It’s a wedding one.

[Ginkypig]

So I am very much it’s the couples wedding so it’s their rules person.

so a family have all had an invite to a wedding next year.
the whole wedding and the evening do is all at one venue.

Grandparent, parent to one of the couple and siblings of the parent so uncle’s and aunt’s of the person getting married.
the wedding is being held at least 2-4 hours away from them depending upon where they are so everyone is travelling and going to stay in a hotel for the night before and the night of the wedding.

when the invitations arrived the aunts and uncles invitations were missing menus thinking it was a mix up or an error they asked the others what the menu was so as not to bother the couple who are obviously busy arranging a wedding. The others also thought that somehow some of the invitations had got messed up.

eventually one of them contacted the bride and groom to rsvp give their food choices etc to to be told

no it wasn’t a mistake we hope you understand but it’s expensive and there are limits to how many can be in the room so we couldn’t invite everyone for the meal.

so that means these family members have been invited for the wedding then not invited to the meal but are invited to the remaining part of the wedding from the end of the meal onwards. The other family members have been invited for the meal so they will be there all day.

so that means these few are to come for the ceremony then go away and kill some time somewhere (maybe try to find somewhere to eat) then go back to the venue for the rest of the wedding.

they have gone back and looked at the invitations now they know and except for the missing menu it looks exactly the same as the family members who have been invited for the whole thing so it’s not very clear that they had a gap in the middle that they haven’t been invited to.

is this a thing now?

they have been perfectly polite about it and won’t obviously bring it up but are thinking it is a little weird.
They have decided that they will go and try to find somewhere to eat as otherwise they will not have eaten since breakfast due to the ceremony timings and the wedding could possibly go on until quite late on. If it had been close to home they could’ve have nipped home but obviously as said above they have had to travel.

when they they were telling me I have never heard of this before but then I don’t have a lot of experience with weddings and definitely not recently. I do find it a bit off to be honest also I also understand that weddings are expensive.

what do others think?

is it weird or is it just how weddings are done now?

like I said I’m very much couples day their rules but I do feel like it might have been better or rather easier to have just been transparent and invite them to the ceremony or the evening do as this gapin the middle just makes it awkward day for them.

just to be clear this is not a bash the couple thread. Even if I and they don’t understand it or think it’s a bit weird they are just going with the rules and hold no animosity.

Someone needs to tell the couple tho. Because otherwise it will be the talk of the family for ever. Negatively

ETA: I wouldn't be giving a gift

My daughter got married last spring. We cut the guest list to the number of people the venue could host and feed.

That's the polite way of doing it.

Its rude enough to not invite them to the middle

Even ruder not to actually make it clear.

Evening invite... I knows mumset doesn't like them but they aren't rude. Plus providing details of ceremony, as they are supposed to be open.

Evening invites are fine as long as it's clear from the start and it's pretty rude of your guests are from out of town. Ceremony plus evening is fine for work colleagues who live locally for instance

Agree that the biggest part of the rudeness is not being clear. I don't care if I "offend" rude people so I'd be cancelling And telling them

Not normal but I've been to one like that before. Ceremony in church, wedding breakfast, then evening do. I was in group not invited to the meal, but we were school friends and all of us were invited to same bits and made clear from the off.

Meant the group of us booked a nearby pub and had lunch together and caught up. To be honest preferred it, meant I got to eat what I wanted and wasn't waiting to eat until 4pm or listening to speeches 🤣

It was a common thing to do in my circle of friends when we were getting married but only if it was a church wedding the venue. Esp for weddings we were travelling far for.
We would attend the ceremony the pop off to eat somewhere else (normal with others doing the same) then back for the reception.

This was 10 years ago. Never family though.

I'd never heard of a wedding invite being divided into sections until I attended one in this country. Truly bizarre. Also that it's a marathon- really who has the energy to keep going all day? After one wedding I was getting ready to leave when someone mentioned the evening do - what? Surely at 11am ceremony. 12pm wedding breakfast and by 3pm I'd had enough! To then think we were expected to hang in there until the evening?
One wedding (which included an overnight stay) several of us went to a pub for a couple hours there was so much time between parts. My own wedding everyone was invited to the whole thing and we tried to make it as tight a schedule as possible.

I’ve had that. I was invited to the service, and then to the evening do, but not the meal. However the church was a short walk from my house and the evening venue a ten minute drive so I didn’t mind. I was, still am, a work friend, I didn’t expect her to feed me.

If I had driven across the country then I would be pissed off.

Is the wedding in a church? If so then my understanding is that anyone can go to the actual ceremony as churches are open. This has always been the case.

As others have said it's basically an invite to the evening do. It's really very very rude, if it were me I simply wouldn't go, not that distance for a disco and buffet!

That is seriously tacky.

This happened to me about 25y ago. Dh and I did not realise we had been invited to only the service and the evening party. After the service, we weren't sure how to get to the next venue, so asked the best man, who ushered us onto a coach. When the coach arrived there, someone else sat us at a table. Looking around, we realised that we did not know anybody except the groom, best man and ushers. None of our mutual friends were there. Then the last coachload arrived, the tables filled up - and two people were left standing.

We were so embarrassed! We apologised and offered to leave, but the best man and the groom were lovely, wouldn't hear of it. Chairs and settings were quickly found for the last two guests and everyone seemed to have a wonderful time.

It was the first time we had come across people being invited to only the first and last parts of a wedding. Every other wedding either of us has attended, guests were invited to the whole day, or to just the evening party.

I was invited to one of those, rather not invited to the meal but to the wedding ceremony and the evening do and a list of pubs where we could hang out while they were all feasting somewhere else. I thought it was really rude so declined the invitation.

Getting married doesn't give you a free pass to be a dick to people. It's very rude and very weird to expect people to celebrate your life choices by massively inconveniencing them.

I’ve heard of people who are invited to evening celebrations also be invited to the ceremony if it’s at a local church, but the situation you describe is just rude.

Absolutely.

I've been invited to evening ceremonies before and I've either asked, or there's been a note in the invitation with the details of the ceremony if people want to attend that, but obviously only for a local do, and the invitations were always clear it was for the evening do.

Also made worse by the odd invitation not being made clear when the invitation was sent.

It's really shocking behaviour by the hosts. It's rude and offensive. And shortsighted. And stupid. And just plain mean spirited.

I don't know what goes through people's minds when they come up with plans like this.

The worst thing about this whole sorry saga is that the invitation doesn't even make it clear what's happening!

It's only come to light as the family have spoken to each other and discovered what they are/aren't invited to.

Other guests won't have anyone to compare their invites with, so won't realise what's going on. And why would they? Most people have never come across this type of 'invitation'. This wedding has disaster written all over it. People will expect to be included in wedding breakfast. Good luck to whoever has to turn people away!

The whole situation is awful. Shockingly rude. As the family have all committed to going, I'd organise a lovely meal for those excluded from the wedding breakfast and deduct the cost from any expected wedding gift. If that amounts to zero so be it. The bride and groom have made it all about money... you reap what you sow.

This is kind of how I feel. I think there is great potential for their wedding to be affected negatively by this which is a shame really.

Iv met the bride and groom and they don’t seem like the type who would normally behave like this. they don’t normally seem to be the selfish types, everyone knows the type I mean and the couple don’t seem like that from my experience.

They both seem like nice people so I think what has maybe happened is they have been surprised and panicked by the spiralling costs but by that time things have been booked etc so they have made decisions to try to keep the train running so to speak rather than just deciding that the wedding they are planning is not going to be in budget and pull back on other things.

I think they might have thought if we don’t feed some people then we can still invite them to most of because we want them there and don’t want them to feel like they are only in our mind evening guests which I know can be seen as you aren’t as important to to us.

personally it’s not what I would have chosen but I think the issue has been the lack of clarity! My feelings are everyone would probably have gone anyway had they known but it’s left confusion and awkwardness. Actually a bit of embarrassment for not realising. All of it could have been avoided by simply adding a note to explain things rather than cryptically just omitting a menu.

yes @JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn that is the plan I think. They are going to look for somewhere nice close enough and are going to make sure they have a lovely lunch. In terms of presents I’m not really sure what they are going to do.

That's a very good point @JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn

It seems more than likely that there will be some people wandering into the Reception, confused they can't see their name on the seating plan.

It’s as tight as fcuk.

Have only heard of this once before when it happened to a friend of mine. The couple split the day (and invites) into 3 parts, 1. ceremony, 2. meal and speeches, 3. evening. They had good capacity for parts 1 and 3 but limited for 2, so that's they organised the invites. Not sure why they chose to do it that way/chose those venues as I don't know them personally. There were a few in the same boat so they all went off for a meal somewhere. However he also went up the night before and helped with loads of the set up and decorating etc as it was a rather DIY affair. Very good person that chum!!

I’m of the opinion that if you can’t feed your guests don’t invite them. It’s definitely not something I’ve ever experienced at weddings.

I'm going to agree with pp - it's very rude. You don't have 2 tiers of guests and you don't invite people , especially family, to attend part of it, then go off and come back later.
If money is an issue, don't have an evening part at all. Or don't invite so many people. This just reeks of a couple who want the cash/gifts but won't host properly. I wouldn't go.

I agree. It's basic hosting.

Yeah people need to stop having weddings that they clearly can’t afford to be having 🤣 I would be mortified at asking some of my guests to hang about for a few hours