Invitation to non consecutive bits of a wedding

Well yes, but I was giving you the chance to pretend you weren’t that rude.

Not really a surprise you didn’t take it I suppose….

To be honest I was implying that you probably don’t get many invitations full stop.

I would probably go to the ‘ceremony’ just to see what it is like. I did once go to a ‘ceremony’ which was held in a sort of glam camping place with tepees where the wedding party ( important people) had stayed the night before. The ceremony was held in the open, luckily it didn’t rain though was quite chilly, several guests had to wrap their tepee blankets round them. Very amusing (I don’t feel bad about laughing though I didn’t laugh openly at the time, it had no element of spirituality about it, it was basically a celebration of the bride’s self esteem) .

We had declined the invitation to the second part which involved some sort of outdoor feast, so we escaped unscathed.

Except it’s not generally understood as multiple people on this thread have said.

It’s also not necessarily generally meant! At least one person has posted about a couple who were most indignant at the empty chairs at the ceremony after this sort of invitation.

Depends on national/cultural traditions.
Also, if you're local it's not a big problem although even when it happened to me in my own city, I didn't go home, just hung around with friends for the middle part. I'm not particularly bothered about hanging around in a wedding guest dress.

All OP has to do is tell her friend, she only wants to go to x or y. There's no reason why it would break the friendship.

Well since I specifically said that no one I know has ever been rude enough to send this sort of invitation, that’s not much of a reach, is it?

And I’ve never mentioned my views to anyone in real life if that’s what you are implying. I’ve never had to - my friends are all decent people.

Same situation here! A old (but no longer especially close) friend is getting married in a couple of weeks, I’m invited to the whole day, but my OH of 12 years, who they know very well (!!) is only invited to the ceremony and evening and is expected to disappear somewhere, all dressed up, for several hours while I am at the meal. Our EBF 10 week old isn’t invited at all, so no idea where he’d be expected to go with no access to a boob for hours.

Ridiculous expectation, so we’ve unfortunately got a ‘prior commitment’ on that day.

What a farce. I wouldn't spend my time and money attending this.

It’s as generally understood as ‘carriages at midnight’ on an invitation meaning you don’t have to hire something horsedrawn to collect you.

I can only assume that the extreme touchiness about evening/second-tier wedding invitations on Mn comes from the same place as ‘the school run is full of cliques and exclusions’ — people who struggle with normal adult social interactions not being conducted under the ‘whole class parties’ rules for six year olds. Yes, you’re not considered as close to the B and G as the people with ‘full’ invitations. The group of parents in the playground are just talking to their friends.

I’m not enough of a doormat to show up if I ever did get that sort of invitation.

I doubt the issue comes up that often…

Then the invitation should be phrased like that.

If it take multiple pages of discussion as to what the invitation really means when it says ‘you are invited to the ceremony and the evening party’ with the meal greyed out to make it completely clear you aren’t invited to that bit, you (general, not @NotSoFar ) need to phrase your invitations better.

Or you know, not do this and just invite everyone to the whole wedding.

Partial invite, to the evening do and to to the bit which is traditionally public any way.

Completely valid with no spin required.

And it's still an invitation, not an expectation. Nobody is required to have an afternoon off somewhere if it doesn't suit them.

Does your birthday usually include a formal ceremony?

Which is why this is effectively an evening invitation, with the option of attending the ceremony if it suits.

"To rsvp you have to login to their wedding website and each of our names show (us and both our teen children). Next to each of our names is a tick box for each section we have been invited to and we have to tick the relevant boxes and submit by the deadline. No ambiguity at all over which parts you are invited to!"

It just gets worse! So thoughtless. I'll bet their website includes their registry too? I'm betting they're happy to accept gifts from all the second tier guests they don't want to feed just as much as their VIPs who will be getting some food. And a cash bar, far away from home. Utterly crass.

My partner and I are "eloping" with our two witnesses soon, and our witnesses are getting a champagne reception with canapés, a three course dinner and cake as a thank you from us for taking their time and making the effort to travel to and celebrate with us.

It actually baffles my how someone cant see how rude this would be

Our response was "let us know as early as possible if you decide not to come so we can give the space to someone who won't find the gap hard."

Have the wedding you can afford by all means. But remember the ceremony is the most important bit 'TO YOU' not necessarily your guests who don't fancy hanging around half the afternoon for the chance to stand around with a soggy sandwich later in the day.

However, you are not welcome to the reception, so go and occupy yourselves elsewhere.

This. I’m all for it’s your wedding do what you want but this set up is just…. Insulting? Just invite people you don’t want to pay for a meal to the evening.

It is exactly like inviting people to your birthday party, telling most people you don’t have the funds to feed them but come back later for cake and party games.

I’d decline the ceremony and go to the evening

I'd find this extremely rude. They should be having a much smaller wedding all round if this is the numbers situation. I've only seen it work once and that was because the guest embraced it.

It was a friend ended being invited to attend a ceremony and evening do at short notice although she couldn't be accommodated at the meal for various reasons including her dietary reqs with such sort notice. She found a place to eat that worked for her (she's a foodie so she was very happy with that) and luckily it was a city centre wedding and she agreed to come partly to see the city so she was happy to explore and likes an adventure. A less enthused guest may not have gone or may have been insulted with such an invite. I personally would find it rude!

We were invited to a ceremony only recently. We went but only because we'd already rsvpd to the save the date and there was no indication that they'd do this until it happened so not going after lots of chat would've seemed toys out of pram. They wanted a cathedral wedding and a bijou reception at which no one was properly fed (apparently!). It was a nice ceremony but I did find it cheeky!

I think whole "second tier" thing isn't offensive, but I just wouldn't go to a wedding of someone I didn't know well enough to be included in the whole thing, unless maybe the main reception was really, really small, like immediate family only. Or if it's really easy for me to get to.

I remember an old friend doing a very narcissistic "save the date" video where he showed a video of the very lavish proposal etc etc, then invited me to the evening only, which was located halfway across the country, in the middle of nowhere, when I was heavily pregnant, I couldn't drive and he also didn't invite my husband. It was an absolute no brainer to decline, but the groom got really huffy about it. "Poor effort UpTheLagan, poor effort". I don't see him anymore. Bit of a groomzilla!

Since then I've decided not to humour anyone when they're getting very ballsy and OTT about "MY BIG DAY". I'm married too. I didn't do any of that shite. Each to their own etc, but if someone does get like that, they need to be prepared for people not to come along and also for them to maybe not like that side of their personality

Absolutely. It is completely fine and always has been to add people at each stage and if the OP had posted about just being invited for the evening by a bride and groom (who she doesn’t know well as her friendship is with the parents), I would be saying that was fine.

I mean, I’d also be suggesting it was a courtesy invite and she shouldn’t go if she doesn’t want to but it wouldn’t be rude to do it that way.

What is rude is choosing to invite someone to the ceremony and then treating them as a ‘second tier’ guest. If you invite someone, whether due to pressure from your parents or because they are your BFF and you would never dream of getting married without their presence, they are your guest and should be treated equally.

It’s just the polite thing to do.

Yes, absolutely. I still hold that these are essentially an evening invitation, with the added info that you’re welcome at the ceremony too, if you like.

But some guest are the "second tier" because obviously friends of the groom's parents aren't as important to the couple as their parents, siblings, best friends are. To take offence at that doesn't make sense to me. If one of my friend's children ever invites me to their wedding I'd be surprised and touched they had me on the invite list at all. I'd then decide if what I was being invited to was something I wanted to attend. No need to be upset by any of it.

The issue here is the messiness of having a gap in the day. If OP had only been invited to the evening do then I don't think she would have posted.

And some people are quick to give offence if it gets them what they want (a lavish wedding on a limited budget). Like the bride and groom the OP is posting about.

You hadn’t said you did provide two tier hosting so my post wasn’t directed at your wedding - rather at your comment that ‘but budget’ is an excuse for not inviting guests to the meal in the OP’s situation.

If you had a 40 person wedding based on what you could afford and offered equal hospitality to everyone, even if that was a cup of tea and a home made sandwich in someone’s front room (no idea what hospitality you actually offered, obviously), that sounds like a lovely wedding and exactly the sort of wedding I’ve been saying people should have rather than 200, 500, 1000 person extravaganzas they can’t afford and can’t host properly.

You're jumping to a lot of conclusions there. I got married in the days before social media and only had 40 people. Parents, siblings and close friends. No aunts, uncles, cousins, colleagues or friends of parents. It was what we wanted. It's the choice of the couple getting married. Some people are very quick to take offence.