with one of our wedding photos in place of the wedding announcements, but now I feel reassured that we can do the announcements. I'll just be sure to make sure there's no registry info so people don't get the wrong idea.

Any other things to avoid or other advice? Thanks again!

aMrsin09

You can use almost the same wording as your invites, just make sure it's in past tense and you don't list the time or location.

So ours said
aMrs
and aMr are pleased to announce they were married
on date
in
City state.

We also added the "at home" information

The happy couple will be residing at
address
after XX date

you can add new phone numbers if you wish

We did all that becuae aMr hadn't lived in Australia in 5 years and I was changing continents.
The announcements are sent out no earlier than the day after the wedding.

tenofcups4me

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-announcement-3?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:dd22b1cd-b87b-4cd1-8f76-f2c632745b5fPost:8ff9ebec-e488-4795-95b9-779dde39f4b1">Re: Wedding Announcement?</a>:
[QUOTE]We had a small 14 person wedding and sent announcements to those that would have been invited had we done the big party. Announcements don't carry the "must send a gift" tradition that Invintes do.
Posted by aMrsin09[/QUOTE]

That's almost exactly the situation DH and I had (even had exactly 14 people at our wedding too) and we also sent announcements. Ours were much less traditional than aMrs:

[our names at top in a larger script font]
Are pleased to announce
We have symbolically and legally
Declared our love, trust, and commitment
By uniting in marriage in a
Private ceremony on [date]
in city, state

We did them as mulit-layered pocketfolds, just because I wanted to, and in the pocket was a card with info about our names (I didn't change), address, phone, email, etc.  Some people who got them sent gifts or cards, most didn't, which was fine -- gifts were not at all the intent. I think those that sent gifts are the ones who would have sent them regardless of the announcement (in fact most of them sent them before the announcement anyway).