Who here had a courthouse ceremony then a ceremony and reception a year after?

People have requested that I do a wedding as well but then others I feel like would be confused or annoyed simply because of differences in social norms. In my home country it is a requirement to get legally married and then have a symbolic ceremony. But here in America anything after is considered a vow renewal and I feel like it would be silly for me to have a vow renewal only after 1 year.

My friends did this. Half a year after their courthouse ceremony they did a reception only for family and friends

View Quoted Comment Amazing and may I ask how they dealt with it? How did they go about it? What did the ceremony look like, did they call it a wedding or vow renewal?

View Quoted Comment They didn’t call it a vow renewal. They called it wedding celebration. They didn’t do a ceremony it was only a reception and it felt like any other wedding reception except maybe a touch more casual

View Quoted Comment Awesome thanks for letting me know

We already sent out our invites for Sept this year and ours say “wedding.”


We plan on getting legally married in March or April (depending on appointment availability) before our official wedding day. I think vow renewals are for significant milestone years like 5 or 10 or after a couple go through difficult period and want to recommit themselves.

View Quoted Comment Yes but how long do you think your gap will be? My gap if I go through with this will be about 18 months

Do you think it would be wrong to celebrate it after my first year of marriage ?

We’re doing this, but the “big wedding” is almost 2 years after we legally got married. We’ve called it a “wedding celebration” on the invites; everyone invited knows we’re already married so there’s no confusion there. We’re redoing the entire ceremony (because that’s what we both want) and then having a reception, but i think even just a reception would be a lovely way to celebrate with your loved ones. Basically I wouldn’t worry too much - everyone will want a chance to celebrate you both, even if it’s not technically the same day you get legally married.

View Quoted Comment Awesome thank you. How did you explain this to guests? Were most people understanding as to why you waited 2 years?

View Quoted Comment I’ve heard mixed feelings about this? Some people think that calling it a wedding is deceitful and I haven’t announced it to everyone per se...but most of my close family knows

View Quoted Comment 5 or 6 month gap. Even if I had longer gap, I would still call it a wedding. Us doing the legalities at courthouse doesn’t have any special meaning to us. Doing all the wedding traditions and customs with our families does have symbolic meaning to us. That will be the day I feel “married.”


My FH says he the actually wedding doesn’t mean much to him. The most important part was deciding he wanted me as his life partner and me agreeing to marry him. Beyond that, everything else is immaterial. He doesn’t expect that anything will change or feel different after the wedding, but we’re still looking forward to the excitement of celebrating with our families.

View Quoted Comment You make me feel so much better thanks so much 💕💕

View Quoted Comment We are having a relatively “small” wedding (120 guests, like 70% are family members), and we just straight up told all of them that we needed to get legally married so we could live in the same country together. And that it would take us a while longer to sort the whole visa thing, PLUS save up and plan a wedding. It’s very hard for guests to argue when “real life” comes in to play like that. Everyone has been 100% supportive.


I imagine if you just say something similar, you’ll be fine. If you don’t want to disclose the specific reasons for why you need to get legally married now (which is totally valid), you could be more vague and say “We have made the choice to get married this spring as it’s important for both of us. We want a chance to celebrate with all y’all so we’re planning a wedding celebration for xx date. hope to see you there!”

You're already married, and congrats! I feel like having a celebration after the fact is the way to go here. Folks may not treat it like an actual wedding, and hopefully you can adjust your expectations for that.

View Quoted Comment This! It seems to me like this situation will depend largely on the couple (at the end of the day, it’s what you guys want!) and the couple’s family/friends/community. Will your community understand (hopefully yes!) that you guys are getting legally married before the more symbolic ceremony where you unite not only the couple, but also the families, friends, and communities?
If you guys are on board with each other, and if your community understands that sometimes “real life” happens and two people need to legally unite (before the big to-do) when they were already planning on uniting their lives anyway....so if your community understands that, then you are good!
Some people may choose to get caught up in “well, the event we are invited to isn’t technically their legal wedding ceremony,” but I hope that your community can see that sometimes it’s a two-phased approach to combining two lives!! Best of luck to you guys!!