Brides postponing for coronavirus, are you having secret ceremony before new date?

Why would you not tell anybody except parents? I'm a big fan of not lying to your guests. Likely they'll still want to come celebrate with you at your vow renewal and reception, but they should have the full picture when they're deciding how to spend their limited time and money.

We basically told everyone that we are "eloping" and having a formal ceremony and a reception later. We didnt feel the need to keep it a secret at all.

And it will be called a wedding. Not a vow renewal. Anyone who tries to call it a vow renewal can fight me... I'll be the girl in the wedding dress with an axe at my WEDDING.

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Partly the reason I wondered if keeping it quite was best was because of the worry that people may not want to attend because of them knowing we are already married. I know there are some that will come regardless because it is an excuse to party but I do know my family well enough to know some may not come because of this and it does bother me a bit. It has been a lot of thinking and adjusting as this all is happening so fast and not how I pictured this going. I am not trying to lie to anyone or deceive them. I also think it may make it feel more special to everyone thinking it is the first time. My mind is racing all over the place now so it is just hard to get it wrapped up with what is the right thing to do.

Also it being called a vow renewal as you suggest, Vicky, makes it feel worse and what I do not want to feel or others feel that on my wedding celebration with my family and friends. Hence the feeling to keeping it to myself.

I think that your friends and family would absolutely understand if you choose to get legally married before your new date. So many couples are having to change their plans due to the virus, and I don't think anyone would think twice if you opted to get legally married prior to your new formal wedding date. I would not keep it a secret, as nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets like this from people.

I think people would definitely understand you not wanting to wait to get married given the circumstance! You should be upfront with your guests though. Like just, why lie? People will understand.


So sorry you have had to deal with this and I hope you still get to have the wedding of your dreams!

We were very upfront about the fact that we plan to "elope" and also have the large wedding ceremony and reception. Everyone we talked to was still very happy and excited to come to our wedding in the fall.

If needed, we’re open to doing just that... keeping our wedding date and doing a tiny ceremony and then having a celebration with our guests at a later time. Although our current date is 10/10/20, I’ve still come up with a Plan B just in case this goes on for too long.

We are planning on doing the exact same thing. We’re still getting married on our original date (4.18) and will have our wedding ceremony & reception on October 17. I agree with you...this is our wedding celebration and not a vow renewal. We will be married less than a year and due to circumstances it is the first time we have a chance to celebrate with our family and friends. We’re not planning on making a formal announcement to anyone about basically eloping, but we’re not going to keep it a secret. If it comes up in conversation we’re going to share it and we have already told our wedding party, parents and closest friends.


I hope that you get to celebrate exactly how you envisioned!!

If we do delay our wedding (let's hope this is well over by the end of June) we will not get married ahead of time. We will just have a longer engagement, we have no pressing reason to get married also, unless one of us loses our job and needs insurance. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen though!!

I would be upfront with my guests. If they’re not wholeheartedly supporting us, I don’t want them present.

I don’t think that lying to and deceiving your friends and family is a great way to start off your marriage.

My wedding was supposed to be tomorrow but with everything going on, it was postponed till September. We are doing a small wedding and we let our family/friends know. My fiance's family is local so they will be there. My family lives in IL so we just told them. Honesty is always the best policy.

I completely sympathize with you and I hope your ceremony goes well.

Should we postpone, we're eloping. We'll send out elopement announcements with our new date, like a second save the date. And on our more formal invitation for the wedding, we're working it "a celebration of the wedding of" and pretty much doing the whole thing for family.

View Quoted Comment Lolll. I agree.

View Quoted Comment Would the ones who you feel wouldn’t come if they knew you were already married/eloped be even more upset to find you mislead them? Don’t take this the wrong way, but your logic seems a bit shortsighted as they may be more offended in being deceived. Phrasing it as a celebrating of marriage seems fine, run with that. I think people will understand and appreciate you taking your, your vendor’s and your guests’ health seriously by rescheduling. People will understand if you absolutely must get married, legally speaking, earlier. If they don’t, then you probably wouldn’t enjoy having them there celebrating your special day anyways. 😊

View Quoted Comment I like this attitude. We were forced to give up our wedding days...that shouldn't take our light away forever.

Like I said I was not thinking of this as a way to lie and be deceitful in a bad way. Just worried about a few things. A lot is going on, so hard to always think clearly. I also don't think if I were to not tell anyone that it would be that big of a lie that it would hurt all these people so much. I actually would not be hurt myself if someone I knew got married quietly and had their wedding later. However I can see immediate family and close friends may be sad to not know or be there for that first ceremony. For that reason we talked about it and will likely get married with our immediate family that is close. Unfortunately the rest of our immediate family are out of state. We will not officially announce it to everyone but if things come up in conversation then we will tell them. We do plan on telling the rest of our out of state immediate family and very close friends that are in the wedding party.

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Did you end up getting married?? I am in the same boat right now! Wedding date is June 20th, but the wedding is not happening because of COVID. I still want to get legally married on June 20, 2020 (super low key with only 1 or 2 witnesses) because that's the date my heart is set on to have as my anniversary to remember forever, but I also still want to have a wedding celebration later this year.

I too want to elope on my original date and not tell anyone. I don't even want my mother in law to know because she will tell the whole family. She can't be trusted. I guess the reason why I want to keep our elopement a secret is because I'm afraid of what people would think or say or maybe they won't want to come to our wedding or give us weddings gifts. Yes, I said wedding gifts, and anyone that has something nasty to say about it can go **** off. It's my wedding, and I still want to be showered be gifts - there is nothing wrong with wanting that as I am a traditional bride so this whole COVID thing is really messing up my plans.

I obviously will have to spill the beans eventually about us getting married on our original date, so I just need to figure out how I will address it and how I will word the new save the date/wedding invitation. I have been reading online that this type of wedding would then be called a "celebration of marriage."

Best of luck to you!!