Please HELP DESIGN Post-wedding announcement!

[zhuzhu]

Hi Ladies,

My DH and I got married privately via a civil ceremony last month. We did not have time to include any family or friends at the ceremony because it was a last minute decision, and we want to host reception later in the year when he is settled with moving here.

I need your help in designing a post-wedding announcement card given our situation. I hope to use one of our wedding picture to design a card and say something really nice so they don''t feel "cheated". Those will be the people we want to invite for the formal reception at a later date, so how would you advise me to write in the card? (we do not know when exactly the reception will be yet).

THANKS!!!!

 

[doodle]

hmm...that IS tricky!!! could you do it kind of like a save the date kind of thing? something like __ & __ got married! Reception invitation to follow? not literal wording there, just trying to work out a general concept in my head, heh. i''ll look around online and if i stumble on something, get back to ya. best of luck, and congratulations!

 

[doodle]

i''m baaack!

check out verseit.com under the weddings dropdown, then under announcements. they have a lot of options, but you''d have to go through them to find one that works for you. hope that helps!

 

[mercoledi]

Hiya, we eloped too, but we didn''t do the party later part. A friend eloped and sent out an announcement saying

We joyfully announce that (Bride''s name) and (Grooms name) were married in (place) on (date). Please join us in celebration, details to follow soon.

I have the exact working at home. It was a nice card in a pocket mailer with a few wedding pictures. In their case the groom was being sent overseas on short notice so the party still hasn''t happened, but you get the idea. If you would like their wording, let me know!

 

[mercoledi]

PS, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!

 

[mia1181]

I''ve been thinking about this too lately, since we are eloping in September and I think once we tell my FMIL, she will insist on throwing a party for us the next time we are home.

If she decides to do this before our announcements go out, I would like to try and add it the announcements.

Anyway, I haven''t exactly found the proper wording yet but I am thinking something along the lines of:

"We eloped!

Announcing the Marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Mia1181
9/10/08
San Francisco Ciy Hall

We can''t wait to celebrate with you! Details of our Marriage Celebration will be coming soon."

Okay, so I need more time to think of exactly how I want to put it....

If you can pin down the details of the party before sending out the announcements, it much easier because then you would word the announcement also as an invitation to a party. It just tricky if you haven''t because you want people to know there will still be a party.

 

[zhuzhu]

Thanks so much ladies! Yes please send me the words they use both for the situation of having versus not having reception later (frankly we have no clue if we really will or not).

Finally, do couples who elope get to receive gifts? Can we set upt registry? or is it a big no no?

 

[mercoledi]

So our no party version was:

We joyfully announce that
Mercoledi and DH
were married in a private ceremony
on Nov 3 2006
in (Place)

We had wanted to send pictures, but instead sent the the day of from the location so that they were post-marked with the wedding date and location. Ours were DIY; a pretty paper backed on sparkley cardstock with a cream card with the announcement on it.


We did have a little party and sent out separate email invites to that. We didn''t want gifts, so we didn''t register/ publish registry info. My friends I mentioned before did register somewhere, but it may have been a word-of-mouth thing since I only found out a few days ago (two years later). I''ll look up their wording at home tonight.

 

[bling addict]

Hi Zhu,
We eloped and didn''t tell anyone before hand. We sent announcements to close family and friends after we got back. On the front we had a photo from our wedding day, our names Bling and Mr Bling, married - date and location.
On the back we had this message:
"We are overjoyed to share the news that we were married on a beautiful day in Hawaii at sunset. You have shared in our lives through your friendship and love; please know that you were in our thoughts as we began our lives as husband and wife" underneath that message I had a handwritten note to the different people.

If you have already planned where you would hold the celebration you could write "We hope you will join us in celebrating our marriage....details"
or if don''t have the details but are planning a celebration/reception
you could say "We look forward to celebrating our marriage with you soon! Details to follow..." (pretty much what others have already suggested.
Congratulations!

 

[mia1181]

Oh, and I wanted to post these cute announcement wordings I saw on Indiebride. I thought they were cute.

Because you are friends, we wanted you to know -
we got married and we did it on the go!
Just a romantic notion, and a couple of kisses -
we are now Mr. & Mrs.!


And then there''s this quote from When Harry Met Sally:
"when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible"

 

[zhuzhu]

Those words are all very very cute and nice, thanks!

Bling addic how did you get your folding card made, and where can you buy envelope?

Thanks!

 

[zhuzhu]

CVS and Photoworks both have character limits on their card design, so annoying!

 

[Gypsy]

CONGRATS ZHU!!!!!

Um... where are OUR pics???

 

[bling addict]

Hi Zhu
I just bought DL Invitation size cards from a stationary store (they had quite a lot of colours to choose from) and they also sold envelopes that matched the DL Invitation size (in various colours matching or complimentary, I went with a white pearl colour). Here's an example
DL DL are those long rectangle shaped cards -- I think they are fairly common for invitations (not sure if the US uses different sizes to here in Australia), I then printed my photos with white borders and chopped the borders off (this left approx 1cm of card showing around 3 sides of the photo, and underneath was space for our names etc -- the photos would have fitted without the chopping of the borders but I preferred the look when there was card showing behind). Then I just had the main message, and the written note on the back of the card, so it was like a large postcard, rather than a greeting card style.

It might be easier if I attach I pic, I just took one, sorry it's not very good, but give you an idea.
ETA: I've seen websites in the US that will print the whole thing for you with photos and text etc (which is what I wanted to have done), but couldn't find any in Australia to do it, and was on a deadline so just had to make them myself.

 

[bling addict]

Back (included a handwritten note)

 

[zhuzhu]

That is really lovely. Thank You! Did you get married in Hawaii?

 

[bling addict]

Thanks Zhu. Yeah we got married in Hawaii, it was perfect for us

Congratulations on your marriage!

 

[mercoledi]

Ok, it took me forever to remember to post this:

Together with their parents
Mary Katherine O''Hara and Marcus Mitchell Fox
Are excited to announce their marriage
on the 30th of March two thousand and one
at the Paris hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada

We look forward to celebrating with you upon Marcus'' safe return from military duty



Obviously this won''t work for you verbatim, but you could change the last line to something more appropriate, or leave it out and add a card to the announcements going to people that you''d invite to the party that say "We look forward to celebrating with you; formal invitation to follow"

 

[lliang_chi]

Congrats on your marriage!

If you''re not sure about a reception yet, just send an announcement. The invitations will just show up later if you decide to have a party. Also, I''d put the "private ceremony" phrase since you''re worried about stepping on someone''s toes that they didn''t get to come.

 

[zhuzhu]

Just to update, I am working on a photo with added text as our announcement card. I just purchased 4.5 * 6.35 envelopes so the 4*6 photo itself will serve as our announcement! Thanks again everyone!!