Surprise Wedding - Invite timing?

Just out of curiosity, why do you want a surprise wedding? I don’t think it’s a good idea for many reasons but maybe there’s something that I’m overlooking.

Either way, I would send the invitations like a real wedding, about 6 - 8 weeks in advance, with enough time to get and follow up on any RSVPs. It’s weird to send save the dates for an engagement party and doing so might give away the surprise

Yes save the dates aren’t needed. I would mention to the out of town guests your date so they could be planning for it already and send the invitations the normal time.

You know your guest best.

In all honest 6 to 8 weeks would not be enough time for my hubby and I to take off work. Also if it is a engagement part we probably would skip it so we could save time off work to go to the wedding. So you could end up missing a lot of out of town guest for this reason. Even a local friend I may not take off work for a engagement party. Unless we were super close.

I have a friend whose cousin did this surprise wedding thing. All I’ll say is that there are so many people still complaining about it 2yrs later. They said it was a 30th birthday party then got married at the party.

A lot of people said that had they known it was a wedding, they wouldn’t have missed it, and now they feel cheated.

I know for me, if I were traveling for wedding and I got an invite for an engagement party, I might think “I know I’ll have to travel for this wedding later in the year and I can’t really do this twice. So I’ll have to skip the engagement party to make sure I can go to the wedding...”

It’s 100% your day. Just keep in mind that a lot of people would skip an engagement party but really want to go to the wedding.

View Quoted Comment This. I would never go to an out-of-state engagement party. If I got an invite for that, I would assume that there would be a wedding to follow that I would be excited to go to. Because both would require travel, I would probably only travel to one, so I would hold off for what I presumed to be the main event. I would be incredibly upset to discover I miss the wedding Of someone very close to me.

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THIS! Rachel makes a good point.

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My bestie and cousin wants to do this for what will be her second marriage. When I asked her why she said it's because for her first wedding/ marriage there were too many chefs in the kitchen (so to speak) and it became about everyone else, and not them. She said for this she wants it to be what they want, how they want, when they want. She wants it to be about them getting married and nothing else. I think that is beautiful.

I do see how people would skip out on it and miss it thinking it's an engagement party, not a wedding.

I'm not really sure what to tell you in that regard, except to tell super important people ahead of time, and send invitations to everyone, including local 6-8 weeks ahead of time. If you're okay with missing some people, then go ahead and just do 6-8 weeks ahead of time like you suggested.

My only other idea is to tell people its to celebrate your marriage, like you already got married. You can have a short ceremony, or just elope. Totally get it if you don't want to do that.

Hello lovely!

I feel that I might be one of the few people truly excited for you in this endeavor! I’m actually a wedding venue director and am forgoing the big wedding for a SURPRISE WEDDING. We were going to do it on 4/27/19 and moved it to 5/4/19 to accommodate guests schedules.

Use Shutterfly’s engagement party invites and send them 6 weeks prior to the day with a 3 week prior to the date RSVP deadline. The formal engagement invites lay out all the necessary information without giving away anything and addresses the fact that they’ll need to dress up. We included a line at the bottom as to where we’re registerd and that donations to our “honeymoon fund” is always welcomed. Even though we’ll have already planned it and will have paid for most of it you’ll put the idea in peoples heads to go ahead and bring a gift to this event rather than the wedding they are expecting later on.

lso! Bed bath and beyond will print cards with your registry number on them for FREE to put in with the invites. Happy planning and please feel free to respond with any other questions. I’m here to help and share expertise!!