Weddingbee boards

My fiance is from the midwest  and has a lot of family and friends out there who won't be able to come to our Napa Valley ceremony and reception.  Then there's a set of friends and family who are coming to both.  We're thinking of having another reception out there but I don't know how to do the invitations and we also want to keep the Napa valley shindig small especially since we're paying for it ourselves.

Should I send three sets of invitations: Napa vally only, napa and an insert about the midwest ceremony, and midwest only reception?  Are people who are only invited to the midwest only reception going to be offended?

We have the same problem because I am from a very small town and we are getting married where I currently live (pretty far away). What we decided to do was to make one list but next to each person's name, we had a column for either wedding, second reception, or both. We learned that if people are invited to the wedding, they have no expectation of being invited to the second reception unless they were close family (i.e. our parents or a close cousin or uncle). For those that we were 50-50 on (wanted them to only come to one event for monetary reasons), we waited for their response to our wedding and if it was a no, we immediately sent them a second reception invitation (sent wedding invites to those people a little early). This worked out really well.

Some people were a little offended as we only invited them to the second reception and not the wedding, but we simply emphasized that we were having a small family wedding (little white lie since my family is large, but it is pretty much all family) and that the second reception was our way to celebrate with those we wished to share our joy with. This always ease their annoyance or offense. 

Obviously this increased our postage as we often sent two inviations to people, but we saved money by only having them at one event. It can be tricky but people will understand and just remember, it's your day so do whatever you want! Good Luck!     

We have the same problem because I am from a very small town and we are getting married where I currently live (pretty far away). What we decided to do was to make one list but next to each person's name, we had a column for either wedding, second reception, or both. We learned that if people are invited to the wedding, they have no expectation of being invited to the second reception unless they were close family (i.e. our parents or a close cousin or uncle). For those that we were 50-50 on (wanted them to only come to one event for monetary reasons), we waited for their response to our wedding and if it was a no, we immediately sent them a second reception invitation (sent wedding invites to those people a little early). This worked out really well.

Some people were a little offended as we only invited them to the second reception and not the wedding, but we simply emphasized that we were having a small family wedding (little white lie since my family is large, but it is pretty much all family) and that the second reception was our way to celebrate with those we wished to share our joy with. This always ease their annoyance or offense. 

Obviously this increased our postage as we often sent two inviations to people, but we saved money by only having them at one event. It can be tricky but people will understand and just remember, it's your day so do whatever you want! Good Luck!     

Sorry for two posts!