Congratulations to you! How exciting. You are talking about a party 13-14 months away. I wouldn't worry about it yet. When you decide on the date, time, and location of your party, just send invitations out the usual few weeks before; don't send out "save the date" cards. Don't call it a wedding reception (six or seven months later is just too much for that, and anyway, you're having a small celebration in Las Vegas, not eloping) or an anniversary party (too early), just "a party" or "a Las Vegas cocktail party" or whatever. I wouldn't even mention the wedding on the invitation. You don't have to announce that the party is in celebration of your marriage, because they all know you got married anyway and will figure it out from the timing and the Las Vegas theme besides. So mentioning the wedding on the invitation might look like a prompt for gifts, as if to say, "We chose to have a destination wedding and not to include you, but we don't want to miss out on getting gifts, so after 17 years we are trying to have it both ways." I'm sure that's not really your purpose, but you don't want to spoil the feeling of your nice, fun party by creating that impression in even one guest. Just give "a" party -- everyone will understand why, and you won't look pushy or greedy.

Congratulations! I'm not sure what you mean by "unique verbiage." If what you mean is something clever and creative, you may want to consider that it might be counterproductive. After all, the real purpose of any invitation is to convey information that the guests really need about the event. In your case, you need to be especially clear, because you are having the reception a month after the wedding, and you don't want anyone to be confused. It's hard enough to word such an invitation for clarity without compounding it with attempts at clever or original language. You want your guests to be charmed, not annoyed by having to read the thing three times and then make a phone call to find out to what they are being invited. It's like a personal letter vs. a pre-printed greeting card, no matter how nice. They are going to be charmed by the fact that it is YOUR marriage, not by "unique verbiage." Miss Manners warns that people really get themselves into trouble trying to be too original or personal with invitation wording, and that it's best to let your happiness shine through the traditional forms. (In one response, she refers to her "fervent rejection of the 'originally' worded pseudo-formal announcement. It is vulgar, in its assumption that this wedding is somehow more joyous than others, and it is open to severe misunderstanding." Another time, I remember her writing something about an invitation that said something like, "Please join us as we celebrate our love." She said that it sounds like at best the couple are bragging that somehow their love is more important or unusual than anyone else's, and at worst that perhaps there is something wrong there, if they feel a need to make such a point of it. I think that may be a bit harsh, but at the same time I see her point about using traditional, or at least very simple, wording. I found a few samples on this site: http://www.invitationconsultants.com/sww-private_ceremony.asp. As you can guess, I prefer the ones that aren't poems. I like "verse 3" the best. You will need to put in the date of your reception, though. I would put the date, time, and location of your reception on separate lines, so they will pop out and no one will get confused by the first date (of the actual wedding). You may even want to avoid the word "reception," if you think that will confuse people. For the welcome baskets, of course it really doesn't matter. Personally, I don't usually like little poems and such -- they usually seem cutesy to me, and again, I wouldn't want to let an effort to make a cute poem get in the way of giving the guests the real information they need. Around here, friends often make up welcome bags with snacks for out of town guests, and the hosts include a letter welcoming everyone, thanking them for coming, and including all the information they will need for the trip: times and locations of all events, directions if needed, cell phone numbers of helpful people, etc. If it is only a few people (or really I guess the relevant number is baskets, not individuals), I think it would be really nice to put the info on a separate page and hand write a short, personal note for each basket. Wouldn't you feel special if you found that waiting for you? This is all just my opinion, of course. There is nothing "wrong" with cleverness or originality. But I think often people worry needlessly that if they stick to simplicity, clarity, and convention, their invitations, etc., will seem impersonal and "blah." They really don't -- YOUR NAMES on that invitation make it absolutely unique and wonderful to your guests. Nothing else you could write will accomplish that as much.

Thanks so much for all the responses! Here's my specific situation: I'm the bride-to-be. Fiance and I live on west coast, immediate family lives on east coast, extended family lives all over the country. In a perfect world, we would have a ceremony immediately followed by a reception with all of our close friends and relatives. The logistics of distance, young children, elderly parents, expense of travel, etc, are going to make this nearly impossible, so we've decided on what's really important to us. Fiance and I are thinking of a very small ceremony on the east coast with my parents, his mother, and our brothers, sisters and children. Maybe 20 people at the most. To us, these are the people we most want to share this occasion with, and it's more practical to have the ceremony take place where everyone else lives than to expect everyone to travel out west to our home. Then within a month or so of the wedding, when we're back home, we'd like to have a party with our close circle of friends, simply to mark the occasion and share our happiness with them. We wouldn't expect our east coast parents, brothers or sisters to attend, although they'd certainly be welcome to. I like the rituals of the reception (toast, dinner, dancing, cake, etc) but feel a little awkward having all the rituals at the west coast party without having had the actual wedding ceremony there. But a big party at our home sounds like fun, with perhaps the only wedding ritual a formal wedding cake baked by a friend who's an expert pastry chef. And perhaps some toasts by friends who have been asked ahead of time. In our case my soon-to-be-hubby & I would be hosting the west coast party. No family (except my teenage sons) would likely be attending, although all east coast relatives would certainly be invited. So it sounds like just throwing a regular party, with the general knowledge that we'd just gotten married, is the way to go. On the one hand I like the idea of having the party invitations omit references to the recent marriage because my preference is for no gifts. On the other hand, I feel it's awkward to throw a big party and include some of the reception rituals (well, the gorgeous cake anyway) without letting people know ahead of time that we're celebrating our wedding. A related question: since the wedding will be very small and won't include extended family, and since the extended family won't be invited to the west coast party (they don't live nearby), is it proper to send out wedding announcements to extended family? Alternatively, is it proper to not send out announcements to anyone not at the ceremony or the party, and assume that extended family will hear of our wedding by word of mouth, annual Christmas letters, etc?

One of my daughter's friends had done exactly something similar to what you are planning. Her wedding ceremony was on a dinner boat cruise on a river and included only the wedding party and immediate family (and spouses/significant others of the bridal party) during late morning through mid afternoon. Maybe 40 people max total. She wore a formal wedding gown and veil, but she and her sister (bridesmaid) wore jeweled flip flops for shoes! The groom and father of the bride were also attired in formal tuxedoes. But after that, everyone cut loose! Her reception was an outdoor, beach themed reception which included inviting a lot of other friends and extened family. I think there were about 100 people at that reception. Everyone changed into casual clothes - shorts, Hawaiian shirts, etc. and they had leis as favors. They had a casual BBQ dinner. I personally was invited to both events, and I recall that her inviation was in two parts. The main invitation stated something to the effect that "You are cordially invited to a reception following a private ceremony of the marriage between....blah, blah. Then, for the people who were invited to the private ceremony, there was a separate small card enclosed with the details of the ceremony on the boat. It was a a unique and fun wedding and reception!