Reception-only wedding invitations
We are planning a small ceremony during the day with a limited number of guests. Later that evening, we will have a party/reception for everyone to come and celebrate whether they were at the ceremony or not. What is a polite way to word the invitations to the reception-only people so that they know that the ceremony was kept small so that no feelings are hurt? -Natty
We did our wedding the same way: relatively intimate ceremony and dinner, and then wide open “Bring your friends!” crazy dance reception. We invited these reception guests via an evite that read:
As many of you know, WE’RE FRICKING GETTING MARRIED! We’re trying really hard to keep the ceremony/dinner part of our wedding intimate….but it simply wouldn’t be a party WITHOUT YOU THERE so we sincerely hope you can join us for the post-ceremony dancing reception!
Please join us for a night of dancing, camping and freak-nasty wackiness under the trees of Bainbridge Island! Naturally, since we first fell in love at a rave, we have to throw a small (very small) rave-like thing to celebrate the wedding. So come dance with us.
You can read more about how we did this in the book, but in terms of invitation wording … I wouldn’t recommend doing it the way we did. Personally, I don’t think there’s any need to even mention the ceremony on the reception invitations.
Even if you’re just trying to be nice, there’s no need to talk about the part of the wedding they can’t attend when inviting them to the part that they can. “We love you but you can’t come to this part — but we still love you … no seriously!” It’s just rubbing salt into a wound that people didn’t even know they had. Rather, just focus your invitation wording on how excited you are to have them attend your reception, how awesome the event is going to be, etc etc. Most folks think ceremonies are boring anyway, so don’t let them in on the fact that yours is going to be awesome. Just invite them to the reception and leave it at that!
One very basic example would be something like this:
Jane and Joe invite you to join us at a reception celebrating our recent marriage. Please come get down with us at 7pm on Saturday, the 10th of October at the Bla bla bla Venue in Seattle, WA.
There are some who suggest including a small line at the bottom of the reception-only invitation that reads “A private wedding will precede the reception.” I guess that’s sort of what we did, just in a more casual/more wordy way.
I’ve been to numerous reception-only weddings, and never once did I feel like people were standing around gloating “What a LOVELY CEREMONY. Oh, you weren’t there? Sucks to be you, girlfriend. Tee hee!”
PS: Check out my wedding invitation wording ideas.
Comments
10 responses to this entryTracy
October 9th, 2008 · 1:32 PM · #thanks SO much for posting this!! we’re doing the semi-private ceremony/big reception combo and I was unsure of how to approach it on the invites.
and I feel the same way– I really don’t think people are going to be offended when I invite them to come eat, drink & dance with us but don’t invite them to a 15 minute ceremony. thanks again
Keola
October 9th, 2008 · 2:13 PM · #YES! my friends aren’t going to be able to attend the ceremnoy & wedding my parents are throwing for us in Hawaii so this is perfect!
Besides, our reception will be more fun. ROCKBAND!!
Ariel
October 9th, 2008 · 2:17 PM · #Yeah, I think that’s the real secret here: no matter how awesome and offbeat your ceremony may be, really the reception is always more fun.
Alli
October 10th, 2008 · 7:45 AM · #We ordered invites and used the “ceremony card” poriton as the reception card, and only ordered 25 “reception cards” — those were used to invite family and a few close friends to our intimate ceremony. Here’s what our reception card — which everyone received — read:
“Liz and Alli, together with their parents, invite you to celebrate their love and commitment at a reception following their ceremony. Join us for hors d’oeuvres, drinks, dessert and dancing.”
We did have some people ask why they couldn’t come to the ceremony, and basically had to tell everyone that was reception-only the real reason. We reserved a state beach and they only allow 50 people. Most people were happy to just come to the reception, as it was a five-hour party as opposed to a ten minute ceremony, and lots said it was the most fun wedding they’ve ever been to. Yay.
kim*
October 10th, 2008 · 10:54 AM · #this is awesome
Melissa
October 10th, 2008 · 11:58 AM · #This also works for the people who have destination weddings, with a reception back home. It’s similar to what I did:
____ & _____
Got married on (date) in (location)
We would like to invite you to a reception in celebration of our recent marriage… (details)
HeidiAphrodite
October 10th, 2008 · 2:15 PM · #In my religion, the wedding ceremony is traditionally attended by very few people as we consider it a sacred ordinance–only those who meet certain qualifications are eligible to attend, which leaves the vast majority of friends and family unable to join the couple for the ceremony itself. It is not uncommon for most invitations to be “reception only”. Where I live there is a large percentage of members of my faith, so it is generally assumed that ALL invitations are only for the reception. However, I’ve had friends in other places word their invitations something like this:
Jane Smith and John Doe are pleased to announce their marriage and happily invite you to a celebration held in honor of their union at
(place)
(time)
on (date)
Marriage solemnized in (location) on (date).
They also use insert cards to invite people to the actual ceremony so there is USUALLY very little confusion.
Samantha
October 12th, 2008 · 12:55 PM · #We had two seperate invitations and it was not really a big to do since we made them all on Office Word and then printed them at home. (they came out sweet). Anyway, the wedding time was at 1:00 and then one said 5:30 (the party).
The only people that had problems were the people who A)did not read the invitation to begin with and asked what time the wedding was. B) Pouted about not going to the wedding and then asked for all of the things she had ever lent to her back because she had no intentions of talking to me again. (As you can see, this one was a bit out of my control) and I think is the exception to the rule. She is a very immature 8 year old, I mean, 28 year old.
TinaBina
October 13th, 2008 · 11:36 AM · #We had a ceremony with only 20 people in attendence, but wanted a huge party afterwards that anyone could come to and help us celebrate. I ended up coming up with a poem to let people know we were doing a private ceremony with a very public reception. People thought it was cute and no one was too bent out of shape that they missed a very short, very intimate wedding.
Our wording was:
“We started our family, now we are tying the knot. We are having the ceremony in a tiny private spot. We hope you can still join us right after, for a dance some drinks and plenty of laughter!”
Annamaria
October 14th, 2008 · 8:30 PM · #TinaBina - can I steal that poem?!?!?!?!?! It’s FAN-TASTIC!
Although I may make a small change to the exact wording, but still I would love to steal this. Teehee