New Maui bride first post~Dilemma!! (lengthy...)

memegrace · April 2011

Hi ladies,

Im new to posting though I have been scouting out planning posts for a few months and would like to say THANKS for sharing all of your info!! It has been SO helpful so far. Also, Jen (akawinterbride) sent me some PM info that was so great! I have little spurts of time here and there to plan our special day as we have a 6 month old babe (during some naps when Im not napping and occassional late nights..!) I do have a few pressing dilemma's I would like some advice for!

We will be married on our 13 year anniversary next march. yay! Im sure you can imagine all the questions we have been getting for years about the big day...especially following our engagement last year! ( which i was 5 months pregnant at the time so the answer was always simple...we'll get married..when the time is right for us)

The problem at the moment is that we have a fairly large core group of friends who have all had large weddings at home, as well, I have been in 4 gf's wedding parties...and to their baby showers...and their childrens birthdays..etc...

Everyone has known that we would be getting married away and that was that. Now that we have set a date...I am getting bombarded with questions!! More so...automatic "when can we book?" , "we are so excited to go to maui", "we wouldn't miss it for anything.." Which is awesome but not awesome when we do not want a large wedding!!

I am in the process of making a webpage (thanks to all the good idea's on here!) that will be our informal formal invite as well. We have decided to have a weekend of camping at a ranch next summer to celebrate with all of our friends. We are undecided about whether or not to extend the invite for maui to everyone thinking many will not be able to come (we live in Canada and several have young children) or to seperate the close ones out of the group to ensure numbers dont get too out of hand! ..when a few commit..then...all want to try and make it...which includes their families/children as well!!

The problem with the website is that once you send it out..the info is out for all to see!

Do we just send it out to just family and closer friends? If so, how do we tell everyone else about the ranch celebration?

Do we put who is invited on the guest list to Maui for everyone to see?

Also, we plan to put a reply deadline to allow us to choose a venue that will suite our numbers and budget. Is two weeks reasonable? Should we send it out to family only first..then get a general number count, then close friends, then all friends who are invited to ranch weekend?

This is all just getting too complicated for a simple wedding!!! sheesh!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

thanks in advance for listening to my rant!

M

breaness · April 2011

I can't tell you what will be best, but I can tell you what we did, what's worked so far and what hasn't.

We never wanted a large wedding. We always had planned on eloping/doing a destination wedding with just the two of us. Well when we got engaged the moms let us know that that was NOT an option. They HAD to be there, Dads could be optional, but Moms were mandatory. So we opened up our DW to our parents ONLY and gave FI's brother the option of coming if he wanted.

We aren't printing invites for them because they're our parents and no one else is coming.

When we told our friends about the wedding we said "we're getting married in Maui and our parents are the only people coming, we're keeping it small" and by introducing the concept of the small wedding in the first conversation we haven't had many people trying to tag along.

Of course, when my mom posted on FB about booking her tickets to Hawaii, some people we haven't talked to in ages asked why she was going to Hawaii-- and then she said that I was getting married there, and I had childhood friends asking to go (one of which I haven't seen since I was 3... really!?)

I was just entirely honest. I told her that our parents are the only people coming. Only one of our grandparents is physically capable to go, and so as to not alienate the grandparents who are not well enough to travel that far, we're keeping our guest list small. If my grandmother isn't coming-- neither are you.

It was an easy sell.

HOWEVER. We are having a reception back home after we return. We are only inviting 60 people. These are our closest friends & family. We're not even inviting all of our families. His family all lives in PA, and a good chunk of mine lives in VT. We're going to go up to each of those states and do a party (cookout type thing) with them after we get married to celebrate with them. But we don't think it's reasonable to expect them to come all the way down to Maryland just for a dinner party.

So we sent out Save the Dates for that and I created a wedding website (in my signature) and that's great, but I know a lot of people that we haven't invited have seen the wedding website. So now they know that they aren't invited because the save the dates have been sent out for weeks. If we had just sent out the website anyone could access it and invite themselves. Those paper invites/save the dates are worth every penny. Ours were cheap too. $59 for 60 save the dates through vistaprint. I designed it and printed it through them.

I really think you should do paper invites. With the wedding website only you'll run the risk of people you wouldn't necessarily invite showing up.

I'm happy to help with any other questions you have!

Tanq&Tonic · April 2011

Welcome and congrats!! Very exciting times for you. I guess my advice boils down to a few things:

1) Stop talking about the wedding / Maui until you decide exactly who you want there. If asked, be very clear that it will be a 'very small private wedding' -- most people will know that means they may not be invited.

2) Keep separate websites for Maui info and ranch/camping info. There really is no need to create confusion by linking the 2 events on the same site.

3) Control access to each site by mailing a save-the-date card to those invited -- if everyone invited to Maui is also invited to Ranching, then you can include both URLs on their cards (or, include ranching information on the Maui website)

4) Don't base invitations to Maui on who you assume can make it. People will always surprise you. Invite based on who you want there.

5) I'm a little confused by the ranching thing -- are you hosting the entire weekend, or simply organizing a camping trip that people can join? I think that affects your timing and approach. In general, it is rude to ask for an RSVP more than 1 month before an event.

Hope that helps!

kimmykupcakes · April 2011

You can get websites where you can put passwords on pages. Our website lets us do that. We are putting passwords on the page with all of the wedding information and only giving the password to our wedding guests. That way we are able to have all information in one place and make it's easier for us.

AKWinterBride · April 2011

Yay!! I am totally with you - when we got engaged I wanted a very small, intimate wedding. We are now having 47 people and I am super happy with it, I just kind of feel like too few people would take a lot of the fun factor out of things.

I invited my closest friends to Maui in hopes that they could come, some can and some can't. I would try to stick to your core group unless you have the money to cover all the other people. It's best to assume that if you invite someone that they WILL come rather than not.

Perhaps you could post on your website that you are having an intimate wedding in Maui and will be back to celebrate your marriage with all of your friends when you get hom. If people get hurt feelings, that is their deal, you can't worry about everyone, especially on your wedding day!

memegrace · April 2011

thanks ladies for all the tips! I am going to send out save the date postcards now to family and our closest friends ONLY. Will be leaving the camping plan out totally for now to simplfy things. It is so easy to get all caught up in everything...yeesh!

M

New Maui bride first post~Dilemma!! (lengthy...)

Re: New Maui bride first post~Dilemma!! (lengthy...)

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