Wedding or Not?

Sounds good to me.

I think asking people to come to an anniversary party a year from now and then a wedding 5 yrs later is weird. Why not have the wedding you want now on a smaller scale? Cutting the guest list would help with that.

A courthouse wedding can be very lovely, and you can either choose to go privately or take your parents with you (or a slightly larger group, depending on the limit set by the courthouse) and celebrate by taking your inmate group out to dinner after. You could also hire an officiant and have an intimate ceremony and dinner at the location of your choice, and the much smaller guest list would help keep costs down, compared to a large wedding.

The anniversary party sounds like a lot of fun.

If you planned a big event in 5 or 10 years, keep in mind you'd be planning a vow renewal, not a wedding. Your wedding will be the day you legally get married, no matter where you do it and whether it's just you and your FS or not.

If you get married in a courthouse, congratulations, that's your wedding day. Celebrate it as such. Anything after that is a vow renewal. It's gratuitous to have a celebration a year later then 5 years later. Either wait and have the celebration you want, or get married quickly and have a 10 or 20 year anniversary party.

I would probably work within my means. I wouldn't do an anniversary party and then a wedding years later. Maybe cut your guest list, make use of your time before the wedding to save for the vendors you don't have and have an intimate ceremony/dinner or reception for your smaller guest list. You already have a few vendors your venue, photographer, planner. If your date is May 2019 that's plenty of time to save for food or whatever else you need in a smaller scale.

From a guest's perspective, I'd be confused about the purpose of the two after-events. Courthouse wedding is obviously very legit and totally up to you - what do you see the purpose of the two later celebrations being?

If finances are the issue, perhaps re-evaluate where you're at: can you do a smaller, more intimate ceremony and reception and keep the vendors you already have set up? Could you do a private courthouse wedding ceremony followed by a larger reception with everyone in a few months or a year?

Now that I'm thinking about it more, I've never heard of a 1 year anniversary party. That's something you see for huge milestone anniversaries, like a 25th or a 50th.

To be blunt, you cant have the best of both worlds. From personal experience so far, Eloping will sound SO GOOD at one point in every brides journey, but if you keep chugging ahead, you will find that the one big day to celebrate is worth it. If finances are the issue, maybe push back the date to save money during that time. DIY lots of decorations and find friends of friends to help be vendors like DJ's or cake bakers. Another suggestion would be to have a small formal ceremony with all the glitz and glamour, and then a large backyard get together with decorations etc. I wish you the best of luck, but if you're already married, people wont wait 5-10 years to celebrate with a "wedding" maybe a vows renewal?

I disagree with edecker, because for many couples, an elopement or a very small ceremony is the perfect plan. Ii wouldn't soldier through it all because "one big day to celebrate is worth it". Stressing over money and asking friends to work is never a good idea.

Do a nice little ceremony and party and then see how you feel about doing something bigger later on. You may find that you have different priorities when the time comes.

Thank u all for the correction lol, I meant vow renewal.

Eh, I'm not a fan of the marry now, reception later plans. Unless there is some major extenuating circumstance that calls you to marry quick (think military, illness or the like), I wouldn't be too interested in a party to celebrate an event I wasn't invited to in the first place. Now if you want to do an anniversary party that would be okay, but skip the wedding stuff because that ship will have already sailed.

A good friend of mine did this. She eloped and one year later she had a one-year anniversary party. It was nice. She had it in Charleston over Valentine's Day weekend. She wore a white dress but it wasn't bridal; her husband read a poem but there were no vows, no BP, no MOB... it was really an anniversary party

If your friends are real friends, they'll celebrate anything that makes you happy.

ETA: details

Can you plan a small intimate wedding with close family and friends? Keep the guest list under 50. You could have BBQ or Italian catering. It doesn't have to be big and grand but the additional parties will also cost money. Can you push the date out another year?

You might think that you will have your wedding 5 to 10 years down the road but you most likely won't just because theirs never going to be a good time to spend upwards of 20,000 dollars. You know what I mean? Also people probably won't be as generous when buying your gifts for your wedding 5 to 10 years down the road because they would already know you guys as being married for so long. It would just be kind of weird. I would just go ahead with your wedding on a smaller scale. I am on a super tight budget but I Have very expensive taste And don't want a barn wedding or anything like that. I want my wedding to be traditional and grand I am just doing a lot of research and cutting big costs where I can. Also doing a lot of things myself helps a lot.

What is an "all white party"? You can't tell your guests how to dress.

Okay this is a mess.

If you choose to have a small courthouse wedding that's wonderful. At one year, it would be nice to have an anniversary party but please don't dictate what other adults wear. At 5-10 years it would be nice to have a vow renewal or celebration of marriage but none of those parties are "weddings." The wedding is when you actually get married.

@kenyatta, you posted recently about your FH not being interested in planning a wedding but that cost was not an issue. You need to sit down and discuss with him what it is you both want before making plans. And everyone else is right, a courthouse ceremony is a wedding.

I think the three celebrations are a bit much. If you want to get married now, go smaller--courthouse is fine but have a small celebration. Or, wait and save up to do a bigger wedding a year from now. If I got multiple invites years after the event, I would be less enthusiastic unless it were someone very close. I probably wouldn't, for example, travel for a one year anniversary or 5 year vow renewal.

Is it about a marriage or about a party? If you can't afford what you "want" then maybe try to shift your focus off the party and onto the marriage that results from the day. Decide what you can afford and are willing to spend on the day you are married and try to change focus to a new vision for the day. Most people don't get to have everything they "want" at their wedding. You work with what your budget allows. I can tell you this with my first marriage I was more worried about a party than a marriage and the party didn't get me a happy marriage. This time, while we are planning a wedding, as this is his first, we both know that we'd be happy doing none of it and just being married which is what is the whole point of all of it.

Piggybacking off of @Kate, OP, you're wanting to keep the contracts with vendors to save money and have the 1 year party? That seems a little much, but I get the rationale. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how the 5-10 year vow renewal makes economic sense though? I would feel pretty weird attending one of those, especially if I'd already been to your 1 year celebration. The 1 year party is extra, but rational. The 5 year party is just extra.