Post by ellipses84 on Nov 27, 2023 19:25:04 GMT -5
Also, that’s so exciting for you!
Our hometowns are far apart, but if we’d had a wedding in one of those, it would have been 200+ invitations and 120-150 people in attendance. With the destination wedding in Vegas, we probably invited 120 and had around 60 people attend, but could have cut that down to 40 if we kept it to immediate family/ best friends. None of my grandparents wanted to make the journey so that was sad, and we had some random friends who would come to Vegas for any reason and brought random dates.
My mom made things really difficult for us when we got engaged. We wanted to have a small ceremony with oat our parents and siblings, and then have a big party after. My mom made it very clear that she thought the idea was stupid and that she would not attend a party.
Anyway, we had a JP marry us at a nice restaurant with our parents and siblings, but no party. I have regrets about not having the party, but zero regrets about the small wedding at a restaurant. It was perfect for us (even with my mom’s sour puss in all of the photos).
Friends of ours did a scavenger hunt for family which ended on top of a mountain. I think they used an excuse about doing family photos so everyone was dressed nicely, but they surprised everyone with a wedding ceremony. H officiated, another friend did photography and they had ~10 guests, all immediate family.
I wanted to elope or do a planned very small ceremony with just our parents. We would have done something on the coast in Nova Scotia and it would have been amazing. Instead we had a big wedding and I didn’t love it.
We had about 30 friends/family fly out to Vegas with us. We were married by an Elvis impersonator at one of the chapels on the strip. We did host a dinner after and then had a backyard pig roast a few weeks later at home to celebrate with everyone else. That’s really the only part I wouldn’t do, but that’s because most of our extended family are dead and we have a lot less friends. Oh, also getting a divorce, but it’s been 17 years, so I’m still ok with how the beginning went.
We got married at Borough Hall with just two close friends (one as witness, one bagpiped us away, haha).
Then we hosted a dinner at a restaurant about a month later for some close friends - 16 people total. It was at Vinegar Hill House, might be an option to check out if you want to do a dinner. My criteria was outdoors for COVID safety and then my budget. They were delicious and did a wonderful job (they have a backyard).
None of our family is close, We traveled to take my immediate family to dinner and celebrate with them. For H’s family H and his parents wanted to do a bigger thing with friends and extended family, so that happened about 11 months after the elopement. We traveled to them, his parents paid for it, outdoor tent and dinner, drinks, dancing. It was delightful and the only thing I did was make the playlist and do the flowers (because I love doing them).
Using the little one room church we were married in did involve a cattle deal, but you probably wouldn’t have to worry about that lol
Go on...
So this church doesn’t have a congregation or anything, it’s an old homestead church and the local ranchers will hold, like, a Christmas Eve service (which we attended 3 days before we got married there). So they don’t really rent it out on the regular. But my FIL is pretty well-known in the town and was good friends with a long term resident who had a large ranch. Apparently he was selling a prize bull to the guy who was supposed to decide whether or not we’d be allowed to use the church and my FIL told his friend to tell the guy he’d only sell him the bull if he let us use the church 🤣 We did make a donation for them letting us use it. And the nearest rancher had to go light the boiler for us that morning so we’d have some heat lol
We got married in September for health insurance reasons. We just went to the court house in Brooklyn with a friend of my H who was free that day to be our witness. We were already engaged when we realized this was necessary and urgent.
We're still having the celebration we planned in the spring with about 20 people - ceremony and lunch at a really old hotel right in the Delaware River in PA. The plan is to host an after party for our local family and friends but I'm aiming for as low key as possible.
My first wedding was pretty big and I'd have been fine with a true elopement, but this is important for H. I'm making (knitting) my own dress for it, though, which I'm really excited about.
Post by basilosaurus on Nov 28, 2023 3:04:18 GMT -5
I kind of did 2. We'd planned a very small destination wedding that there was a good chance we might not make as we were on standby orders to move, unknown where, for many months. Then they said, um, you guys should probably be legally married, like, sooner the better, don't wait the 3 months.
So, just the 2 of us went to a courthouse in a very special location to us both. My parents and grandparents sent flowers and chapagne to our hotel, and we had a fabulous dinner. ETA that state didn't require an officiant or jop or any witnesses. You self witnessed, so it really was just us 2.
Then, we ended up making it to our destination wedding, fewer than 20 of us. It was some close family and a couple friends who were location to that location.
I'd do it very similarly if I ever found myself remarrying. I'm not a big wedding person anyway.
I moved to Brazil in March 2020 and we got married via the justice of peace. But because of COVID, we had to do it via zoom.
On the plus side, it meant our families could watch. But we got married in our bedroom, with our kids, and two friends (witnesses). Then my DH and I went out for a really nice dinner (the restaurants had just reopened at low capacity).
It was a very pandemic wedding. Lol. I just wish we had gotten some professional pictures later on.
Not elopement, but a last minute glitch prevented our friend who was slated to perform the ceremony from legally being able to do so.
We still went ahead with the small wedding/reception (one room chapel/a boat ride)...but 2 days prior we went to the county courthouse and got married in a conference room. I wore a boucle skirt suit (all the rage that year, lol) and ate lunch at a chain place near our house (we already lived together) afterwards. We told our wedding party what we were doing, but we did it just the 2 of us. We have 1 photograph from the hallway. I'd do it again.
Post by emilyinchile on Nov 28, 2023 8:29:00 GMT -5
I have no useful information, but I'm preemptively excited for you! I know marriage isn't the end all, be all, but still, the idea of you having a special "official" moment with your partner and daughter makes me happy
I did not but my bff and her H did. They had to make an appointment at Boston city hall and were allowed to bring a few people as witnesses. They then went out to eat after.
Her mom wound up throwing them a reception a few months later but that was her mom’s idea-they just got married and sent a few texts out to all of us 😄
We got married in September for health insurance reasons. We just went to the court house in Brooklyn with a friend of my H who was free that day to be our witness. We were already engaged when we realized this was necessary and urgent.
We're still having the celebration we planned in the spring with about 20 people - ceremony and lunch at a really old hotel right in the Delaware River in PA. The plan is to host an after party for our local family and friends but I'm aiming for as low key as possible.
My first wedding was pretty big and I'd have been fine with a true elopement, but this is important for H. I'm making (knitting) my own dress for it, though, which I'm really excited about.
Thankfully my company allows you to put domestic partners on health insurance, if not we would’ve gotten married many years ago! He had a plan through the ACA but the price increasingly went up and I think it was $800 by the time he got on mine :/
my sister eloped in her living room shortly after Trump won the election because they were scared that if they did not do it then, that it would become illegal. A friend married them and I watched on facetime. 6 months later they did a traditional wedding with the ceremony and everything.
I tried to get my now H to elope to Reno as we lived in Tahoe and I find something incredibly romantic about just getting married in a ceremony with only the person in your relationship present, however, he vetoed that, lol. We had a traditional wedding with 200 people.
My wedding was my third marriage 😝so I really didn’t want anything big. We had about 40 people at A Pretty Place Chapel on the SC/NC border. That was the only thing I cared about, that it was a beautiful location. Kinda wish we’d just paid for lunch after but H wanted a more traditional reception since it was his first wedding. I hadn’t wanted to get married again but after we had our daughter and bought a house he realized he really wanted to and since it wasn’t that important to me we did it. it’s a lot easier in my career to be married than not, especially with kids.
I had a traditional wedding, but if I get married again, I want to rent a villa by the sea for the weekend and just invite immediate family and very important friends.
DH asked me to marry him in Feb. In March, my sister’s 25 year marriage imploded. I did some cursory looking at what it would cost to marry locally, and it would have been impossible. Nothing was available until the following year.
DH abhors Las Vegas, both of us are rather introverted and think being the center of attention is like the 7th circle of hell, so we started looking out of the box.
We had a trip planned to South Africa for a safari. We had plans to spend 3 weeks there, with 10 days in the Maldives and several in Dubai on the way home. While we were on the safari, he started googling who could handle this in Cape Town, or last stop in SA and longest (a week). He got it set up, we invited the 3 other couples who were in our excursion vehicle each day, if they happened to be in Cape Town. Only one couple came, one couple was flying out that day, and the other was on another preplanned excursion. So it was just the 4 of us on a rock that jutted out into the Atlantic. The sun got to DH and he puked. We got married, then went for lunch at Codfather’s, in Cape Town. I emailed my sister and let her know, DH emailed his mom. The rest, we announced it on Facebook.
The day after, we went wine tasting, and the day after that left for the Maldives. We went back there for our 5 year anniversary a few years ago, only this time we got the overwater bungalows. .
I have no useful information, but I'm preemptively excited for you! I know marriage isn't the end all, be all, but still, the idea of you having a special "official" moment with your partner and daughter makes me happy
We got married over the summer in a last minute backyard ceremony. We got engaged in January, bought our new house together in May and tossed around the idea of getting married at town hall to make it official for the house. Then his sister and her family were back in the US for two weeks in July, staying at our house, so we decided to throw together a little wedding while all our family was around. We planned it in about 2.5 weeks, with invites via a group family text lol
It was just us, our kids, parents, siblings, and my grandmother. DH’s sister got ordained online. We hired a friend of a friend to capture some pictures. We told everyone it was Hawaiian Luau themed, so they all wore fun Hawaiian shirts and we ordered leis online to be shipped to us as our fun splurge. My dress was a sun dress from JC Penney. Wedding was at 9 am with a massive brunch spread after. (We had to do it early because one of DH’s sisters had plans later that day already. That’s how last minute it all was!) As the day went on, other friends popped by, we grilled more food, and all the kids played on a slip and slide in the back yard. It turned into an all day hangout, open house style.
For us, it was a super special, intimate, and casual day that felt perfect. It was a second wedding for both of us and it meant the kids got to be super involved in how we blended the family.
I'm also really happy for you! I had a big wedding but threw an elopement for a friend. It was just us and them at City Hall. She wore a nice dress and we took them out to dinner and got a nice little cake. I took the pictures and did her flowers. It was exactly what they wanted and very them!
Post by BlondeSpiders on Nov 28, 2023 14:01:38 GMT -5
We did a week in Maui and rented a house with my mom and his parents. We invited 9 people, and had a small ceremony at Old Lahaina Luau and then the reception was the luau. All together it probably cost as much as a regular wedding back home, but it was small and perfect for us. We didn't really want a big party atmosphere, so the luau as a reception was perfect. Unlimited mai tais, incredible food, and amazing entertainment!
Second wedding for both. TBH, he wanted a much larger wedding as his first was thrown together last minute. He has a large family; at least 40 people on his side alone. When I showed him the cost for a 70-80-person wedding in Seattle he decided smaller was fine.
If I ever get married again, I will elope. We had about 70 people at my first wedding. (I'm long divorced---coming up on 9 years now. Still have yet to find any good candidates for the next Mr. Sadle.)