Is this Normal for weddings now?

[bentleydrummle]

Young relative of DH is getting married later this year. Last year, we got a save the date card, with a link to a website. The website featured biographies and interviews with the happy couple as well as pictures from
Their engagement photo shoot.

Now, inspite of getting a save the date, we learn from the invite which has just come through that we are only invited to the evening do. Again, to RSVP there is a link to another website. For each guest (so 4 of us) there is a survey of dietary requirements, suggestions for songs for the DJ and a space to write marital advice to the couple.

Is this the norm now? It seems very overly complicated and self indulgent to me?!

A lot of people seem to think they are famous these days. It's really self-indulgent imo. Too much Insta.

No it's weird.
I got married this week and didn't have a website. I didn't even it know it was a thing!

We had a group chat on messenger where I shared the menu and directions to the venue. I don't think my family would be interested in a biography, nor would I ever be arsed to write one!

@TeenMinusTests

Advice to couple: Don't send a save the date then only invite to the evening do.

We've had a couple of (pre-covid) invitations which charmlessly explained the wedding day was in three parts; the ceremony, the formal reception/dinner, and a "celebration party". Our invitation was to only the last part. Third class guest , so bloody rude; they might as well write "just send the present". Which I did not. Nor did we go.

I’ve never understood the anger directed at being an ‘evening only guest’. Surely that’s the best bit? You can rock up with £20 in a card and get pissed. It is that too 1990s? Are evening only guests still expected to put hundreds towards the honeymoon/house deposit? 🥴

We had a wedding website. No interviews or engagement photos though. It was purely to help the guests with details, location, taxis, hotels so people could refer back to it and we didn't have to print loads of paper.

I wouldn't be offended if I got a save the date and only got invited to the evening do.

I take it you are not going? You seem to be a bit offended that it's different to what happened in the good old days?

I got married 10+ years ago and wedding websites were around. I didn't bother, but there's no harm in putting practical information together so people can find it.

The bios/ photos thing is slipping into
twee.

If a wedding has been scaled back due to Covid complications, I'd be temporarily more forgiving over an STD card for an evening invitation, otherwise it's pretty rude asking people to save the date for just an evening. They are for particularly close family/ friends when a wedding date is some time in advance and likely to be at a busy time of year (e.g. holiday season) or may need travel arrangements booking before the formal invitation is issued (which might have finer details of timing subject to changing)

I got married in 1999 and had a wedding website. But I am a web designer...

I don’t like evening invitations, if you can’t have the guest all day don’t send an invitation.

I had a website 11 years ago when I got married, but it was mainly for information such as venue details, nearby hotels etc. There was definitely no biographies or any of the other self-indulgent stuff. There was a space for song requests though if people want to give one and we tried to play as many as possible. I think people quite liked having their song played and the dance floor was full all night. The save the date thing is just weird. Save the date is just for daytime guests.

Yes it's the norm and I MUCH prefer a website invite to a little card I have to put somewhere, with lots of extra bits of cards with further info on. Just waiting to get lost.

And it's fab they do the dietary thing, rather than being stuck with 'meat of veggie' and having to post your option back.

Time saver and doesn't take up any space in my house.

For me, Save the Dates should be for people you really want at your wedding, that you would be gutted if you found at that they had booked a holiday or something in between you fixing the date yourselves and actually sorting all the details to send invitations.

So by that definition, not for people who are 'evening only', and actually probably only half of the main guests.

Evening only should be for people who probably wouldn't have expected to be invited to the actual wedding so are happy to be invited to any part of it. You don't mind if they don't come, so you wouldn't send a StD.

The exception of course is this year where planned wedding sizes have had to be curtailed.

Upscaling of events has been the case for so many things in recent years, so perhaps we should not be surprised at the indulgence the OP refers to.

Think hen/stag weekends abroad, not a night in the local town. Think 'big' birthdays, baby showers, as examples.

If this is a young relative of your husband then honestly, I doubt they really want you to come at all but have been told by a parent or grandparent that they’ve got to invite second cousin / Uncle Mike and his wife and so have relented and given you an evening invitation.

If it bothers you, just decline. I doubt they’ll think anything of it and will be glad of the extra space to invite friends or colleagues.

I would charitably assume they've downsized the daytime bit because of covid. But yes, it is poor etiquette to send a save the date to evening guests.

We have a wedding website, we use it to collect rsvps and it has some info about the venue (how to get there, where to stay nearby etc). Means we didn't have to send out loads of extra bits of paper with the invitations and avoided the issue of whether one should include a SAE with the rsvp cards.

Definitely not doing the life story, engagement shoot, etc as personally I find them a bit cringey. However, they came as standard on all the website templates we looked at so it is definitely becoming A Thing.

@newnortherner111

Upscaling of events has been the case for so many things in recent years, so perhaps we should not be surprised at the indulgence the OP refers to.

Think hen/stag weekends abroad, not a night in the local town. Think 'big' birthdays, baby showers, as examples.

Most of my UK friends got married in the 90s and several of them did hen/stags abroad or weekends away. (What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas... etc.) It's really not that new.

None of this when we were married.
You did a present list that was passed around the family, no alternative of money if you had enough pots and pans, no daft poems, no ridiculous writing naff vows, etc.
Oh, I crave for an old fashioned simple wedding. I think we will have it with ds2 and his fiance. A total reverse to what ds1 and dil had.
It's each to their own, best wedding I went to we went to the pub for egg and chips after. The couple have passed their silver wedding anniversary a while ago.

@bentleydrummle

Young relative of DH is getting married later this year. Last year, we got a save the date card, with a link to a website. The website featured biographies and interviews with the happy couple as well as pictures from Their engagement photo shoot.

Now, inspite of getting a save the date, we learn from the invite which has just come through that we are only invited to the evening do. Again, to RSVP there is a link to another website. For each guest (so 4 of us) there is a survey of dietary requirements, suggestions for songs for the DJ and a space to write marital advice to the couple.

Is this the norm now? It seems very overly complicated and self indulgent to me?!

I have to say @bentleydrummle, I quite like this idea, seems very practical. My own kids are grown up (mid 20s) so it is possible that if they decide to settle down they might do something like it (and not involve me at all ). Mind, me and DH arranged our own very small wedding the way we wanted, too, and paid for it.

Hen party was pub call with your mates, then onto a club, no expensive holidays thrust upon guests.

I think it sounds nice! It's hardly an interview.

Dietary requirements = checking they don't accidentally poison/starve a guest

Songs for the DJ = making sure their guests all have a song they like played during the party

Advice for the couple = just a virtual guestbook/keepsake

Honestly, the absolute sneering over reaction to weddings involving any kind of effort (or god forbid evening invitations) on MN is ridiculous.

Just wait until they say they wouldn't mind cash as a gift and MN will collectively implode.