Wedding & Birth Announcement?

First of all, Congratulations! About the cards, I would wait to send out your marriage announcements until your daughter is born. That way you can send formal marriage announcements with the formal birth announcements together (as in two different cards in the same envelop). That way, your close friends and family will have by then heard that you were married, and I assume, will have long since known you were expecting a baby, when they receive the actual cards. I think thats perfect timing for getting the cards together in the mail, especially since its mainly for the sake of pouring over the pictures and tucking them into their scrapbooks. Speaking of pictures, that will give you time to choose nice wedding photos for the announcement since you are eloping. And since the reception is so casual, why don't you just tell people yourself? When they call to congratulate you on the baby/wedding announcements, just throw in something about wanting a reception to celebrate in the next months. Then if you feel like you need to, you can follow up by sending out invitations to the reception, because by then at least a few weeks will have elapsed.