Can somebody explain to me who do you actually invite to weddings?

[Fressia123]

I'm not British and even though I've been living here for the past 12 years, but have no British friends, so I have no one to ask to. My DP is useless in this way and keeps changing his tune. I've always planned to invite some of my colleagues. They're nice people, but I wouldn't call them my friends. I've only hung out with them a couple of times and well I haven't seen them in the flesh for 15 months now!

I'd only invite my bosses to the ceremony (it's traditional where I was born) and the HR lady as she's keen to learn about other religions and it's a Jewish wedding.

Originally I was planning to invite some mums from school but I'm sure that by the time the wedding comes I wouldn't have spoken to them in years.

It's all a real mystery to me anyways, where I come from you invite as many as you can and there isn't such a thing as ceremony, wedding breakfast and evening reception. If you're invited you're invited to all of them.

It’s not really usual to invite more casual friends / colleagues to the ceremony- this is usually limited to family, close friends. But if you are having an evening reception after the wedding meal then some people have an additional guest list for that part which includes a wider circle.

However you should do whatever suits you and your budget according to traditions that mean something to you. But I’d be wary of placing a burden on people you don’t know well if you invite them - if they feel obliged to attend and therefore face costs of travel, childcare, outfits and gifts.

That sounds quite lonely tbh - do you have family here?

It’s unusual to invite colleagues to the whole event if you’re not also friends outside of work.

It’s not frowned upon, and people would be pleased to be invited. It’s just that most of us have enough friends and family to invite that we wouldn’t give spaces to colleagues if that makes sense.

It’s more common to invite colleagues for the evening do, although again I think it’s unusual.

I wouldn’t invite school mums if I hadn’t spoken to them for a while - that would look a bit odd.

No, I have no family here either. Apart from the odd meeting with my in-laws I only speak in person to my partner. When I was office based it was a bit different but even the , it was more of the "good morning" to the people around my desk area.

I'm used to it now. I've worked remotely most of my professional life and I'm more or less accustomed to no social interaction.

I would imagine a lot of friendships will change as a result of the pandemic. I asked family and very close friends to the ceremony and lunch, then all friends, colleagues to join at night, which was the norm. I wouldn't invite the HR lady just because she is interested in other religions - your wedding isn't her learning platform. It sounds as though the wedding is a couple of years away, so why don't you wait to see who your social group is then.

Work friends often invited to the evening party (if nearby to where you're getting married) but only if you like them and want them there, not the whole office. Honestly invite who you like though, you're not going to offend school mums etc if you don't include them. But if you think it'd be fun (and won't begrudge paying for them when you look back at photos and realise you're not spoken to them in years) then go for it

Unfortunately the date we want in some places is already sold out! And we both agree that if we do want to get married time is of the essence in terms of securing the venue and our options differ drastically depending on the number of guests (even evening ones).

I think here in UK they are a bit funny about who they invite to weddings as in you may not always get an invite to the whole wedding.

Personally I think it’s nice when people invite many people and are welcoming.

Going by what you say OP I probably would to invite who ever you know to make friends for the future. Your circle sounds a little closed. Does your DP have family and friends to invite?

And these colleagues would only be for the evening do, which is £17 per head. I'm sure that's something we can absorb as even 20 of them would be wishful thinking. I might be wrong though and maybe all of them would show up.

He has some family he'd invite (when you add them is 7) and his colleagues are about 5, he wouldn't invite all of them to the ceremony, just one. But neither of us has a broad social circle.

OP don't worry about tradition and don't worry about how many people you have at the wedding. Do what suits you and remember that you can have a fab celebration with only a handful of people or 3000 people. No-one will be judging (and if they are, really that's their problem).

Yeah, I agree but they have to be like minded people, who definitely wouldn't be my family (not sure about his side, his brother does know how to party though!) But at least I'm pretty sure because of our industry we're always up for a good night.

There are no rules. Invite the people you want to have around you on this very special day. Don't invite anyone else. And I'd say absolutely don't spend more money than you can afford.

You could even do a Mumsnet special - just have the two of you and call out to Mumsnet for two witnesses on the day.

We'll be legally married by then anyways! Just the two of us and our witnesses (his sister and her partner). There's a gap of 18 months between one and the other.

You’ve posted a lot about this wedding, it sounds like it’s really troubling you. Is it worth exploring how you and DP deal with disagreements? If a happy event is this hard to agree on, sad events may be harder still, where there’s also a difference of habits or cultural expectations.

We had a very ‘classic’ British wedding. 100 guests, which meant each having approx 25 family members (so a dozen couples) and 25 friends (another dozen couples). Some extras came to the evening dancing (live music + cake, fizz and bacon rolls), including a few work colleagues. I think that’s a fairly standard ‘big church wedding’ setup, but no one would bat an eyelid at guest numbers from
10 to 250, or at any number of different venue types.

But, we’re both British. You’re not. So, as far as you and DP can agree, you do you. I’ve attended and been invited to weddings here and abroad that have been very different because they’ve been part of different cultures and traditions. Not saying it’s easy to figure out what feels right for you as a couple, just saying I don’t think you should be too constrained by ‘who you invite to weddings’.

I think he's very worried about "social perceptions" it's his second wedding and I don't think that helps.

He's basically told me that I have to forget how we do things in my country because I don't live there and it's a British wedding for British society.

It's the social part that we can't agree on. And that we both have very, very different expectations and wants based on previous experiences. During our time together we haven't had many sad events,the only one ai can think of is when I miscarried, and that definitely draw us closer.

It's your wedding though, not a wedding for British people, but obviously your fiance feels the need to be traditional as he sees it. I'm not married, but personally if I did get married, it would be parents and siblings in a register office and a trip to the pub afterwards for lunch. People might be disappointed about our choices, but we're not sociable people and the thought of speeches and a big fuss makes me cringe big time. So do what you want, if you like your colleagues enough to invite to the evening do, great, if not, don't feel pressured into doing so.

There's no pressure! I'd hate to just go to the registry and then the pub. I couldn't think of anything more depressing, but that's just me.

I want as many people as I can get, people, noise, bring life to events and that's exactly what I want.

We had 56 people, 19 family, 8 close colleagues and the rest were close friends. We only invited people we both knew.

If we went with people we both knew, my sister technically wouldn't be invited. From work only his boss would be invited. And that would leave us with 11 guests! Obviously neither of us are very social and the pandemic hasn't helped. We have no friends in common. We're two loners that are happy to join a party, but in everyday life we just don't socialise at all.

Why is the evening £17 a head? Is that including the meal? Normally people mean 'after the meal' when they talk about evening invites. There are 3 parts to a British wedding 1) the service 2) the meal 3) the band/disco after the meal. Usually people are invited to all 3 parts, some people (less close friends or acquaintances) are just invited to part 3. There is a bit of a trend of inviting people to parts 1 and 3 but that's considered quite off since what are those people suppose to do when part 2 is happening so don't do that. My Mum would tell you if someone has had to travel they should be invited to the whole thing, only local guests should be invited to only part 3. If you don't have loads of family and friends to invite then it's good to invite colleagues, I've been at workmates weddings and if there are lots of them there it's great fun. You don't need to invite their partners.

the £17 per head includes nibbles for the whole evening.

They're all local, in fact we're trying to find a venue so taxis are fairly affordable. I wouldn't invite them to the ceremony and not the meal IMO that's a bit poor...