Hello,
I'm engaged as of yesterday and haven't told a soul yet. Mostly because we know we don't want the traditional wedding and both hate the centre of attention thing. So I'm trying to figure out the etiquette for what we'd like to do.
Neither of us really want speeches, first dances or a big ceremony. But equally we want our friends to still be able to celebrate with us in some way and not to feel excluded. We don't care about gifts etc and obviously wouldn't be expecting anything from them.
My idea is this - we want to go to Vegas for an intimate ceremony in the desert, just our parents and one friend each and their partners. We could make this into a week long or so trip and have the hen/stag as a classy guys/girls evening or afternoon out and then a mix of together time and free time.
Should we still invite others to the full vegas wedding even though we know 90% won't want to go or won't afford/justify the cost? We have no issue if some people did want to come and even if we ended up with a bigger group which I very much doubt then that would be okay as we are having a very chilled wedding and the price differences aren't all that much.
Or do we just only invite those I initially mentioned to vegas who would definitely come, and then send a separate invite of sorts for the at home celebration after? I don't want to offend anyone, and most of these people have invited me to their weddings and at least three were abroad as well so I'd feel bad if they felt they simply weren't invited. But equally don't want to put pressure on anyone or make them feel bad to say no, as a fair few have young families.
Or do I do some kind of hybrid invite saying we will be getting married in vegas on X date etc and would love for you to come however completely understand it's likely impractical and we would love for you to join us for a Vegas themed celebration after instead?
I'm not one of these girls who has planned their weddings their whole lives so really haven't a clue on how all of this works, I just know I want to be able to do my own thing, and my partner is the exact same. Funnily before I said what I wanted he came out and said Vegas too, so it's lovely we are so aligned on this! It was also our first holiday together years ago.
Any advice would be wonderful, thanks ladies! Can't wait to get all excited on the planning 😀