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Wedding Woes
knottiee567a2d30104198a
member
coronavirus the guest no one invited
in Wedding Woes
so im supposed to be getting married on april 25th 2020. now that the lovely corona virus has appeared i have to face a decision. option 1 move the whole wedding to may 9th (directly after the 50 person suggestion ends) or option 2 get married on the 25th and have a reception/ vow renewal a few weeks later. ive seen a lot of posts about how this isnt correct etiquette and shame on any person who plans their wedding like that. i guess my question is what would you do? have basically two weddings or move the entire thing? thanks for helping the scared as heck bride!
Re: coronavirus the guest no one invited
We are looking to be more like Italy and at least two months behind China. China didn't close Disney World until the days before Lunar New Year. If that pattern holds then it's not prudent to hold a social gathering outside the nuclear home until Memorial Day weekend at the very earliest.
There is nothing wrong with a party later on, to celebrate your all's marriage. The reason those types of parties often get a side-eye is because one of the worst, most selfish things people sometimes want to do is lie to their guests by pretending that they are not already married.
It certainly doesn't sound like that would be the case for you all. But, like @ILoveBeachMusic mentioned, if you go the route of a celebration party, just make sure it is very clear to anyone invited that the two of you are already married.
I'm so sorry to be a little blunt, because I know how upsetting the situation is. But it does sound like you all would be trying to do too much "recreating" the wedding. It's not a second wedding. The day you get married is your wedding. Don't have an officiant for the party, that doesn't make sense. Don't have a "vow renewal". Nothing legal is happening that day and you all would have just said your vows a few weeks earlier, so they don't need to be renewed. However, I wouldn't see anything wrong with doing something similar. Perhaps a short speech to each other.
With all that said, is it a major etiquette faux pas to have a pseudo-ceremony as long as all the guests know it isn't real? No, I don't think so. If I were a guest, in my own mind I'd think it was a bit weird, but it wouldn't bother me either.
I know I've seen a few people disagree with me on this, but I also don't think there's anything wrong with wearing whatever you all were planning to wear for your wedding to a celebration party. If you have a gorgeous wedding dress you love, wear it for the ceremony! Then wear it again for the party! Get some mileage out of that beautiful garment!
If it isn't an option to postpone beyond July, I would plan to just get married on the original date (assuming your officiant is available) and throw a party to celebrate in the fall after you've moved. Well, if it were me personally, I would just postpone the whole thing and either get married in the fall or in 2021, but it sounds like there's a reason you want to be married by July.
It's poor etiquette to get married and pretend to get married in a fake ceremony later. The etiquette problem is lying to guests. A vow renewal within the first few years of marriage is quite strange, but not an etiquette problem. Still, people will understand a private ceremony now and a celebration party 6 months down the road.
If it's not absolutely mandatory that you get married before you move, and if you think you are really going to be bothered at not having the kind of wedding you've dreamed of and planned, I'd just move the whole thing to a later date. While there's nothing wrong with having the ceremony as planned and then a celebration later in the year, you won't be able to have a lot of that typical wedding stuff at that celebration, and it sounds like that's important to you. Not sure what you mean about your bridesmaids being "busy."
Get married now, have a celebration later.
Get married while you can.
You might still be able to have a celebration before your move in July, though nobody can guarantee when all this virus stuff will subside enough for us to be able to have big gatherings again. Regardless, I'm going to modify my original answer and say that given the circumstances, I think it's fine to have at least some of the typical wedding traditions (namely toasts, spotlight dances, and cake cutting) at this celebration. But I still don't think I'd recommend doing a vow renewal since you won't have been married that long by then.
I have zero intentions of seeing anyone other than my ILs and that's in two weeks once we can confirm that DH doesn't have it (he finally started working from home yesterday afternoon). I don't know what state you're in but if you don't have a mandatory 'stay home' yet it's coming.