Invitation to non consecutive bits of a wedding

We wrote ceremony at 11 followed by dancing 7-11pm on the formal invitation in these cases. So deliberately no mention of reception or dinner.

They're clearly not worried about "busting" the friendship by sending you this ridiculous invitation. As PJ and Duncan said, just say no.

Go to the ceremony and then take yourself and family to a nice lunch then go home and wish your friend lots of happiness.

sone people just don’t have style - if you can’t afford to invite everybody to everything, then have fewer people to everything or more people to fewer ‘parts’. Does this make sense?

Another vote for there being absolutely nothing wrong with declining. You have been invited as a gesture to your friend who probably said 'we have been friends for forty years, she will be disappointed to not receive an invitation, so cannot possibly object if you say that you are delighted to hear their lovely news and are only sorry it won't be possible for you to be there.

The honour of your friendship fully satisfied.

When people really want you there, they put their guests comfort and safety foremost in the planning.

This isn't that.

That's a very inconsiderate way to include people in your wedding day. We had strict numbers due to the venue for mine so we prioritised family and then a few friends who had to travel from miles away (which included all family too as theyre from other side of country). Local friends then were invited to the evening party, as much as we wanted then there all day.

But we'd never have dreamed of inviting those far away friends just for one section as its such alot of travel and expense, and to split it across the day like your inviter is crazy!

V stupid. I'd just go to the evening if that.

yeah he's only invited her to please his mum: another good reason not to attend

Those saying it’s an insult blah blah. It’s not even her friend getting married. It’s her friends SON!! He’s only invited her to please his mum. He doesn’t care if she comes or not!! The absolute entitlement of people expecting a full days invite to a wedding of an acquaintance is astounding. Go or don’t go. He doesn’t care either way

I’d say you made good use of an otherwise wasted day! 🍻

If you can be more specific with the area I can give you some ideas about what to do.

tbh i don't see how you can complain now you have accepted. I would only have gone to the ceremony, tbh

Inviting people to the wedding ceremony and evening do only is super common around here - I had 120 for the meal and another 60 for ceremony/evening. I've also been a guest myself invited to ceremony/evening many times.

I just went to get food, looked around town if it was central, and then sat and read my book (or chatted to friends if there were others in the same situation). Sometimes I'd get changed in the hotel or public toilets and leave my dress in the car.

But tbh, in all these cases I don't think the bride and groom would really have noticed or cared if the evening only guests had gone or not. So if you want to decline either the ceremony or evening do, assuming you are giving good notice, I wouldnt expect it to upset anyone. But you know your friend of course.

It honestly wouldn't bother me. As friends of the parents an invite for their children’s wedding and the evening do would be fine with me. The actual ceremony is the most important part all the food and afterwards is just a lovely trimming. Weddings are costing ridiculous amounts so I can see why. When it comes to gifts, no one is obliged to take a gift costing a certain amount if anything at all.

Actually this is not your friends' wedding but their son's wedding. How kind of him and his bride to invite some of their parents friends. 50 people for the main meal is still a small wedding. The bride and groom have friends and family of their own I am sure they want to share the day.

It's nice they have decided to have a larger evening event which means their parents can invite some of their friends too.

If you don't want to attend the celebration of the wedding but just the evening do then do that.

I simply don't see it as a slight on you and your friendship that you haven't made their son and his bride's top 50. Do you really expect to?

It sounds to me that the groom and bride have potentially compromised here and that possibly your friends have asked that they can include their friends.

Personally I would go to both if it was a friend's son I had seen grow up and be honoured that I had made the extended guestlist when the coupke themselves only had 50 people for the wedding. There is plenty of time to undress into regular clothes and dress back up after.

Thanks for the mental image of people in floral dresses, hats and heels going for a walk along a canal to kill time 😁

Personally I would just go to the ceremony. The evening bit is always horrid for an evening only guest. You arrive when the day guests are relaxed, had a good few glasses of wine, there's usually nowhere to sit and it is always hard to get into the flow and conversation with day guests. You feel really awkward. And I'm a pretty social person.

That's why we didn't have any evening guests at ours. If you're good enough to attend friendship wise then you come for the whole thing.

If money is tight you have a smaller guest list.

I wouldn’t bother going. They will already be married so it’s a sham ceremony.

That's exactly what I was thinking of, not that they joined in with the shovelling of coal!

Yes I would do this. I'd just attend the party.

Anyway, the whole thing was a bit rubbish but because we were in bumfuck nowhere we’d arrange transport at 10pm to take us to the nearest town to stay the night, left and had a fab time in the hotel bar til the early hours.

I hate this! It happened to me once, very religious colleague invited 6 of us to the wedding but only 3 to the lunch then everyone to the evening do 8 hours later in a tiny little village that didn’t even have a pub or a garage or anything open! We got up at 6am to get a train to the bloody middle of nowhere so had no cars or anything. Even then we had to walk 3 miles to the church.

Problem was - the invitations weren’t clear about this. And the people not invited to everything didn’t realise and we never compared invites with the ones who weren’t.

So we accidentally gatecrashed the meal! They looked very surprised to see us Inhave to say, but as we’d already spend 3 hours kicking stones around in the village square, hot, tired and thirsty while they did photos we were too hungry to realise anything was amiss til much later when 2 of us did compare invites.

they squeezed us in. None of us had every heard of a wedding where you left guest abandoned in the middle of the day…

This ⬆️. Gift grab describes it. They don't want you to be at the reception, just the ceremony so it looks good, and evening do, cheaper per head, and in my experience are usually quite poor.

I have to say I'm not a fan of these types of weddings. It's like a tiered friendship system - weird!

Tbh, I don't like weddings where, even if you are invited for the whole thing, you have to hang around for a couple of hours while the bride/groom have photos taken.

I'd rather have fewer, closer friends than doing it this way. So I do agree with you, it's unreasonable especially given the long break and travel.

I would politely decline this invitation.

I honestly wouldn't go.
I only attend weddings where we've been invited to the whole thing. Life is too short!