Wedding ceremony and reception on different days?

No advice here but out of curiosity, why are you getting married on a different day than your reception?

It's weird to have them on different days. As a guest, I'd go to one or the other, not both.

Why can't you host the reception on Thursday??

If you are having people at your ceremony, you really should host them with a dinner afterwards, but I mean, they're your nearest and dearest so they'll totes understand.

View Quoted Comment Thursday June 28 would be our 5th year anniversary. Civil wedding just close immediate family. And then the reception on a Saturday June 30 because we want people to be able to attend and celebrate together.

View Quoted Comment I️ think we may do a lunch with the people who came to the ceremony but is it wrong or weird to have the reception on a different day with still the tradition like first dance and father daughter dances?

Why not just have a Thursday night reception? They are becoming more and more popular.

View Quoted Comment Well Thursday we would get married in the morning (civil wedding so basically 6 people can attend; And a possible lunch after) but because we feel like we’d still want to celebrate with all our extended family and friends Thursday would be inconvenient to many. But Saturday majority would be off

View Quoted Comment Just because of work for some people Thursday is inconvenient and then people still would have work Friday

You totes know that your anniversary totes starts from your wedding date no matter what day it's on? Right?

Dude, I don't even know when my dating anniversary is...

View Quoted Comment Ha ha yeah I know but it’ll still be more meaningful to us to get married on our actual anniversary

View Quoted Comment That's funny, my totally random wedding date that we pulled out of nowhere seems like the most special date in the world now...but that's awesome for you that yours will be so much more special!!!!!!

I think if you have a nice meal after your wedding on Thursday for those that are going with you, and you're honest with your guests fir the bigger celebration that you were married earlier in the week in a private ceremony, it's fine. A little odd not to just do everything the same day, but fine. I would not think doing a first dance and all that stuff was weird.

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I legit considered doing this and ended up realizing what a really tricky thing it is. For one, are you planning on inviting everyone to the ceremony and party? Or are you planning on doing a smaller ceremony and a larger party over the weekend? Are you planning on communicating this somehow to your guests? Many people will be hurt that they were not invited to the ceremony, OR they'll be hurt that they can't make both because its too much time off of work, too expensive to stay in a hotel, etc. Are you planning on wearing the same dress to both events? Get your hair and makeup done for both events? Are you taking whoever you invite to the ceremony out for dinner after or just making everyone wait until the party?

We started planning what you're thinking of doing but after about a month we decided that wedding planning is stressful enough, why would we want to make it harder? The day you choose to get married will be so meaningful on its own. You don't need to match your dating anniversary to make the date special.

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I can't wait to celebrate our "new" anniversary next year. It means a lot too us, and we still celebrate our dating anniversary (the dates are two months apart). We could have been married on our wedding anniversary but in the end are glad we picked a date with great weather instead. We'll be able to celebrate it in great weather for years to come.

View Quoted Comment We didn't even consider getting married on our dating anniversary. He proposed on our dating anniversary and when we sat down the next month to start discussing when we wanted to get married, we knew we wanted to spread the planning out over a little more than a year, but we certainly didn't want to wait 2 whole years.

We did agree that we still wanted to acknowledge our dating anniversary now that we're married. Nothing fancy, but just to make a point to spend that evening with each other (or day if it falls on a weekend). We binge-watched one of our favorite shows together this year.

Do what makes you happy. Take the small group of guests that comes to the ceremony out for lunch on Thursday. Have your reception on Saturday and do all of the things you’d do normally. It may not be “traditional” but sometimes traditions are meant to be broken. Besides, it still is your first dance as husband and wife. So enjoy your wedding however you want to.

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We only considered long after we planned for our wedding date. It was more of an afterthought. Since DH is Jewish, we had to get married on a Sunday. Didn't bother to look at our dating anniversary for that year and when we saw it was on a Sunday we just said "aw, shucks, we could've got married on our anniversary."

I'm glad we didn't. We just go out to dinner on our dating anniversary (we also got engaged on that date) but we intend to do something more special for wedding anniversaries.

You NEED to treat those who come to your wedding ceremony to something afterwards. This is your reception, which is to thank those who witnessed your ceremony.

Honestly, if I were invited to this on a Saturday, knowing you got married on the Thursday, I would see it as super gift grabby. These kind of receptions only really make sense to me if you get married away and want to do something at home or something like that. To do it just to have a certain date seems unnecessary to me. Either move everything to the Thursday or give up that date and get married the following weekend.

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Lololol agreed, we didn't even take our dating anniversary into consideration when deciding on our wedding date. Wedding anniversary will definitely trump dating anniversary though.

You need to do something for the people who attend your small civil ceremony, even it's just a nice quick lunch after.

FWIW, my sister got married on a Thursday and had a wonderful restaurant reception the same day. It ended around 9pm. Their nearest and dearest were able to attend both the ceremony and the reception.

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This is such a good point(s)! There really is a lot to take into consideration.

I understand that date has special meaning to you, but the logistics do seem like a major headache IMO.