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Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions
Reception after Paris ?
Hello Ladies,
I need guidance and advice. We are eloping in Paris but we don't know what to do as far as having a reception. I was thinking of taking our family (around 40) to a nice restaurant in Chicago and having a "reception" style party. I would like to wear my wedding dress but i am not just not sure. I am lost as to what to do! Is there a dad/daughter dance?
ps. There will not be a gift registry at all. We just want to celebrate our marriage with our family.
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Re: Reception after Paris ?
Are you telling everyone that you have eloped, and they will know going to the party that you're already married? That is the most important part here because people will get pissed if you come back and try to make this into a "wedding" where you pretend to get married. But it doesn't sound like that is your intention at all.
I think that sounds lovely and you could hang a few pictues of Paris and your actual wedding. I would probably skip the father/ daughter dance and skip first dance. People on here are split about wearing your wedding dress, but I personally say who cares. If you spend a lot on it and you love it, then I don't think it hurts anyone for you to wear it.
Everything @jenna8984 said. Sounds like you are on the right track, as long as there are no reenactments of wedding stuff at your reception party you should be good
Make sure you tell everyone that you have eloped. You may send out invitations asking people to share in a "celebration of marriage." As long as you host everyone's food and drinks properly at the dinner, you should have a great time! Congratulations!
Formerly martha1818
Some people might side eye you if you do wear it. Especially if it's at a restaurant where random strangers will say "Congrats on your wedding!" and you'll be like "Thanks it was a month ago!!"
You might want to prepare formal marriage announcements to mail out after your ceremony, but if you are mailing them from France, you will need to pay a lot of postage. You can always mail then when you get back to the USA.
Bride's Full Name
and
Groom's Full Name
announce their marriage
Date
Paris, France
If everybody knows about your plans, you aren't eloping either. It would be a private destination wedding. Eloping is when no one knows about your marriage plans.
I went to a celebration of marriage event once. He was in the Navy, he was getting deployed and they didn't want to wait, so she found a dress and basically eloped, only her parents were there as they were local.
Fast forward many months down the road, the grooms family wanted to have an event to celebrate with their family & friends. I loved seeing the bride in her dress, I thought she was beautiful. And to be honest, that's one of my favorite things is to see a bride in her dress. They did a few of the traditional reception things like toasts and I think they may have had a cake too. But they had made it known on the invite that this wasn't their "wedding" but a celebration of their marriage. At the time I didn't realize doing the cake part was probably a big no no, but as a guest who loves sweets, I liked having some cake to eat.
Elopements do not usually have formal white wedding dresses, either, though this is not a hard and fast rule. .