Surprise Wedding?

Has anyone here been to a suprise wedding? My partner and i have been together 11 years this month and have a 6 month old girl and we have been to 3 weddings in the last 6 months and have two more coming up early next year. So i have been thinking a bit about weddings..:D

So we live in nsw and all my family and most of my close friends are in victoria and my partners family are in nsw but 3 hours away and his dad in qld. So getting people to come to a suprise wedding would be a bit tricky.

We have been engaged for a long time but never had an engagement party but i know if we had one now with all family spread out and all our friends with their kidlets it would be a bit tricky and there would be people that wouldnt be able to make it and would be super disappointed if we got married and they weren't there.

Do you think if we told everyone we were going to elope and that were having a pre-wedding party then they might come? And if we made it fancy dress we could come as a bride and groom?

Suggestions/comments welcome......

I was going to post a thread about this exact topic!

DF and I have just got engaged and are planning on a surprise wedding. We'd actually decided on that before even getting engaged.

Originally we were thinking of having a celebrants marry us at DF's 30th in November next year, but then realised it would be tricky with having my friends attend who don't know DF that well. We've decided now to have it happen during our engagement party. We still have the issue that all my family is interstate, as are a lot of my friends, but we're fairly certain most will come especially if we're telling them that the wedding wouldn't be for another couple of years. We're also thinking about saying the wedding itself will be a small affair with just our parents and the engagement party will be the big celebration. We may have to tell a couple of people (like grandparents) to make sure they are there but I'm not too fussed with the people that I expect won't come.

A pre elopement party is a wonderful idea! Do you know how/when you will drop the bombshell that you're actually getting married?

Depending on how you feel about it, you could perhaps have your child Baptised/Christened or have a naming day (if you are into that) and have the Priest/Celebrant on hand to marry you at the same time that way it really is a surprise.

Or wait another 6 months and have the child's first birthday (inviting you family and friends of course) and have a celebrant rock up and marry you then.

Its not a surprise if you tell people you're eloping, and some people might not come to the party if thats the direction you go down.

HTH Nae x

We had friends that got married in a park right after a game of cricket at their 'engagement' party. There were people that were upset that they didn't go but really they wanted to get married and it was all about them???

Do whatever you want.

I've been to 2 and was involved in 1 and i didn't even know about it.
Both were setup as birthday parties for the bride.

The one i was in my aunty had asked me to pick a nice outfit for a 'dress-up' for her birthday, on the day i got there to help setup and she said come on we need to go get some stuff and we were rushed off to get her uncle who was wlaking her down the isle and then to my nans to get our hair done.. it was quite nice.

I am not sure how you would work the logistics of everyone in different states coming with it being a total surprise, without knowing it's a wedding your always going to have people who think it's another event they can't make this time due to distance or money.

Is there a reason you want it to be a surprise, why not just invite everyone to a 'casual wedding' ?

I wanted to do this at our engagement.

My SIL did elope surprise thing. They went on a family holiday and got married in qld then when they got back they held a huge 30th party for my BIL and half way through she went and put her weddin dress on and they played the wedding DVD.

People were ****ty they they didn't come I the announcement and said if we had of known etc but the couple felt well of you can't be bothered attending this important event what makes you think that you are special enough to come to a wedding. Which I think is true.
Hence the reason I wanted it at my engagement because that way people who really cared enough to come actually came.(we gave them 3 months notice of party)

In the end we didn't but we did only invite people who came to our engagement to our wedding. It was basically my condition of invite (unless they had super doppler good reason)


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We went to one years ago. It was set up as a surprise birthday party for the groom... it was going to be a surprise wedding for him too (!) but at the last minute his brothers decided he should know.

We were told about it because we lived away & had to organise babysitters & travel, but a lot of people who lived closer & didn't know didn't show. I think like Ness said it was kind of a case of, well you were invited, if you cared you would have come.
TBH I don't know if that's fair, I think it's pretty standard that most people would make more effort for a wedding than a birthday, being that a wedding is one time only and birthdays are every year.

I think setting it up as a pre-elopement party or an engagement party is a good idea, I think you would get a better turn up.

We had a surprise wedding. It was at our engagement party. We figured that if people weren't able to make the effort for the engagement party, then they probably wouldn't for the wedding either so we weren't worried about people not making it.

It was AWESOME! Nice and relaxed a nice surprise for most (although quite a few had an inkling) We told our families because we were the first on each side to get married and didn't want our parents to miss out on helping organise (mainly my mum).

Everyone loved it. It was so much easier to organise than a wedding too... no expectations from guests etc. It was also cheaper because everything was for an 'engagement party' rather than a wedding. Usually when busniesses hear the W word they triple their prices!

I was lucky that I got to surprise all of our guests again with a pregnancy announcement during my speech which was cool.

People always talk about how much they enjoyed it, even 3 years later. I think it's a fabulous idea!

I also agree that you'd need a 'big' event for it to be held at. A birthday party probably wouldn't get as much effort made by guests as an engagement party or christening etc.

Good luck with it!!

Niadalla - Can I ask how you pulled it off? When did you tell everyone what was actually happening? Also as far as the venue, did they have any issues with you holding a wedding instead of an engagement party

See, that's where you don't actually tell the venue that it's a wedding. Why do they need to know?

What I did was,, keep it a secret until I walked down the aisle ;)

We had our wedding at a rowing club - they didn't care what we did at the place as long as it was clean when we handed the keys back. I got my own caterers in (because this rowing club is practically a hall with a kitchen). I had a self serve buffet ype meal with several different meats, salads, veggies, breads etc. We had finger food to start and the cake was dessert.

I told my immediate family (parents siblings) and DH's immediate family (parents siblings) and that was pretty much it. All of my invitations said engagement party, and I played on the words asking people to arrive by 5pm to be seated for meals. 5pm was when I was due to arrive. We got married by the lake with my celebrant. Noone knew what was going on until they were asked to step outside of the rowing club. It was fab :)

We had wedding cars, had our photos taken before the wedding, and had our cake made by my SIL's. It was just like a standard wedding in many ways and so different in many others.

A friend of mine had a surprise wedding in her backyard and it was one of the most special weddings I have been to.

They did it as thier engagement/ housewarming party even though they had been angaged a while and had the house a while they worded the invitation in a way that basically said they thought it was time they celebrated thie engagement and house with family and friends.

So my friend had her hair done for the day and make up but just wore some nice pants and a top to begin with, then at a certain time, she went and got changed as did her husband to be he then came out and they had another friend announce it, he stood at thier home made alter/ decorated monkey bars :) and then she came around the side and walked down the aisle to him.

She had even had her cousin whom she was really close to, become a celebrant to marry them.

Everyone was so pleased with the day, her mum and sister were beside themselves but so happy for her...

She just made sure her cake wasn't recognisable as a wedding cake just a nicely decorated cake that would suit an egagement party.

they also put poles up and placed chains from one to the other hanging jars with tea lights in them the effect was amazing when they were all lit up...

The invitations also had a peom which I helped her with thatw as worded in a way so that people knew to be there by a certain time.

The catering they had was great and it all just worked out really well.

Hope this helps.