To think an invite to the evening reception is not a wedding invite?

I wouldn’t normally attend an evening only that involves travel. But I’d make an exception for an old school mate in my old town where my parents still live. As I’d make it part of a visit to them (same for cousin weddings when I’d also see sister and parents as well)

I had some guests as Evening only, simply because my extended family is large (I have no siblings, so my extended family are very important to me). We couldn't afford to invite all our friends to the entire day. Some close friends were invited to the whole day, and others given an Evening invitation only. We had people refuse the Evening invitation because they were annoyed at not being invited for the whole day. Their choice to refuse, but equally I couldn't magic money to include them for the whole day! None of my Evening guests were expected to travel 4 hours on a work night though!! All my Evening guests were local and it was a Saturday night!

When you say ‘working day’ is it a Friday? Or are you able to work from your parents the next day and make a little trip out of it? If not I would decline citing the 4 hour drive and need to be at work the next day as a reason.

You are being invited to be included in their wedding in a manner appropriate to their wedding and to your relationship and in relationship to the budget she has available.

You can choose to decline the invitation if the manner does not suit you.

People feel differently, no surprise. I think probably "wedding" means different things to different people. Especially with so many people living together, setting up home, having children before... socially it's all different now. It's rarely about a young couple starting out in life.

Meh. I’ve been invited to my cousin’s evening do. It’s on a Saturday so I’ll probably treat myself to getting my hair and makeup done on the day. I’ve lost a load of weight and hope to have lost more by the time the wedding comes around, so it’ll be a nice treat. I’m not too bothered by not going to the day - they’re boring and a waste of time

Plus; pictures for social media...

The evening bit IS the main bit to me. It's the most fun bit of the day. Why would I feel offended that I didn't have to sit through an identikit ceremony then the endless tedium of wedding photos?

MN has a high proportion of posters who take horror at the idea of having fun after 8pm so I guess evening dos of any sort wouldn't be up their street. I would definitely travel 4 hours and stay overnight for a good party though.

Yes indeed 🍿

I've turned down two evening invitations not out of principle and not due to having to travel (which we would have to do) but they were both on a school night and I wasn't prepared to use up two days of my precious annual leave for them.

Invite me on a Saturday night and I'm right there.

We got a save the date card, I bought a dress as I had none (took ages to find one I liked) then got an evening invite! My MIL sold the dress to the mother of the bride funnily, so I recouped a little of the outlay.
I do think it is really, really bad manners and thoughtless to imply or tell you, that you are invited to a wedding when it is not the case. People should be clear with their intentions from the outset.

I dont see the point so wouldn't go, I have no issues them having whatever wedding they want but unless they were royalty end trying to appease the annoying world leader that is acting like an annoying cousin I dont see the point so would politely decline

In your shoes, if it’s a long way and a lot of hassle, I would decline politely (although I wouldn’t be “offended” as such, I’d just think that it was too much hassle). And I do think that sometimes people get so wrapped up in their own “biggest ever day” that they forget it simply isn’t anywhere near as important to others.

i think evening invitations can be fine - under certain circumstances. If you have a wide group of colleagues/acquaintances who know each other and they all live reasonably locally, then it can be a really nice and inclusive thing to say “come and have a drink and celebrate with us”. When I was younger, I was invited to a colleague’s evening do - and a few of us from work met up and got a taxi to and from the venue. Really nice evening. Same would apply if you asked all your mates from the squash club/all the near neighbours etc. But yes - when I was invited to drive hours on my own to join a party where most of the people I knew had been there all day, I didn’t fancy it much either! Just send apologies and wish them a lovely day.

People get so worked up about weddings g invitations!! I couldn’t be annoyed with this level of emotion.

its an invitation - decline of you don’t want to go.

its not insulting. My heavens!!!

Personally I don’t like evening only invites and didn’t have any at my wedding
I rarely attend them

I don’t find evening invites problematic. I’d be happy to get one. If it was too far away to feasibly travel then I would just send my regrets, but not really think anything else of it. You either want to go or you don’t, if you don’t then just don’t.

The amount of hand-wringing that goes on on MN about invitations, assuming that people are cheeky, looking to always be offended or find a slight where there is none. It can’t be nice living like that. When I get an invitation I think ‘Oh that’s nice’ and assume the person inviting me wants me there or they wouldn’t have invited me in the first place 🤷‍♀️ If it’s a long way away or not feasible then I just don’t go, but I don’t feel badly treated or annoyed about it, it’s just life.

Don’t go. I only ever accepted one evening only invitation because it was close to home and we hosted a large group of old university friends beforehand. I think we had a better time than the wedding guests!

It is not difficult to imagine that someone might feel offended if they were truly expecting an invitation to a wedding and looking forward to it and only got a wedding reception invitation.

Those who are invited to the wedding are more important to the bride and groom than those who are only invited to the wedding reception.

I wouldn't care and would either go, or not go, depending on what I wanted, but it's hardly baffling that some people might be offended by being placed in the less important category.

However, it is certainly true that the only rational response to an invitation to an event you don't want to attend is to simply not go.

Your friend has invited you for the evening on the day she is married to be part of the celebration party. You either accept or decline the invitation you've been kindly given. There is no need to criticise the wording or analyse whether this is a 'wedding' or a 'boogie' or be negative about it. You know what you've been invited to.

When did invite become a noun?

Anyway, this has been done to death. I wouldn’t accept an evening invitation, especially not if it was a 4 hour drive away.

I wouldn't travel 4 hours for a midweek party. No problem to do so on a weekend (including a friday night) especially if I could combine it with visiting my parents. not if it's mon-thu - wedding venues charge less for mon-thu dates precisely because these weddings will have lower attendance as most people can't come

I wouldn’t go and people seem to not think, selfish to consider that anyone would travel hours for the evening party. That said it’s completely legitimate to invite local friends, eg work colleagues, members of clubs you attend etc to the evening if it’s not far from them, we also invited everyone to the actual wedding, you know the I do bit and to champagne and cake following the service in the church hall, this meant everyone could attend the most important bit, you didn’t need an invitation even as weddings in church are public (and had people who attend my warm space come and some food bank clients, I kept the alcoholic drinks as a surprise so that’s not why they came!) sit down meal was only for close family and friends

It's fine not to go OP, but it's a bit weird to quibble whether this is a wedding invite or not.

The professionally offended people will be all over this thread op.

Yes I can’t imagine that people would think it appropriate to invite people only between 8-10pm after the actual event had happened - particularly if it involves a lot of travel and an overnight hotel stay.
There's really two schools of thought. One thinks that an invitation puts a deep obligation on the invitee to attend and consequently the host is required to have considered all their needs before imposing the invitation on them. The other considers invitations at face value. That they are just that, a genuine invitation without obligation or guilt if not taken up. This means it is up to the invitee whether they consider it meets their needs and desires or not and leaves it up to them.

I'm in group 2. I like invitations and consider it entirely up to me if I attend. The idea of any kind of invitation being offensive is therefore quite baffling to me.

I have travelled a few hours and paid for an overnight stay for an evening do because I wanted to. I quite fancied a weekend in a nice bit of the country so ai did it. I don't consider the hosts as expecting me to have to travel so it's not a cheeky request.