LauraM85

My boyfriend and I are "eloping" this summer in Italy with only our family and a couple of our best friends. No one else knows we're getting married, we're not "engaged", we're trying to keep it as secret as possible (which is very hard!!). A month after we get home we are having a "celebration" reception for the rest of our families and friends. I'm starting to write out the envelopes for invitations and I'm not too sure what to do about my boyfriend's work friends and their girlfriends invitations. I asked him to get their names nonchalantly but he says just to put "and guest". I think if they're serious enough to bring then they should be named on the invitation too. He counters with, it's just a party, not a formal wedding so we don't need to be so formal. Help! It makes it even harder that we're trying to keep it a secret so we don't want anyone to get suspicious either.

Hello everyone! I've been consulting the forum for awhile now and need help choosing a dress. My boyfriend and I have decided to skip the whole "engagement" part and get married in Tuscany, Italy this upcoming summer while we're visiting his family. We've invited just our immediate families and our 3 best friends each. It's going to be a very simple symbolic ceremony in a park or on a hill side (TBD when we arrive) I was set on ordering a dress online for $100 and that would be that. Then I made the mistake of going to try on dresses with my best friend and now I'm unsure of what to do. I fell in love with a dress I tried on (no surprise) but it's a $1,100 dress. My Mom suggested wearing it long at the ceremony and then having it altered to a cocktail length for the AHR (we are having that a month after we return). An extra $1,000 on a dress isn't really in the budget but my Mom and best friend (she just got married this past summer) keep telling me that you only get married once and to go all out. I showed my boyfriend photos of OTHER dresses I had tried on that day and he said "I thought you were going to get something simple". I don't know what I should do. The downside to ordering online is not being able to try the dress on before you buy and the dress might not be exactly what the picture shows online. I've attached pictures. The short dress is the one online and the long dress is the one I tried on last week. If I bought the long dress, would it be appropriate to shorten it and wear it to the wedding party after?