Hello! We are having a very small ceremony, followed by dinner in December with just our immediate families (parents, siblings and significant others, and grandparents) - 17 people total. Neither of us wanted a large wedding, and thankfully our immediate families are on-board and supportive. However, we both have very large families and friend circles that we'd like to have some type of celebration with at later date, and to complicate things my fiancé and I are from different states so we have large numbers of people in two different locations. We are thinking about doing TWO informal "parties" celebrating our wedding in spring/summer 2014 - one in his home state, and one in mine. We're thinking the parties will almost be like a graduation party: appetizers/subs, booze, iPod music in the background, and most importantly people mingling and having a great time! Now the hard part is "announcing" this plan!
How do we tell our non-immediate family and friends that we are getting married, and they will be invited to our celebrations at a later date?
Also, we live in the Midwest, so ideally we'd like to wait until the ground thaws to have our parties (with the option to have them outside) - which means we're looking into May or June 2014 - up to six months after our actual wedding. Is this still appropriate for a party to celebrate newlyweds?
Any ideas or advice from those in similar situations would be MUCH appreciated!