Did anyone have a courthouse ceremony then have Big ceramony later?

Some people feel super strongly about this. I'm kind of "eh" about it. I will attend either way, so why not just tell me?

PS. I am only assuming that your guests won't know about the courthouse wedding. If they will know beforehand then my post is pointless!

ETA I just noticed she said guests won't know.

I think you should just tell them, friends and family will still be happy to come celebrate with you

Tell your guests you're already married.

I know someone who is going to the courthouse to get married and then having a celebration of that the next day (she unexpectedly got pregnant). But she said she's still going to have her destination wedding in September of next year. I'm not paying airfare and hotel to witness something that already took place.

I'm doing this. We got married August 13, 2015 at the courthouse and having a big Catholic wedding August 12, 2016 and reception afterwards. I see no problem with this. We all have our reasons for doing it and shouldn't be judged for what our reasons are. If it's just to get extra presents/money...that's just wrong.

I don't care one way or another. It's not like it's a requirement to sign your license in front of everyone so that they know it's real. The people who care about this won't come to your celebration anyway if they knew. So what's the point of telling so these people can judge and give you their unnecessary opinion.

I don't get the big deal and I personally wouldn't care if you called it a wedding. I'd be there. Just give me food and booze and I'm good

I just looked at the Knot link. This line made me laugh: "A civil wedding is every bit as real as a religious one", tell that to the Catholic Church! That is a pretty presumptuous generalized statement to make about religions in general IMO. Like I said, I am more in the camp of being clear to your guests that you were married before. But, I have friends that had civil ceremonies for various reasons and dream about getting married in the Church. I would totally support them wanting to do a more formal ceremony. It just would be weird if they acted like they weren't married in any way all that time before.

Lots of people do this and call it whatever the hell you want! My FBIL and his wife got eloped in disney world and then had a ceremony back home with friends and families. They did a whole "pretend ceremony." The route they took isn't something I would do, but it's the best day of your life so it would be fun to do it twice in two different ways!

Oh I should add everyone already knew about the elopement. I think that's something people should know, it is kind of a pointless detail, but some people's feelings might be hurt by it and it's better to hear it from you than through the grapevine.

You guys are WAY too negative! Give the girl a break! Let her call her special day whatever she wants! Bring your negativity elsewhere you party poopers!

I think if you want to do a celebration later, that's fine...but you should honest about what's going on. I don't believe it's healthy for your marriage to keep it a secret. You deserve to spend the beginning of your marriage acting like a married couple in public and being supported by your friends and family. It's not healthy to hide it. Hiding it makes it seem like you're ashamed, whether you mean for it to seem that way or not.

Your families will be much less hurt finding out that you're married now than if they find out much later on that your wedding wasn't your real wedding. My friend eloped and intended to keep her marriage a secret for an entire year. During this year, she and her husband were planning to get fake engaged and plan a fake wedding for their one year anniversary. That plan failed, and two months in, they had to have some very painful conversations with their families about their original plan to lie about their marriage because they found out they were expecting a baby. Their families got through it and all is good now, but imagine how much easier that conversation might have been if they had said "Hey family, we got married yesterday," as opposed to, "We got married and didn't tell you, we were planning to ease you into it and pretend to get engaged and married this whole next year, and we're only telling the truth now because you're going to be grandparents."

I don't see anything wrong with it if you advertise something a long the lines of "Celebrating Our Marriage" Some may attend, some may not.

I agree with pp. I considered doing the courthouse thing before the ceremony for health insurance reasons, but FH and I ultimately decided against it because it felt like cheating even though our reason is pretty understandable to most.

You are already married. A courthouse ceremony is a REAL ceremony and saying otherwise not only illegitimatizes your own marriage, but those of people who choose to only have a courthouse ceremony.

My FH and I are planning on getting our marriage certificate and having a judge authenticate it a few days before our wedding because our officiant isn't licensed by our state. We are still going to treat it like any other wedding. Signing a paper doesn't a wedding make. We still want vows and the whole schebang. This is just easier for our situation. Why should it matter when the license was signed? That isn't what people come to witness they come to see the ceremony and the vows they come to see you committing to another person. Why would it matter if they signed the papers then or later? I feel like a lot of the PPs are assuming a lot about the situation and being unnecessarily harsh. If you're going to be rude you probably shouldn't post at all. If people care about seeing the couple marry they will attend and celebrate regardless of if it was made legal in a courthouse a bit before. Just because she may choose that path doesn't mean they don't deserve a wedding day just like anyone else.

Honestly I think it's fine if you're honest about it to your guests. Here in Belgium it is very common because a church wedding doesn't count as a legal wedding. You need to get legally married at the town hall beforehand. This can be on the same day or on a different day.

I think it's fine so long as you tell your guests. I'd happily travel to witness someone's wedding, but if they've already been married several months and this was just a party to celebrate it, I'd probably save the airfare, rental car, hotel, and outfit money and just give you a nice gift instead. If I did pay all that to show up without knowing you were already married, I'd assume you were incredibly gift-grabby and probably take my check out of the card before dropping it in the card box.

@mrs.crae You do know that a courthouse wedding is not just signing papers, right? Because I didn't before WW and now I know it is an actual wedding ceremony, not just paperwork.

@FutureMrsMcCrae, I see that you don't think "signing papers" isnt getting married. Your guests might though, so I'd let them know what they're witnessing as a courtesy. Some might find out later and feel misled that they weren't actually witnessing your wedding.

Honesty is key. If you're honest about it, knock yourself out. But if you lie to your guests, then you don't get to dictate how they respond.

I agree with @GymRat. I've gone to two destination weddings for couples who were already secretly married. I (and the rest of my friend circle) were pissed at both couples when we found out we spent so much money ($1000 in one case) to witness a union that took place a year earlier. Also, @Nikki, the couple in your case had a legitimate reason for doing it. What's annoying to me is couples who just simply can't wait. They want the big wedding, but they're just too excited and can't wait to say I do (thinking of the bride who posted here a while back that she couldn't wait for her May wedding, so she eloped two months earlier just because and still planned to have her big formal wedding).

I understand that not everyone feels the way I do and that's fine, but there are a lot of people who do, so know your crowd.

This is what we did too. We wanted her friend to officiate and he would have had to come to our state to get licensed and he couldn't afford to come out twice, so we did the courthouse thing and are having our real wedding this summer. Everyone knows, NO ONE CARES, and we all live happily ever after.

And honestly, those who are freaking out about someone else's wedding decisions who you don't even know, she didn't ask for your advice, she just asked if anyone else was doing this. Plenty of posts are asking for your advice, post on those.

@Rabb you must be a newbie. This is the Internet. This is a message board. Guess what happens on a message board on the Internet: people respond however they like. They're not waiting for direction from you.