I'm SO excited to essentially be eloping (having a small ceremony with our immediate families) with my FH! It suits us so well to have an intimate ceremony and we can't wait. We've been together for many years before getting engaged and our plans to elope have not been a secret - friends and family generally know this. We do want to have some kind of low-key celebration to bring our friends and family together, and based on our honeymoon, timeline, and general feelings about having this kind of party, we'd really prefer to have it before the wedding. At our wedding we want to just relax and enjoy the day for us without "planning a party and seeing our friends/family" being in the back of our minds.
I have read a lot of forums that say that an engagement party is in bad taste, since basically no one there will be at the wedding. However, I'm hoping we can mitigate this by including it in our invite (something along the lines of "we're eloping, but want to celebrate with our friends and family first!" - side note, is it ok to say eloping in this context? Didn't realize all the small ceremony descriptions at first, but eloping I think makes it most clear that no one else except those who we specifically include ie immediate family will be there). Also we would include "please no gifts" or something along those lines too, we're not in it for the gifts! The party would basically be an outdoor bbq style with food, snacks, drinks, maybe a couple wedding-y games like the shoe game or something short and fun, but mainly informal and hanging out with our friends and family. We just got engaged so if we do have an "engagement" party we'd want it to be in the next couple months anyways, maybe a little more into the summer so weather is better for an outdoor event.
I don't want to have a bridal shower, although I know my mom really wants to do all of it for me, just because I feel like a shower is more about gifts anyways, and I think we can tie "shower fun things" into the engagement party (having a party with friends and family, some cute wedding games, etc.). If she's really set on it I thought we could always do a fun activity with the couple of girls who will be at the wedding: our moms and sisters. But again I really don't think we need it.
Second thought is I still want to do something fun with my girl friends to celebrate, something along the lines of a bachelorette, but it would just be like a fun girls night with my closest friends. Again, I wouldn't be expecting gifts or anything, and it would be pretty inexpensive - like if they all pay for their dinner out or something like that. It wouldn't be some massive getaway, and if any bigger expense were to come up (like needing an Airbnb for one night) I'll happily cover it. Is this kind of thing ok too? I'm not even sure if I should call it a bachelorette or just a girls night, but it is something I want to do with my friends as well.
Again, trying to make this not tacky and enjoyable for everyone, and make it super clear we don't want gifts or anything, we just want to spend time with our people 
We know our family is a little disappointed they aren't coming to the wedding, so we do want to have something to include them, plus for ourselves we do still want to get people together in a more informal way and keep our wedding more private. Please let me know your thoughts!!
