We need help with our wedding  

My fiancee and I have finally picked a date to get married. We also have an idea how we want to do it. We have both been married before and don't want to deal with the headaches and finances that a big wedding will entail.

We will probably go to the Magistrate's office(courthouse) and get married with just us and our kids. We have 2 kids together and he has one with his ex.

I would love to include my family but I just don't think that would be fair to his family. All I have are my sister, her family and my mother, and my best friend (my other sister) and her family. He has 3 siblings, their families, both parents, his step father and 1 set of grandparents.

I feel bad not sharing our day with our families but we just want it to be simple and CHEAP. We live on one income and can't afford to do much and we don't have room for out of town family members to stay with us. We also live in a tourist area where all hotels, motels, etc are too expensive to ask anyone to stay in one with the way the economy is now a days. It's not likely that many would be able to come on the date we want anyway.

If the Magistrate's office has an opening, we have our date set and it will be on a Monday. He has already planned on taking a few days off for us to spend time together. We are doing things this way because we won't be able to take a honeymoon due to the children and finances. I'm okay with that.

We do, however, want to have a reception and include everyone. I mean everyone, including my Aunts, Uncles and cousins along with their families. I doubt they'll come because they are all out of town but I'd still like to invite them.

Our idea is to get married in the beginning of June and have our reception between our daughters birthdays. Their birthdays are June 9 and July 14. This may sound cheap but to save money and to help all our out of state guests with only having to make one trip, we want to combine our reception with our girls' birthday parties. We want to send out announcements for our wedding now and then send out reception/birthday party invitations right before the wedding.

Our problem is that we don't know how to word our announcements to let people know that we are getting married without them thinking they need to be there. We also don't know how to word the invitations to make it clear that they are invited to a wedding reception and 2 birthday parties.

We also don't know exactly how we want to do the party. Should we try to have it catered? Buffet? Bring a dish? Cook out?

How should we do the cakes? 1 wedding cake and 2 birthday cakes? 1 cake for all 3? 1 wedding cake and 1 birthday cake?

Should we include traditional wedding reception things such as a first dance, the garter toss, feeding each other the cake....etc.....? How can we make it about us and our kids?

We also have to remember that our girls will be 1 year and 3 years old. We want to make their birthday parties special too.

We would seriously appreciate any idea's anyone may have to help us make up our minds.

THANK YOU in advance.