Elopement

Can you please clarify where you say "we hadn’t sent out invites but we did send out invitations"?

I would let people know the wedding is canceled by whatever means you have to used to contact them for previous wedding related stuff. We sent STDs by email, physical invites via snail mail, and updated all of our guests that we canceled our wedding by email, since we already had everyone's email contact. If you only have physical mailing addresses you may have to send out an official letter/notice in the mail to make sure everyone has been looped in.

We also put a Covid-19 section on our wedding website and updated it to reflect the cancelation.

View Quoted Comment Oh jeez. I meant save the dates! 😐 hahah
Yes I only have physical addresses. I guess I’m asking more about verbiage

It's completely fine to say due to circumstances (the global health crisis, pandemic, whatever verbiage you want here) and your desire to keep your loved ones safe, you have decided to cancel the wedding and reception originally planned and will be having a small ceremony instead, but anticipate having a party in the future to celebrate with everyone. No one is going to not get it, so if you speak from the heart whatever way you frame your announcement will be fine. I think emphasizing safety and the desire to celebrate together in the future are two points to make, and people will completely understand. Anyone who doesn't is just crazy!

You also aren't really obligated to tell anyone your plans other than that the wedding and reception originally planned have been canceled. When we decided to cancel we let people know that we were calling off the event due to safety reasons and did not yet have a plan to move forward but did hope we would be able to get married and celebrate with our guests in the future. You don't have to tell everyone ahead of time that you are going to elope if you don't want to.

Due to some personal circumstances we are having a 10-person minimony on our original date and then hoping to a sequel wedding and reception next year. We made the choice about 10 days out so have been throwing that together and have yet to make an announcement about it. We've told our immediate family members and those in the wedding (wedding party and officiants), as well as some friends, but haven't broadly communicated anything to our entire guest list. We will likely wait until after the minimony to send out something to our guest list and let everyone we plan to include in next year's event know the date for the rescheduled sequel wedding and reception.

When we made our decision to sort of elope, we had a verbal conversation with our parents. Asked them to inform their siblings/friends invited. We hoped that would get the word out to the majority. Then we sent short and simple texts, something just saying we're no longer throwing the big party because of COVID19 but still plan to get married on our wedding date. We also threw in something about possibly hosting a BBQ next summer if circumstances allow. No one really needs a long blurb! We also put it on our website.

A lot of stationary websites have added pages to their websites for "change of date/plan" announcements and they have template wording on them. Maybe you can look at those and see what parts you like of a few different templates and combine them?

View Quoted Comment I like this! I guess I was just struggling with the right words not so much concerned people wouldn’t understand. Thank you

View Quoted Comment Good idea! Love the idea of a BBQ

View Quoted Comment I didn’t know this. That’s a good idea too

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It's not fun doing all of this I'm sorry.

View Quoted Comment Its okay it’s almost a blessing in disguise seeing as an elopement was what I really wanted it is horrible that it happened this way though

I'm in the same boat. I feel like I might be the one of the only people who felt LESS anxious after the coronavirus/quarantine started. I didn't realize how anxious the idea of a big wedding was making me until it became clear that it might not happen and I started actually sleeping at night.
We wanted to keep things as light as possible, so we're sending save-the-date style magnets (also, Shutterfly gave us a credit for new ones because covid caused the date change) with a picture of us looking at each other with weird faces and the words, "let's try this again." and our new reception date.

We're also including a quick note that goes something like:
Hello!Based on the last piece of mail you received from us, you may have been expecting this envelope to contain a wedding invitation. In fact, that’s what we were planning to send around this time. Unfortunately, things have not exactly gone as planned over the last few months. We are still going to get married this year, but we don’t want you or anyone else we care about to get sick.Given the risks involved in having large groups of people together this summer, we have decided to postpone our wedding festivities to 2021.We look forward to celebrating with you next year, when it’s safer to gather in person. Love,A & J
As Kari said, people should be pretty understanding of anything you do given the circumstances. I think the most important thing is just to give your guests some kind of update, so they don't just think you decided not to invite them after all.

We did a paperless post flyer and then emailed and texted it to people. The language was something like "for the safety of our loved ones, we have decided to change or wedding plans". We're still getting married and will have it on zoom, but will have a vow renewal and reception that isn't yet scheduled next year, so it says "we hope that you will join us for the virtual ceremony and we will see you at our reception in 2021".

View Quoted Comment I’m so glad I’m not alone in this feeling.


That’s a good idea!

View Quoted Comment This is perfect thank you!