To no longer attend Wedding’s when only invited to the evening

If its local i wouldnt mind. If its a case of booking a hotel then no i wouldnt go either.

You see, I love a wedding! I love to see the bride and the bridal party, and witness the ceremony. I like the reception and the celebrations. Plus I love dressing up!
We're all different 😊

Depends. I quite like an evening do, it's a chance for a bop, you don't have to be sooo dressed up and can probably slope off fairly easily when you get bored. And it doesn't take up your entire day.

It doesn't happen in my culture, either. I think it's an English practice (not Irish or Scots, in my experience, correct me if I'm wrong)
I think weddings have become different for English people because the couple are often already living together, and sometimes have children. So it's not about a young couple starting out, or two families joining together.
That could be the reason for separate parts to a wedding.

An invitation isn't an expectation. If I receive an invitation and it's too far or inconvenient or whatever I can decline. I don't feel like I've had an obligation put on me. It's still nice to be asked.

If its local then I don't mind an evening only invite. Wouldn't bother with travelling/hotels for one though.

Yabu the party in the evening tends to be the best bit of a wedding

But neither can they expect people to spend a lot of money and travel a long way and probable pay for accommodation for a party

Free? You don't give a gift or cash? Cheeky 😉

I agree. I have been invited to one in a venue that is difficult to go to. They are basically just parties and I'm not a party person anyway.i would feel differently if I was going to the actual wedding

I love the evening part of a weddng - especially if it is CF and I can deposit my children with grandma and grandad for the evening.

Free night out and a chance to dress up for a change count me in!

Id be much happier just attending the evening
Weddings drag on all bloody day, and are expensive to attend also

.Hours of stuff like speeches and photosgraphs to get through YAWN

Thats after a possible long nuptial mass

G

Given its an invite, yanbu to decline. If making a rule is easier for you, then go for it
Back in my day, evening invites were really common. Typically work colleagues etc. But then most people got married in the town where they lived. So it was just a night out.

Some very good friends of oirs got married in Kenya many years ago before overseas weddings were a thing (she worked for a travel agent).

They had a big party when they came home. We travelled for the party because they put us up at no cost at the grooms old house, which was empty.

Evening invites are usually issued by people who don't want to pay for you to have the wedding breakfast, but want you to fill up their dance floor.

This ^^ simply isn't true of any of the evening dos I have been to. I have been made to feel welcome at every single evening do that I have been invited to and have been fed very well. There was a pay bar which is quite normal for most weddings so we didn't expect free drinks.

I can't get over how many posters have chips on their shoulders about being evening guests. The paranoia and self importance is astounding.

We flipped ours, so lunchtime was everyone (300 ish) for a sort of ploughmans then the evening was about 60. This meant no killing time between the ceremony and evening for anyone and we still got a smaller sit down meal

My husband received a few of those from colleagues years ago and only bothered dropping in for two drinks at a local one when we were already going out for the night.

Otherwise wouldn't dream of bothering, much less travelling to one.

I'm not a wedding person unless they are very close family.

I went to loads of evening do's only when I was still at school, but that was for example I worked with the bride's mother, or my auntie went to their church.

Seemed like the appropriate level of invitation to me. But of course that was all local and didn't involve any expense or travel.

What posters need to understand is MN have an unusually high number of people who don’t like socialising. They wouldn’t like a night out drinking and dancing normally, they don’t enjoy parties, clubs, busy bars. The party part of the wedding is something to be suffered through not enjoyed. So going to an evening wedding party they view it as doing the bride and groom a favour, because obviously it’s going to be awful.

there’s also a lot of MNers who only enjoy spending time with their immediate family (effectively their household) so don’t see weddings as a time to socialise with their extended family or to meet up with friends they’ve not seen for a while. They would only go for the benefit the Bride&Groom.

No-one will convince these people that a wedding might be fun. Because their idea of fun doesn’t involve any of the elements of a wedding party.

That said, there’s also a lot of these people who seem oddly annoyed at being invited to weddings.

I think it partly depends on the location. If it's easy to get to and doesn't involve an overnight stay I'd go along, but I wouldn't shell out for expensive transport or hotel as a B list guest. Don't mind being a B list guest but not if it costs me an arm and a leg.

It's a party where some people got there earlier than you, OP. As with any party, it's an invitation, not a summons. If you don't enjoy the evening of weddings, by all means don't go.

I wouldn't travel anywhere that would require an overnight stay, unless I wanted to visit the area - had a lovely weekend in York - but otherwise I love an evening do. It's a night out, but if that's not your thing, you can decline - it's not a problem?

I think the loss of plus ones is a bigger wedding issue!

It's up to you if you go or not.

But if the undercurrent of this post is that couples should only send out full day invites, YABU.

If we'd invited everyone (colleagues, acquaintances etc) to the whole day for our wedding, the cost would have been prohibitive. We also wouldn't have enjoyed it as much - it would have been completely overwhelming with that number of people - and we wouldn't have been able to have the venue we liked most as there wouldn't be capacity.

None of this means we didn't want to see and celebrate with colleagues and other acquaintances - evening invitations are the perfect opportunity for that.

People shouldn't have to justify who they invite to share one of the most important days of their lives.

What makes it worse I think is that you so rarely actually feel glad to see them get married. It's like a celebration of compromise. I can think of only one wedding I've been to where I really believed the couple would be happy together for life.

Up to you really. They have always existed.

No, she doesn't, as already stated.