Controversy over eloping

Most people now a days dont even attend the ceremony and only go to the reception. So for some thats not an issue. Now if your going by wedding edict then since you eloped then no you dont have partys showers or register for gifts because you technically didnt want anyone to know and went and did what u wanted to. We are about to be married and although family and friends will be there we chose to not have a shower or the bach parties and since we live together we didnt register for gifts. We are not expecting them however if received we will appreciate them. To help you with this i would say have a party not a reception. If u have it show your vow exchange on a screen and share a good meal and maybe some dancing. But dont do the traditional wedding ones no first or father daughter.. Just have fun . or wait till your 1 yr anniversary and have a vow renewal then a small reception. Cake a meal drinks.. If people want to give u a gift when they hear your married they will. But dont expect them and dont register for them.. Hopefully this helps you coming from a wedding planner.

View Quoted Comment I feel exactly as you do. We considered eloping for a minute but it was important to me to have both our family there. If we had eloped then that would have just been it. The important part of the day is the ceremony. The whole reason for the reception is the ceremony that your friends and family just witnessed. I also wouldn't go out of my way to attend a celebration of marriage like a wedding. I definitely wouldn't travel for one or take time off from work. Some people may think that's horrible but I only have so much time and money. I had to devl

Edit to add to previous comment: I had to decline my friend's celebration of marriage. We were already invited to an actual wedding around the same time and couldn't justify spending the time and money to travel to just a party.

Also, I love the hypocrisy that comes up whenever this topic comes up. If you want a private/intimate ceremony and somebody doesn't make the cut but you still want to invite them to the party to celebrate the event they weren't close enough to witness, then they get to decide if you're close enough to justify the costs and time it takes to attend. This goes both ways. Usually I see posted on here, well if someone isn't going to take the time to attend just because they weren't invited to the ceremony then I don't need them there. This outrage just seems so riddled with hypocrisy. How dare someone I didn't think was close enough to invite to the actual ceremony turn down an invitation to celebrate said event???

I'm looking at this from a different point of view. A lot of army couples get married through justice of the peace and then have a ceremony and receiption. Both of which is planned like any other wedding would be (atleast in my brothers case). They didn't have any parties just because they lived far away from everyone, but they did register and people did give them money at their reception which I think is totally fine.

Maybe your family doesnt feel like they were totally included in the ceremony part and is a little hurt? My venue is giving us the ceremony for free and we just need to find a officiant, which will be my cousin in law. So maybe you could still do something like that!