If you’re postponing, are you legally getting married before your big reception?

Thank you!

We are marrying on original date and postponing the wedding. If people don’t want to come because we are already married that’s their priority. I’ll say my vows twice, wear my ring e-ring down and my band will be placed on my finger and we will be husband and wife .... again. It won’t take away from anything. How many people get to say they celebrated their “wedding” twice.

We got married on our original date in April and postponed our big wedding to October 2021. We had a five minute (literally) ceremony at my parents house with just our immediate family physically present and a bunch of people over Zoom. We told all of our guests in an email that we were postponing our wedding but still getting married on our date. People have been sending us gifts with cards that say “we can’t wait to celebrate with you next year” so as far as I know, people don’t care that we already got married. And as a guest, why wouldn’t I want to go to a big party with free food and booze! As for our ceremony next year, we will treat it as a vow renewal. I’m just telling our officiant, who wrote us a beautiful ceremony, to change it up to cater to a renewal. I think this will be just as special, especially because I didn’t wear my wedding dress in April so it’s still a secret and I’ll get that awesome reveal moment in it. AND I’ll get to spend the day getting ready with my bridesmaids, which I am SO excited for.

We getting married legally first and postponing the reception. Most family and friends are completely understanding and say they look are happy for us and look forward to celebrating together later on. So I think they feel happy we will celebrate at some point together instead of just canceling any celebration altogether.

I'm the unpopular opinion here. We haven't postponed our September wedding yet but if we do it'll be postponed until spring 2021, not a whole year. We won't be getting married just to get married on the original date either. I personally feel it takes away from the specialness of what the whole wedding way is and what I've always wanted. Do what makes you happy and feels right!

I'm someone who really thinks people should do what is best for them! I'm totally struggling though with the idea of getting married on our original date in July and having a later reception. I just don't know how I feel about the whole thing, but one thing I know for sure is I don't want to make the decision while I am in the process of getting everything re-planned and moved to the new date. Too much stress and heartbreak to make yet another decision!

I think you should look into your heart and decide what you really want for your big day! We decided to postpone our wedding, and had contemplated getting married on the original date then celebrating with family next year. But after doing some personal soul-searching, I realized I would not feel like the celebration next year would be as special if I were already married. It would no longer be a wedding, it would be a vow renewal. I really want to get married at my wedding with all our family and friends, and have the wedding we dreamed of. Unfortunately, I do feel people will be less likely to attend a vow renewal of a couple who is already married 😕 But, even just taking my own feelings and consideration, I truly felt as though it would be less special for us. It would almost feel like acting, which made me feel silly

We postponed and made the personal decision to wait until our new date (now August 2021) to get married. However, my brother and his wife got legally married ten months before their big wedding. Everyone was happy to celebrate with them and it was still an amazing day. They had a Catholic mass so to them, now they were married in "the eyes of the church" in addition to legally being married. They used cheaper wedding bands for their legal ceremony and then exchanged new ones at the big wedding. It worked out perfectly for them.

Honestly, I feel like most couples are opting to get married on their original date and then have their reception later during these times. For us, the consensus was, "We planned a big wedding because we wanted a big wedding, so let's just wait and have a big wedding." We're of course not thrilled about the postponement, but we already feel married in every other way, so we don't feel a need to rush it.

We are! We debating back and forth between just waiting a year or doing a small ceremony this year and bigger event next year, and then found out my mom was sick so made the decision to go ahead and get married on our original date - in just one week! We're still working out details, but we are using the outdoor ceremony site at our original venue, it will be just 10 people plus our photographer and our dog, my mom is likely going to do my bouquet and help me decorate the arbor, and then our ceremony will just be us doing our vows and exchanging rings, followed by a first dance, and possibly cake cutting and a champagne toast. No procession, no meal, no speeches. We are going to do a first look pre-ceremony, and then hope to get a lot of amazing photos with our photographer.

Next year we are planning a full wedding ceremony and reception, but I'm going to thing about ways to change the ceremony to make it a bit different and also not just feel like wedding theater. Maybe we will exchange gifts instead of rings, or read each others vows back to one another, or write each other a love note that we read instead. It will still feel a lot like a wedding, but we'll be married already. We've got a whole year to figure that out though!