Invitation to non consecutive bits of a wedding

This. Exactly. You've been invited to the evening only with the option to go to the ceremony if you want. This is exactly the same as a church wedding where obviously anyone could go to the ceremony if they wanted, but you have to be invited to the paid for parts. Just go to either, or both.

This. No big deal.

I'd just go to the evening bit, I'm sure nobody will even notice you're not at the ceremony and they've probably just invited you to that bit as they felt it was the right thing to do but don't actually expect you to attend that bit.

If they do ask just say you got stuck in traffic/lost etc

You can pay £10 for early check in at Premier Inn. Do that and you have a place to lounge and redo your makeup.

Because no one else gets married 20 minutes from Leicester?

There's loads of lovely countryside and wedding venues of all types in Leicestershire for weddings of all sizes. Besides, the structure of the day doesn't sound like an Asian wedding to me tbh

It's a recent thing, it seems so rude to me but it's not meant that way. People are just making decisions based on finances usually and also a lot of wedding etiquette has gone out of the window.i think its much more honest to invite to the evening do and add a note to say ,if you'd like to come to see ceremony then please do feel you can rather than formal invitation and no meal.

I'd just go to the part I was most interested in - maybe the evening bit seeing as the ceremony isn't even the official wedding, but maybe the ceremony because I hate late nights.

Just go to one part. I'd probably pick the ceremony since it's the main thing really. Do you really need to go though? Are you a friend of the mother of the groom, or does the groom actually care about you personally as well? If the groom doesn't really care and you're just there because his mother invited you, I don't think you need to go at all.

I can't get my head around people being so bloody unreasonable when planning their weddings. Honestly, I would now follow up on your reply and say that having looked into the practicalities of it, it isn't going to be possible to make both parts of the wedding, so you will attend x part but will not be able to attend y part. Pick which bit you want to go to. Absolute joke.

I would decline the invitation. I’d happily go if it was local but it’s an awful lot of cost and effort for a ceremony and a disco.

We had the same sort for a wedding several hours away. We politely declined.

I agree. They are obviously trying to save money by having fewer people to the food bit, but the least you can do if people go to the effort and expense of attending your wedding, usually providing a nice gift, is to feed them! If you can't afford to, you should probably just have a smaller wedding.

Hmm a wedding meal for 12 people would be very small @TobyChestnut – for my wedding that would literally have been parents of B&G and their siblings - not even sibs' partners. So I think 50 is actually pretty small. My parents' friends? not really on a list for a small do.

If I were you I would go to one element. I hate evening dos with a passion (everyone's drunk, nowhere for you to sit, all the stuff looks very picked over and the B&G barely say hello) so for me it would be the ceremony then away home or even out for a nice meal then home. Saves on a hotel and you get to be in the pictures.

If you prefer a night of drink and dance and know that there will be others there you know well and can have a bevvy with then just go to the evening do.

I’d cancel the hotel rooms and just go for the ceremony then go home. Unless they’re friends who you’d usually do drinking and dancing with, in which case I’d go to the night do. Not both though, the gap is ridiculous!

If there's 100 others in the same situation, why don't you all go off to the pub together? Have your own party until the official party. It could happen naturally anyway as you leave the venue.

Check with the hotel if at least one of the rooms is available for early check in.

Otherwise take a change of clothes in the car and change in the loos.

Though personally I wouldn't bother with the evening do. It's so rude and inconsiderate to guests for hosts to pull this shit.

Although you’ve been friends for 40 years, it sounds like you (and the family) have been invited because you & the parent are friends. Weddings are expensive and I can understand limiting the wedding breakfast. But, for me, I don’t do the hanging around for hours. As other people have said, it can be hard to join in with a group that have been celebrating for hours. If it were me, I’d say that I’m so excited to see him married and that I’m looking forward to the ceremony but regretfully won’t be able to stay around for the evening do.

Sounds like the worst wedding I've ever been to, apart from it not being clear that the evening guests were expected to attend the ceremony then make themselves scarce for 7 hours before going to the venue (20 miles away) to join in for the evening.

None of the evening guests had gone to the ceremony and the bride was seething about it. They had apparently booked a large church which needed the evening guests to fill it out. The wedding breakfast overran by some distance and we had to wait in a corridor until they had finished. The groom came out at one point and gave us a bollocking for upsetting the bride. Once inside there was no additional seating for the evening guests so you couldn't join the day guests at their tables.

None of the evening guests stayed more than an hour. It was clear no thought had been given to what it would be like to attend for the evening guests. It would have been much better to have just gone to the ceremony where the bride needed the numbers and then left them to it.

In OP's shoes if there wasn't some other people going that you could fill the time in with, I'd go to the part that you would enjoy best and give your apologies for not attending the other part. I'd rather go to the ceremony and then head home but you might prefer arriving at check in time, getting ready and then going to the evening reception, bearing in mind that they rarely admit the evening guests on time.

In all there finery 🤣

Exactly this.
Nobody I know would have the audacity to do this. Bugger that for a game of soldiers.

I've been to weddings like this, there must be some people from the 100 in the same position who you'd like to go for a lovely meal with and catch up with, just have a parallel meal, but without speeches!

Also, the hotel might let you in earlier if you ask. It sounds like you are asking permission not to go to the ceremony. If that's the case, just own it, but it does turn a day out into an evening only, is that really better?

I’d skip the ceremony and just go to the evening do. Have a nice day and then get ready for the evening.

I wouldn't do this myself but I think it's ok to do. It's an invitation, you shouldn't have accepted if you didn't want to go. That's really daft.

You can surely find something to do in the gap time. You could go to a movie, go for a meal, do an escape room. Take a change of clothes and think of something.

If I turned down an invitation like that and the host was pissed off with me then I really wouldn't care. If they are the type of person to be pissed off with me then they aren't a proper friend.

It's not even your friend who is getting married it's their kid.