Wedding invitation… who is being unreasonable?

Their wedding, their choice, your in-laws need to grow up. Sadly, age is no indication of maturity.

Quite. There's no need to have an additional evening do.
The best ones I've been to have just been ceremony and a nice lunch.

Splitting couples, tiered invites. Both are ridiculous.

plan a reception and a guest list that fits your budget. You don’t have to invite every person you know. You don’t need a fancy reception. It doesn’t have to be an all day affair. The key is to think about being a good host as you make your plans.

I think the fact that people have to travel to get there is the main issue and although I actually did split some couples up at our wedding I didn't for anyone who had to travel or would be sat alone.
We had a very small wedding (35 guests) therefore I asked a group of work ladies (very close friends to me and each other, we holiday together) if they minded coming together to the daytime. And they were all welcome to bring a partner/friend on the evening. This worked well as instead of just picking their other half's up they came in for a few hours and got a really lovely meal and band. Everyone seemed happy with this arrangement but I did discuss it with them first.

How could the wife not know who she invited to her wedding?

Venue isn't in a town.

And many towns near me are tiny and have nothing to 'explore'

It’s terribly poor form to not invite/split invites to married couples to a wedding.

However, FIL was rude to query it. I would just decline.

The bride and groom are free to invite whoever they want of course, but don’t then have a tantrum when you upset people and they decline.

My brothers were invited to the weddings of two siblings. These two were invited to all of my family weddings. However when they got married they chose to invite only my brothers, us mere sisters were not invited. I do understand about costs and numbers. Some years later the poor wife of one asked why we had not been at her wedding. I took it to mean because as a larger family we were all close and were all having fun together at another family event. She seemed genuinely surprised. I gave a vague non committal answer as I didn't want to say why as it might have seemed a slap in the face. I understand we are a big family but their wealth far exceeded ours.
I've deliberately kept this a bit vague as don't want to stir things if they are on here.

They should just have invited them all to the evening to save costs. Very rude to split up couples like that. Perhaps they were hoping for a bigger gift if one half of the couple was in attendance at the main event rather than just inviting the couples for the evening.

I assume that they were thinking it was fine because the wives could entertain each other as they weren't aware that OP had a prior invitation. At least they didn't phrase the invitation as giving them an opportunity to get away from their wives as is often the case with child free weddings.

I think it is rude to expect people to travel and only be invited to the evening while a partner goes all day. I would decline and I am sure dp would too. Couples should have the same invitation.

What I find a bit odd is asking the husband to the main event, and the wife to the evening part.

IMO, no celebration should be either hard or stressful. I can't get my head around the angst over weddings and Christmas, particularly when this leads to some unsurmountable family breach with offence being taken on all sides.

It's a celebration. A party. It's as hard or as stressful as you choose to make it.

This isn't to say there's anything wrong with this, but most B&Gs - most people in general - are neither seasoned nor particularly effective event planners. And it shows.

Excellent points, @WhereYouLeftIt

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' here, it's a matter of what does a wedding ceremony actually mean to you?

Increasingly, a wedding is seen as a big swanky expensive party with the chance to dress up and have photo opportunities galore. B&G want only their friends there because it's their day, nobody else's.

In the past, it was seen as a celebration of the start of a marriage, the legal joining of two people, the legal joining of two families (what did you think the "in law" part of 'mother in law meant, eh?) the continuation of those two families into the next generation, an opportunity for the family and close friends of the couple to gift items towards their married life (they'd be young and not have much, this was important back then). This is why Great-Auntie Edna that you never see and all the kids of all the adults were there because a wedding was an important family event. And as a celebration of marriage, all marriages were respected and the very notion that only one half of a marriage 'qualified' to be invited would have been unthinkable.

So for the couple marrying, it's their party and their inviting their friends (your partner and his dad). For your partner and his dad it's a celebration of a new marriage which is asking guests to disrespect their own marriage.

Hmm. Maybe there is a 'right' after all.

I agree, @victoriaspongesandwich
Weddings used to be a social occasion.
Now, all to often, they're a social media occasion.
Imagine inviting a relative and not their wife of many years!

I do think its a generation thing. Back in the day B&G would draw up the guest list first, then find a venue that could accommodate the number of guests at a price they could afford.

Now its the other way round, choose a swanky venue and don't give F* who comes or not 'cos its all about me!'

Weddings have ceased to be the family occasion I looked forward to and become more of a drama 😬

Looking at it from B&G perspective, they wanted to invite your DP and his dad because they know them well, but are constrained by numbers so what are they to do? Not invite them at all which risked causing offence? Tell them that they would have loved to have invited them but can't stretch to including their OHs ? Or do a split invite and let them, as the adults they are, decide how best to manage it? That side of things, managing the logistics of the invite, is your business not the B&G's.

The father approaching the B&G was very poor form as was your response in citing logistics which simply tells them you think they were being arseholes for issuing split invites. A simple, "so sorry, we'd loved to have been there but we are unable to attend that day" would have been sufficient.

A bit of adulting, good grace and consideration would have gone a long way here.

I agree with this.

I heard of this during Covid and could absolutely understand the reasoning behind it.

Whatever about my generation in their 50's I could well imagine the generation ahead of us thinking it is off.

I wouldn't dream of querying it.

I would simply decline.

My DH recently received a save the date addressed only to him, to our home. We are married with 2 children.
It’s one of his good friends’ wedding - I’ve spent a fair bit of time with the groom socially.
Not to sound too harsh (!) but bride is younger and very much a go all out for Instagram, would like to be an influencer type who uses all the vocabulary associated with that such as ‘dreamy’ / ‘vibes’ and made themselves a house Instagram account etc etc.. so very probable this will be an expensive wedding with how the photos will look in mind based on what’s already been posted.
He was told via WhatsApp it was only him invited to the day but they’d ‘love’ to have me on the evening.
We’re either going to just both attend the evening together and DH decline the day or both not go at all. Yes it is their day and decision and budgets do feature into a wedding but, I do think modern weddings get so bogged down in additional expenses that when you look back, weren’t really necessary and it’s lovely to share a wedding with a loved one by your side.

Valuing having a ‘exclusive and expensive’ wedding over family is a choice. I assume that bride and groom made a lasting impression on their family members - and not a good one.

I wouldnt do it myself, id either book a venue big enough or run off and do it small. But I'd never be offended by only 1 of us being invited. Plenty of reasons for this. If you've got a group of friends who you really want there, and you don't know or don't really know their partners, are you really expected to invite those partners before say aunties/uncles/cousins if you're stuck for space. Or if space dictates that you can have the aunties/uncles/cousins and friend group (excl partners), why shouldn't you? So assuming all the posters on here against it would actually just rather not be invited at all? Because the B&G can't just magic up more space for people they don't even know.

I agree, @YellowDaffodillie - this one is about the B&G actually being quite inconsiderate. However, I suspect it's more about gifts and social media for some couples. Don't invite the spouse, that's one less meal but the same gift.

You're assuming there's a nice little town to be explored for 6/7 hours (from the time she would have to drop her partner at the ceremony until the evening do starts, most likely around 7pm) and that there will be places open.

I live in the Lakes, we have lots of lovely wedding venues but many of the nearest towns/villages have a cafe, pub, touristy gift shop and post office at most so 7 hours is a lot of time to fill by yourself, especially after 5pm when everything is closed. I love going out to places by myself but if I'm doing something to kill time rather than out of choice then those hours start to drag, even more so when you know you can't just pop home and literally the only place you have to go is to sit in the car.

Additionally, who wants to get ready for a fancy event in a toilet at the venue because you weren't invited to the whole day and therefore have had to drive for hours first thing, wander around aimlessly for hours and then come and get ready in the loo without an opportunity to shower/freshen up in between?

Not only that but to add insult to injury unless they also pay out for a hotel room then since her partner is more likely to have had a drink throughout the day's proceedings, she can't even relax with a few glasses of wine through the evening as she will presumably have to be the one driving the two hours home.

Why should anyone have to majorly inconvenience themselves because a couple decided that they weren't going to invite married couples to a wedding as a single social unit?

I'm a bit confused by the Save the Date card. If it's not a formal invitation, then you don't have to RSVP. Yet it seems to have all the detail of an actual invitation, and OP's family seems to be responding to it as an invitation. Does anyone know what the etiquette is?

I have voted YANBU because you are such an understanding and accommodating and tolerant person OP! However the situation itself is tricky, I can see both sides tbh. They shouldn’t be offended, because it’s the couple’s choice, but the couple need to understand people may not attend in these circumstances.