How to plan a vow renewal when you got married at the courthouse

I don't think you're wasting your money, but I don't see the point in not telling your guests that you're married. You can have the invitation say something like "Virginia and spouse were married in a private ceremony on x date. They invite you to join them in celebrating their marriage" and then list the details.

The feedback you got sounds deserved in this case. It's rude to deceive prospective guests, who have to spend their time and money to attend something they are being misled to believe is your wedding. The only reason to lie is because you know that at least some people might not prioritize a delayed celebration or anniversary party.

You're a wife, not a bride so pre-wedding parties etc. would not be appropriate. You can have music, dancing, a cake, music, walk anywhere you want and with whom and wear what you like, though I would not wear a full blown wedding gown personally. What you should not do is to continue to lie to your friends and family. A "wedding" is the occasion upon which you were married. Just tell the truth.

View Quoted Comment Also everything is just so damn expensive to do this when I’m already married. I should have just went with gut and did what we wanted too in the first place rather than let my mom bully me into a courthouse wedding. My brother and his wife made it work beautifully. They were already married at their wedding. Not a single guest knew. But I wouldn’t even know how to word the invites since it’s not a real wedding.

View Quoted Comment The more and more I think about this the more I just wish I did everything right the first time rather than let my mother bully me into the courthouse wedding. Maybe I’ll just say screw it and we take a European cruise instead

You don’t have to spend or host anything if you don’t want to or have other priorities at this point. With two children in the picture now that is how I would feel unless money was no object.


As for invitations you’d invite people to an anniversary party or celebration in honor of your marriage. A lot of people postponed parties two years ago. Just be honest.

It sounds like you are unsure of whether you want to spend the money to host a celebration now. If you want to, don’t feel guilty about it! For wording on the invitations, you could just say “Virginia and (spouse’s name) invite you to a celebration of marriage”. And you can do all the things typical of a wedding… wear the white dress, have a cake, have your dad walk you down the aisle… etc. etc. The one thing you can’t do is get back what you feel your mom robbed you of. You’ve repeated that you wish you had done a traditional wedding instead of going to the courthouse, but that’s not what happened, and you can’t change that. So if you’re trying to “rewrite history”, I think you will be very disappointed. In that case, I would do the cruise instead!

I think that there is a difference between a wedding and a ceremony. What you and your husband had was your ceremony where you took your vowels; this is for your wedding, which is your celebration of those vowels to be shared with the family and friends that want to take part and celebrate that love with you two. I think that if the two of you want to do so, then that's what you should do and leave the people with the negativity out of it. They will either to one of two things, get on board or get left behind.

You can do what you like, with the exception of lying to your guests about your actual marital status. If you want to do a celebration of marriage or renewal of vows, I don't see anything wrong with that. However, I would examine your priorities and why you want to do this before making any firm plans. Maybe you just want to go on that cruise instead!