"Emergency" Weddings

I would do a nice court house wedding with a nice dinner with immediate family and then still plan a big wedding for spring 2021.

My advice, is to go ahead and plan the emergency wedding instead of planning a wedding at a later date with the idea that you may or may not have to expedite it. I think that will make things a little easier and it will ensure he is around for it. Beyond that, I'd probably go ahead and get every thing booked as fast as possible, after deciding what you can afford of course. I can imagine a short notice wedding would have to be fairly inexpensive, because most of us don't just have that kind of money laying around. If it were me, I'd probably have a small backyard wedding. Approx 30-40 guests. Choose a non-meal time, so you don't have to spend so much on food...can just serve apps. Serve just beer & wine vs full bar, or have a dry wedding. Then find cheaper / up and coming vendors that are good, but not as established so they are more flexible. You can have a friend play music from a laptop instead of hiring a DJ. And don't stress over decor, minimal decor is just fine....because that doesn't seem to be the thing that guests care most about. Not having a wedding party, or having a really small one will help save a lot of expenses too. Also, you can forgo favors, programs, and things like that. And Ann's Bridal Bargains is the best place for affordable invitations...definitely recommend. Good Luck!

That's a tough one, and although I think you could throw something together quickly, it'd probably be a challenge. Would you be opposed to doing something like a small almost elopement ceremony soon, and a formal wedding (or at least reception) later?

If you think he may not have much time left I would just see if you can have a justice of the peace marry you where his grandfather is. And then later on plan a nice little reception or keep the plans to have a "wedding" in the spring of 2021. I wouldnt wait to long you want him to be ok enough to see you two getting married. And if he gets better, that's great! I haven't planned a wedding in a short amount of time so I'm not help there sorry! Good luck with everything, I really hope he feels better!

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Thanks for all the recommendations! Expenses are going to be a HUGE factor in trying to pull this off if need be.

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I was looking into small elopement packages! I think this might be the route we end up taking due to the nature of our situation and finances as well.

Fiance and I have had different circumstances that made us think of it. We said do a small courthouse wedding sign the legal papers and do a ceremony later without the papers would be the plan. I think taking a day to do a courthouse wedding and have dinner with the grandfather would be really sweet. If you have the dress already wear it, take photos.

I would just change the whole thing to a spring or summer 2020 wedding instead, you have plenty of time to plan.

My FMIL was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in the middle of planning our big November 9th wedding (most of which has already been paid for). FH is her baby and her only son. Once we found out the Chemo wasn't working in July we decided to get married on August 17th (with limited family knowing) so we could make sure she was able to be there (still holding out that she will be here in November too, just not a risk we were willing to take). So now we are planning a wedding in 5 weeks! First it was just supposed to be our parents and siblings at the courthouse but we were worried that it might be too difficult on her to be out and about for that long. We decided to do it in their back yard instead so that she would have easy access to everything she might need or want. That, unfortunately expanded the guest list a bit to a couple of aunts and uncles on her side as well as my grandma and her "fiance". Telling people no has pretty much fallen on me... long story short, with the exception of 1 of FMIL's sisters, none of her siblings have talked to her in 25-30 years (for reasons she wont discuss but we are pretty sure directly relate to FH's birth). 1 of her brothers came up a couple of weeks ago and the beans got spilt to him... woops, so now he is coming even though it was the first time FH or myself have met him. Then he went home and told his daughter, who then asked if she could come with her 2 young kids "if baby daddies couldn't take them". Ummmm NO! I put my foot down, I played the bad guy since no one in the family wanted to tell them no. Sorry, this is still OUR WEDDING, not your family reunion so you can clear your conscious about not talking to your sister for 30 years over something that had literally 0 effect on your life. Come up any other weekend, not this one. I have aunts and cousins that I see all the time who aren't invited and don't even know about it and there is no way I am making exceptions for these people and not people who actually care about us! We are still doing November no matter what and they are all invited to that. We are also still doing a ceremony and all since no one who isn't there will know we are already married. Which, we could face backlash for later, but I would hope the people who care about us would be understanding given the situation should they ever find out.

We got catering from a local resturant. FH and I wanted BBQ but FFIL felt that was too casual (mind you, we didn't want this to become a big thing) so he is getting Biaggi's Italian instead. We are getting a small cake from a bakery by mom's along with some miscellaneous pastries. I reached out to our photographer and they have agreed to let us use our "engagement shoot" that came with our package (and that we never used) to shoot the ceremony and do family pictures after for 3 hours, I am just waiting to hear back on who since it's peak wedding season and they are having some difficulty finding a photographer who isn't already booked. FMIL made me promise to save my dress for November so I've had to find another dress to wear. I have ordered sooooo many online but they are all cheap and see through and just weird so I am returning them. I finally found something last weekend at JC Penny - its simple but I didn't want to spend a lot and obviously we had to go off the rack. We are renting a bunch of stuff like tables, chairs, an arch to stand in front of, linens, a small guestbook table to do our unity ceremony on, a DJ set up with 2 wireless speakers and mic that we can hook our phones up to, etc. We bought good plastic table settings to reduce some of the cleanup and potential breakage. I've also had to kind of settle on whatever I can find on Amazon or in stores for decor since there is a time crunch. Luckily I already had 400 Sola flowers from November that I hadn't dyed yet that I will use to make a bouquet and some other decore and then just re-dye them for November after. I was a little sad I couldn't put our date on our cake server or champagne flutes (we plan on sticking with our November date to celebrate our anniversary) cause it would have looked odd using it on August lol.

It's definitely been a little hard to balance planning and completing everything for August, while still keeping up with everything that needs to be done for November (right now, Invites on my cricut which are friggin' time consuming), plus spending as much time as possible with FMIL while we still can, keeping up with all of the other commitments we have made over the year to friends and family, and remembering to make time for FH and I (we just went on our first date night since May last night!)

Its also been a little hard to not be able to share those "I can't believe we are getting married in 3 weeks!" moments with friends and family since noone knows. We are celebrating my grandmas birthday the on August 18th and since there will be family that doesn't know we are married yet, we can't (or at least really shouldn't) wear our rings... the day after our wedding!

It's all just been a little bitter sweet. I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to do this, I know a lot of people don't get that, but I am absolutely heartbroken that we have to. I'm terrified that it won't feel like a celebration (in August or November) because everyone will be trying to deal with what we are loosing and that our anniversary will always be more of a sad memory.

I say, if you have the opportunity to, do it! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or just need to talk and good luck with everything!

View Quoted Comment Kristin, thank you for sharing your wedding journey with me. I really appreciate your insight in regards to approaching delicate family situations. I'm keeping you and your family in my thoughts! Thank you a for also opening your PMs to me for questions and advice

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Oh, I also tried to schedule my HMUA trials for August 17th but was only able to get hair in... they will do my makeup too, it just wont be the same people doing it for November (Hair person was a family friend).

And I am here if you need anything, I know it sometimes feels like you don't have anyone to talk to these things about (guys just handle it differently). I hate knowing someone else is going through something so rough but its good to know we have someone there if we need help who has a first hand awareness of such a cruddy situation.

We are in a similar situation. We got engaged in April and we were planning on having our wedding in spring 2020. About a month after we got engaged, his mom was diagnosed with ALS. We wanted her to be as healthy as she could be for our wedding so we moved it to September of this year. We are having a small elopement on the beach followed by a reception at a winery and then a big party to celebrate next spring. What made planning the easiest is we decided to do our elopement on a Monday. It allowed us to be able to book our dream photographer and videographer on short notice. I’m not sure if you’re interested in doing something small now with a party later, but that seemed to be the best option for us!

My cousin was in a sort of similar situation to this a couple years ago. He and his fiancé had gotten engaged and were planning on having a traditional wedding but not for at least a year. His back had always given him trouble and he needed to get surgery but he couldn’t work a full time job that would provide insurance due to his back issues. They decided to elope at the court house with just their parents so he could be put on her insurance and get his surgery. A year later when his back had recovered more, they still had their whole traditional wedding as planned with all their family and friends.
Maybe something similar like this would be good in your situation? Like a small elopement with your closest family and then on your one year anniversary (or 2) maybe it could be more of a renewing of vows and traditional wedding like you had originally planned. That way you know for sure his grandfather will be at the small ceremony and then hopefully he can also attend the larger one later.

FH’s cousin had an emergency wedding. Literally in their grandparents backyard. Their grandfather had stage 4 lung cancer and only had days left. She already had the dress. They went and spoke to their pastor at their church who agreed to come to the house. It was only immediate family there, and each family member was responsible for a dish. Cake was from Walmart. Decorations were found and put together on the fly. Ultimately, it turned out really beautifully. She’s still happy with it after a few years because their grandfather was able to be there. (He passed away 2 days later)