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Could you get married on the 17th & then have a reception two days later for everyone else? If you don't want to get married two days later again? Plus so everyone knows the 17th is your wedding day not the 19th.
I have a friend that was officially married in January 2010, but didn't have a wedding and reception until March 2011. She considers her anniversary in January. I don't think it's weird! The reception part is really just the "celebration of marriage". I say go for it if it's really special.
I think it sounds like a good idea, but I would let everyone know they're coming to celebrate the marriage, not actually see it. I don't think it's a big deal (unless someone really, really wants to be there, then I could see that as a problem).
My opinion is that the day you get married is your wedding day, period. I'd just have the reception two days later and get married on the 17th instead of having a vow renewal (it's not a wedding if you're already married) on the 19th.
I think it depends- woud you tell your guests? Because if you want people to recognize the 17th as your anniversary, they'd need to know the situation. As a guest, I'd think it's weird to watch a ceremony when you just got married 2 days before for the date- maybe just have a reception celebration?
Hmm, this is a great question! Our anniversary is June 11th, he proposed in June and our original wedding date was June 2, 2012. Now we've changed it to February - what!? I wonder which anniversary we'll always celebrate, or both. I think you should just get married on the 19th and have a 3-day anniversary celebration every year! :)
We had a legal ceremony in July but aren't having our wedding until April. Our situation is a bit different as we only went to city hall and signed the papers so I could add my FI to my health insurance. We don't plan on celebrating that as our anniversary because we're not getting married for the legal benefits so it doesn't mean anything to us.
If you want your close family to be at a civil ceremony on the 17th that sounds like it would be difficult but if you're ok with some people missing by all means have a legal ceremony on the 17th. You can have another ceremony on the 19th that is totally personalized because there are no more legal requirements that need to be met or you can just have a reception.
The 17th will always be a special day for you even if it isn't your wedding anniversary. Having another day so close that is special to you gives you guys an excuse to celebrate for almost a whole week every year!
Still not really sure what I'm going to do, I guess I will have to discuss this with my fiance a little as it is more important to him to have it on the 17th. I don't understand why people keep saying just have a reception on the 19th, I am getting married at the Disneyland hotel, and have been dreaming of walking down the aisle there for almost 7 years. I want to walk down the aisle in my princess dress and have everyone I care for and love there to witness and be apart of it. Even if we do get "married" on the 17th, I'm going to pretend we're not married really until the 19th.
Another option is just having my wedding on the 17th and those who can be there will be there and those who are most important will be there, I just want things to be easy on my guests and want everyone to have a good time and be able to party at the reception.
@Alip22: Wouldn't it hurt your FI, though, to get married on a day that's important to him...only to pretend it didn't happen? By putting "married" in quotation marks, you've made it seem like the big "wedding" with all the frills is what matters to you most, not getting MARRIED (not "married") on the day that's important to your FI. And that's fine--just own it. If you want the whole pretty princess thing to be your wedding day instead of a civil ceremony, go for it, but be honest with your FI about it.
You asked for our opinions, so I'm not sure why you're upset about the answers you have received. They're all reasonable suggestions.
@Mrs Grape: Me and my FI have been together for seven years, I already consider ourselves married. He is my husband. The rest is just the piece of paper. Being married offically is important, and I would only pretend like it didn't happen, the 17th would always be our anniversary, but when I walk down the aisle yeah I want to feel like I'm not married yet. It's just an important day to me, something I have dreamed about for a long time now. My fiance understands me, and knows how I feel, I'm just trying to get other opinions and I by no means am upset about the responses or suggestions, I merely said I didn't understand why so many people said just have a reception, the ceremony is so short and exciting, I don't see the big deal in having two ceremonies. If we did get married at the courthouse two days prior to the wedding it would be private, just the two of us, and now I'm thinking that I would just keep it a secret so people could feel as if they were witnessing our marriage.
@Mrs Grape: Also the definition of wedding is as follows: The ceremony or celebration of a marriage. So it seems like you can have a wedding if you are already married. I wouldn't consider the 17th a wedding, it would merely be handling paperwork before out wedding. So yes techinically our marriage date would be the 17th, but the 19th would be our wedding date and we would most certainly celebrate both. :) Either way it's going to be a magical time for us, we are getting married and we are going to celebrate with everyone who loves and cares about us!
What if you had your wedding on whatever date was most convenient, but still considered the 17th as your anniversary considering how much meaning it has for you?
My anniversary with SO is in the Winter, but we'll likely have a Summer wedding. Because we've been together so long already, we'll likely still consider our anniversary day to be the Winter one because of how much we've already put into our relationship. I don't think we'll put too much emphasis on a significant date for the wedding since sometimes the date isn't really a convenient one - for example, your Wednesday anniversary...
Not sure if that could work for you?
@awagy86: We did almost precisely this, for essentially the same reason.
We're not even celebrating the day we signed the papers, because that's not the day we want to celebrate! We want our anniversary to be our celebration.
I am getting married at the courthouse several days before the church wedding. In my case, church weddings aren't recognized by the state so either we cram a civil wedding and church wedding into the same day, or do the civil wedding a couple days before. We consider the church wedding the REAL wedding, while the civil ceremony is mostly just official paperwork in our opinion.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck! :)
Hey guys! I just wanted to let you guys know we decided to just change the date to Oct 19th. That way we have even more days to celebrate and it's convinient for everyone to travel :)
It probably isn't the norm, but who cares? Do it your own way. People won't care whether or not you're married in the eyes of the law when they attend your ceremony and reception, especially when it would all be happening so close together!
How ironic - I want the civil cermony with JOP at City Hall; he and my family want the traditional service. Thank you MrsGrape for the "vow renewal" suggestion, as my father will be conducting the personal event and I don't want to confuse people. So then technically, our legal anniversary will be the Friday ceremony, and a "celebration of marriage" will be Sunday. But I agree with bigcitybee, Juliepants and awagy86 - I hope to celebrate all the days and have a weekend anniversary ;)
I know you already decided, but here (we live near a large AF base) people have a civil ceremony with close friends and family and will usually have the typical ceremony and the big reception. Then they usually celebrate on which ever date they prefer. You could just have the 17th ceremony with close friends and family and then do it all over again the 19th- like a wedding week!
i say get married on the 19 and have the 19th as your anniversary. But still continue to celebrate the 17th... That way its like you get a whole weekend as an anniversary.
I was originally upset that we missed the year that our anniversary fell on a saturday because of this. But now it just means we get 2 anniversaries. We've been together for almost 4 years and our dating anniversary is the same as the day we met so its always been important to us. We agreed that we are still going to continue celebrating on August 28th as well as our wedding anniversary which will (hopefully) be June 8th. I'm glad now i get another special day to share with my husband every year.
That way if we want to go away for our anniversary but can't do it in June... then we have August as a backup and it will still be important. Wedding anniversary will top it but August 28th will still be a very close second.
This is pretty common, specially on couples doing destination weddings (for legality reasons); but I think you have a very nice reason why to do your wedding before the reception, GO FOR IT!
Get married on Octover 17th (an intimate ceremony), then on the weekend do a vow renewal/symbolic ceremony for your guests. It will be as special as the real one on Oct. 17th.
I married my husband on July but got married on August. We decided that our wedding anniverary is in August because that was the most special day for us.
I hope this helps.
Alexandra
My wedding was/is kind of weird. I have a sick grandmother who I know will more than likely not make it to my September 2013 wedding. So, I got married March 7th 2012...we had a grand total of 11 people (this includes bride, groom, and priest). The whole thing was beautiful, and mostly for her. We wanted to keep our wedding date March 7th, because that has always been our anniversary. So we got married on a Weds, who cares! According to Victorian Tradition Wednesday is the best day of all! We plan on having a vow renewal and wedding reception September of 2013. I have a large portuguese family and everyone fully understands! If you want to keep your anniversary, then do it!
@Alip22: If the 17th means something to you, I say go for it. Do what makes you happy. You'll be using that date for anniversaries years to come, so make sure it's the one you want 
I super appreciate everyone's advice and thoughts! However we are set/locked in to the 19th and I acctually am glad :) More days to celebrate! We can have a weekaversary! What's more important than a day to me is everyone I love being there and it makes it so much easier if it is at least near a weekend :)
FI and I got married today...but our wedding is in August. Diff religion and culture though
@Alip22: First of all, congrats on your decision!! I might have a different perspective since I am getting married later than alot of other girls on here (im 32 now). When I was younger celebrating things like birthdays on the actual date was really important to me. But now parties for celebrations always end up being on the weekend, so if you get married on the 17th or 19th, your probably actually going to do stuff on the weekend closest to the date no matter what. Celebrating is always more difficult after a long work day!
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Me and my fiance are considering getting married officially at the courthouse 2 days before our wedding. Why? Our current anniversary is October 17th ....he also proposed to me on October 17th and so for obvious reasons the 17th is a special date to us and we would both love to get married on the 17th. However we are getting married in California (we're from Vegas) and a lot of people are going to have to travel to be at our wedding. The 17th falls on a Wednesday and with my sister in school (shes me MOH) and a lot of people with work schedules it would be really inconvenient! I want everyone to be there and have a great time, party is up at the reception but most people would have to take off work, travel and probably leave the reception early to drive back to Vegas or just get to bed early so they can be at work or on the road the next day. My cousin is getting married and she suggested (shes doing this herself) that we go to the courthouse and get married on the 17th so we can keep that as our anniversary, but have the wedding (ceremony and all) on the 19th (Friday) so that it is more convenient for our guests. It doesn't really bother me too much because the dates our so close together but I kind of imagined that I wouldn't be married really until the actual wedding.
I don't really know what to do, my fiance really wants to keep the 17th as our anniversary, its symbolic. I really don't care if our anniversary is the 19th. Maybe we could get married on the 19th at our wedding but just celebrate and consider our anniversary the 17th?
What do you guys think? I mean, it's only a two day difference and from what I hear lots of people do it. If I do decide to should we keep it a secret or tell people, and who? Thanks!