Why We Had Two Weddings This Year (And Why It Was Right for Us)

We got married twice this year. Well, sort of.

Here's why two celebrations made more sense than one.

When people ask about our wedding, I have to clarify: which one?

We got married in May in an intimate ceremony with just our immediate family. Then in September, we had a big reception with everyone we love. Two separate celebrations, five months apart, both equally meaningful for completely different reasons.

This wasn't our original plan. But sometimes life gives you circumstances that require you to reimagine what important moments can look like.

The Plan That Changed Everything

We had been casually planning a wedding for sometime in fall 2025. There was a comfortable sense that we had plenty of time to figure out the details, to find the perfect venue, to make all the right decisions without pressure.

My mom had been living with frontotemporal dementia since her diagnosis in 2020. By early 2025, she was stable enough that planning for later in the year felt reasonable. We thought we had time.

Then in March, everything shifted. Her health began declining more rapidly than anyone anticipated. Suddenly our autumn wedding felt impossibly far away, and we were faced with a reality we'd been trying not to confront: she might not be there.

The Decision That Mattered

The choice to move our wedding to Memorial Day weekend, just two weeks away, was simple: we wanted my mom there. We wanted to celebrate our marriage while she could still be present for it, even if her dementia meant she might not fully understand what was happening. Everything else became secondary.

In one of those moments I'll always remember, my husband said, "One of our moms should be there." His own mother passed away when he was young, and hearing him advocate so sweetly for making sure mine could witness our beginning told me everything I needed to know about the man I was marrying.

Two Weeks to Plan a Wedding

Planning a wedding in fifteen days sounds impossible, but it's clarifying. When you don't have time for all the details wedding culture tells you matter, you quickly realize what actually does.

We focused on the essentials: marriage license, officiant, immediate family, a backyard ceremony, and my mom being there. That was it. That's what a wedding actually requires when you strip away everything else.

The ceremony was small, intimate, and exactly what we needed it to be. My mom was there. We said our vows surrounded by the people who raised us and shaped us. We became married in the truest sense, legally and emotionally.

It was perfect because it was real. No performance, no pressure, just love and commitment witnessed by the people who matter most.

Why the Reception Still Mattered

My mom passed away in June, just three weeks after our wedding. The grief was devastating, but I've never regretted our decision to move the ceremony up. She was there, and that matters more than I can articulate.

But we still wanted to celebrate with our extended family and friends. We still wanted the party, the dancing, the gathering of our full community. Those desires didn't disappear just because we'd already had the legal ceremony.

So we kept our original fall plans, transforming them into a wedding reception rather than a full wedding. September gave us space to celebrate our marriage with everyone we love, to have the big party we'd been planning, to mark this beginning even as we were still processing a profound ending.

The reception felt different knowing my mom wasn't there. Her absence was palpable in a way that made the celebration both joyful and bittersweet. But it was still meaningful, still worth doing, still important.

What Two Celebrations Taught Us

Having both an intimate ceremony and a larger reception showed us that weddings can hold multiple truths simultaneously:

Private and public both matter. The quiet commitment between two people and the public celebration with community serve different but equally important purposes.

Timing doesn't have to be traditional. Who says the ceremony and reception must happen on the same day? Separating them gave each event space to be fully what it needed to be.

Grief and joy can coexist. Our reception happened while we were actively grieving my mom's death. That made the celebration even more real, and more honest about what really matters.

What matters is what matters to you. Wedding culture has so many rules about what you're "supposed" to do, but the only thing that actually matters is honoring what's important to you and your partner in your specific circumstances.

The Gift of Two Perspectives

Looking back, I'm grateful we had both experiences. The May ceremony was raw and urgent and absolutely necessary. To us, it captured the reality of loving someone while knowing time is limited. The September reception was celebratory and communal and also necessary, as it honored our commitment to building community and sharing joy even in the midst of loss.

We were fortunate that we were able to have both weddings. If we'd only had one celebration, we would have missed something important. The intimate ceremony gave us the gift of my mom's presence. The reception gave us the gift of celebrating with everyone else we love.

Neither one was more "real" than the other. They were both our wedding, just in different ways, serving different needs, honoring different truths.

For Anyone Facing Similar Choices

If you're facing circumstances that make traditional wedding planning impossible or inappropriate, please know that you can reimagine what your celebration looks like. You can have the legal ceremony when timing demands it and the party later. You can prioritize what actually matters and let go of what doesn't.

Your wedding doesn't have to look like anyone else's. It only has to be true to what you and your partner want and need in your specific situation.

We had two weddings this year, and both were exactly right for us. Sometimes the best plans are the ones life forces you to create when the original timeline falls apart.

Have you had to reimagine parts of your wedding due to circumstances? I'd love to hear about how you made it work.