Explaining the celebration of marriage to guests

If you're ordering invitations from somewhere like Vistaprint or Zazzle, they have lots of templates that say "we tied the knot," or "Rachel and FH were married in a private ceremony in Tennessee on xyz date, please join us for a vow renewal and celebration..."

I think this happens frequently. I married two friends almost a year prior to their wedding celebration (they have kids and it was an insurance need). It wasn’t made a big deal, they did thank me at their wedding for legally marrying them. I don’t understand how people can get offended at this, my future MIL threw a hissy fit bc we won’t be making it legal at our wedding. We will be doing that at a later date when it makes sense to do so. She even said she’s not coming to the wedding at one point. So, you may be surprised at some comments but I don’t think what you are doing is at all uncommon or likely to upset anyone.

I already ordered the invites, and I put "you are invited to the celebration of marriage" of insert names. I was also thinking maybe a small not in each invite explaining this??

You don't really need to explain it. We eloped on 2/16/18 and then had the big wedding celebration with friends and family on 10/27/18. We didn't keep it a secret and no one asked us to explain why we did what we did. Everyone was just as excited to come to the big ceremony/vow renewal.

View Quoted Comment That's good to know. Thank you

My husband and I eloped last year before his deployment and we are planning the renewal/celebration for next year! Might be non traditional but it’s what we both want so who cares! It will fall on our two year wedding anniversary 😊

I think this is common enough. Just write something on the invitations like "A and B will be married at a private ceremony on (date, 2019). Please join them for a celebration of marriage on..."

I've been to several weddings like this and it was pretty self explanatory. Definitely don't keep the wedding a secret. I would be hurt if I felt like you were keeping something from me, but I definitely wasn't hurt that I wasn't invited to my husband's second cousin's private ceremony.

View Quoted Comment

We're doing the something, except on our 1 year anniversary this year. Everyone knows we're already married because we're a military family and we live together, so our invites will say "Vow Renewal Ceremony followed by a Cocktail Party Reception."

You don't have to explain it at all... You're having a small ceremony and now you are inviting everyone extended for a celebration of marriage. If they take offense to that, then they don't have to come celebrate. My cousin and his wife got married with his immediate mom/dad and siblings in his parent's house. His aunt (my mom) was slightly offended we weren't invited. To this date they never even had a celebration with everyone. It is what it is.