Post wedding reception?

Honestly if I was invited to any of the ones that weren't "real" I'd feel weird about it. My advice would be to just have one wedding and reception, and that's it. The other ones might come across like a consolation event. Not everyone needs to be invited, especially if you're keeping it small. Also, it's simpler for you!

No. You and your partner have a vision of a smaller wedding in TN and you should make peace with your guest list. No one should guilt you into an invitation to a whole other reception. Smaller weddings, microweddings, immediate family weddings, private weddings are all very common and perfectly acceptable. If someone wants to throw you a party and invite you two as the cute newleywed couple, then that is fine if you're available. But for you to plan two (2) extra receptions sounds mentally, temporally, and financially exhausting. I've only heard of friends doing so when their families live in multiple countries and it becomes a burden.

Honestly I would just have one wedding and for those that can make it great and for those who can't oh well. I wouldn't have three different events to try to please everyone.

My suggestion would be to ditch the two extra receptions. Host your destination wedding in Tennessee, and be done with it. My husband and I were in a very similar situation. I’m from one state (where my family still resides), he’s from another state (where he, along with all his family and friends are). To complicate things even more, I moved to a different state for college and ended up living there from the age of 18 on- so all my closest friends are in that third state. We couldn’t decide where to have our wedding, because no matter where we chose a huge portion of our guests would have to travel. After tons of stress and brainstorming, we finally decided to just have the destination wedding we truly wanted. We only invited parents, siblings and wedding party (and everyone’s significant other, of course ). Putting very strict parameters on who was invited prevented extended family and friends from having their feelings hurt that they didn’t get invited. Our parents also suggested the idea of having a reception when we got home, but that would have meant having at least two, if not three, receptions. So we ditched the idea of having a local reception. Who was invited to the wedding, was who was invited to the wedding. And that was it. It was such a relief. It worked out perfectly and we have zero regrets! (only wish we would’ve come to that conclusion earlier and saved ourselves a lot of stress lol)

I was thinking the same idea as LM. If people in the other two states want to host a celebration of your marriage, that could be a good way to get other family and friends an opportunity to see you as the newly married couple. This potentially could be gatherings in the afternoon with just finger foods. You could have video and photos available but don't do that as the central attraction (unless everyone wants to see those).

There’s no need to throw extra receptions. It’s perfectly fine to have a smaller ceremony, whether at home or a destination. Not everyone you know has to be invited. Even if you say you don’t want gifts, extra receptions come across as a gift grab.

View Quoted Comment I was worried about the optics as well. Hosting multiple receptions for people who were not invited to the ceremony can definitely come across as gift grabby.

Why not just do something in either IL or MI? They're so close it would be easier for the other family to travel and is local for half of the guests..