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Expert Advice from wedding guru, Sharon Naylor

Sharon

Sharon Naylor

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 wedding planning books and a frequent guest expert on Get Married with Colin Cowie, Good Morning America, and other top shows. Recently featured in such magazines as Martha Stewart Wedding, InStyle Weddings, Brides, Modern Bride and Southern Bride, she is the iVillage Weddings expert and host of "Here Come the Moms" at Wedding Podcast Network.

She lives in Morristown NJ with her husband Joe, and loved using Wedding Mapper for her own April '08 wedding.

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Question_mark Question:

Hello Sharon,
My fiance and I are having a small destination wedding and plan to have a celebration with the ones that where either not invited or could not come to the destination for our wedding on our 1st year anniversary. We plan on inviting about 20 guests for our destination wedding and about 200 at our 1st year anniversary. Can we or should we send out a "We have decided to have an intimate wedding in Florida and upon our return we plan to celebrate with you on our first year anniversary" letter/announcement?

Answer:

Anytime you want to have a small, intimate, destination wedding, there are always going to be guests who feel left out -- even among all of those who understand the trend of destination weddings being small guest list events. It sounds to me like you're picking up on the possibility of people feeling left out, and you also know that it's now or never to let people know that you're planning a party for a year from now.
This makes me a little uncomfortable for you, since that year wait is a long time and there isn't a really well-known precedent for a year-delayed post destination wedding party. I worry that some of your guests would feel offended, surprised to be invited to a year-later party, and might even feel like this is a plan you came up with to get gifts a year from now (not that that's your motivation!! People can just be sensitive like that!)
Is it possible for you to have that post-destination wedding party closer to tthe time of your wedding? Many people will sense nothing wrong with getting an announcement now, saying that you invite them to a "celebration of your marriage" to take place on (date), "after our getaway wedding in Florida." Many guests completely understand, may be relieved not to have to pay for travel and lodging to attend (so are therefore not offended not to make the A-list for your destination wedding) and the closer post-reception date is still within their understanding.
That year-later date really worries me. I wouldn't want your good intentions of celebrating with family and friends to turn into any hurt feelings or rifts created by anyone who feels slighted or misinterprets that you're just planning a party to get cash and gifts later.
I know I don't know all of the reasons you decided to plan for a year later. So please do keep that in mind. If the issue is a deployment or a family crisis going on, then people will understand if your announcement says a celebration will take place a year from now. And if there is an extenuating circumstance, then sending a simple Save the Date card now makes this entire thing easy on you! It's never too early to send out a save the date, telling guests to save the date for your party.
Make sense?


Comments:

Comment From [email protected]:
Yes that makes sense. We have decided to extent our guest list for Florida and not have a home reception. That has been hard (to put the most important in there), but we were able to do so. Now we are thinking about when to send out invitations for our wedding. Would sending them out in Feb be to early for our destination wedding in Sept, and asking for response cards to be returned at the end of May be corret? Thank you again for your help.

Comment From slnaylor:
That's perfect timing. For a destination wedding, you want to give at least 12 weeks' notice with the invitations. But make that RSVP date sooner to give a little bit of urgency for people to respond right away. If you set it for early April, they are more likely to RSVP. Too much time and they may forget to RSVP...


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