No more two tier weddings solution

[Pingiop]

MN stirs up a wide variety of opinions when it comes to weddings. Recent thread was a poster saying they weren’t going to attend evening invites anymore as they viewed it as a diss.

Not all people invited will be close to the couple and not everyone will invited to the day and night celebrations. People on these threads have suggested that the couple only have the wedding they can afford. Not to have the nice fancy dream wedding they have saved years for but to downgrade the venue so that this D list acquaintances can attend.

So in the solution of only having the wedding you can afford, it can be proposed that all couples only invite their chosen guests to both day and night celebrations, this will of course mean most people who aren’t regarded as close friends and family, so D list acquaintances, will never attend a wedding again unless the couple are rich and can afford to invite everyone. Is this a sensible solution to unreasonable entitled behaviour?

The problem lies with the guest list not the evening do.

I agree with @Pingiop. Only our closest friends and family came to.our wedding. We decided we could seat 100. We started with the most important and worked down the list. We sent the invitations 8 weeks in advance, two couples declined swiftly and invitations were sent to the next two couples on the list.

I would have no objection to a tiny, family only ceremony and lunch and a party after the honeymoon to celebrate the marriage. A very reasonable compromise if money is tight.

The notion of "dream" wedding needs to be dispensed with. Most of us have to have a realistic wedding and one people can afford is far better than debt for a dream wedding.

A wedding shouldn’t be too old people heavy - or child heavy. I’ve experienced both!

My own wedding was small and dm insisted upon my inviting numerous elderly relatives who, as pp pointed out, want cups of tea and to leave “before it starts to get dark” (ie 3pm). They certainly do not want to be closing the place down with one last round of The Birdie Song, let alone Oops Upside Your Head.

The ‘problem’??! These are the bride and groom’s closest friends and family. The wedding should be centred around who is invited not rent a crowd to create a party atmosphere in the evening.

Well you’re wrong. I said anyone who did show up at a wedding uninvited had crazy behaviour, and was a fucking idiot, which they are. I stand by that. I called the other posters delusional, meaning they believe things that aren’t true. I stand by that also.

You said Then another delulu said I have no right to stop uninvited guest at my wedding because it’s the law…

It isn't delusional to say you have no right to stop uninvited guests. It is the law. So you are calling people delusional for knowing the law. You might also think it's unhinged to turn up to a ceremony uninvited, in a church in a community you are part of I don't think it is particularly but that's irrelevant. You have called people crazy just for explaining the legal position.

Very odd you’re so defensive about it.

Not really. I have explained my (vested) interest.

If a venue breaks the conditions of its licence by allowing uninvited attendees to be ejected, they could lose their licence. No licence, no income.

You said 50-60 people invited, due to some elderly guests very few people were dancing, the bride and groom wanted music but it felt flat, hard to have a party due to aunts and grand aunts who won’t dance and want tea instead of alcohol. You don’t mention any of their friends or kids though in your post. So yeah, when you only mention older people and few people dancing it’s safe to say one would presume, from what information you’ve giving, the problem was the guest list. You’ve only just mentioned friends were invited now, I’m going off what you’ve wrote, I’m not a mind reader.

Who has fifty to sixty aunts and grand aunts?

I mean this kindly. I think you might need to step away from this thread. You are getting very worked up and are coming across in an aggressive way that you probably don’t intend to come across.

If anyone can attend a wedding, but you've booked the smallest room at the register office and have the bride & groom, 2 witnesses and the registrar and assistant and no room for anyone else due to health & safety - how does the half of mumsnet who insists on observing get in?

I don’t believe everything a stranger writes on the internet, why on earth would I? If someone states something as fact I usually just take whatever they say with a huge pinch of salt. You’ve got to be pretty naive to believe a stranger. I didn’t believe what this person was telling me, hence calling them delulu- again meaning believing in things that aren’t true. I still don’t know if it’s true or not as I haven’t researched it myself, I’m not going to take a strangers word as fact. It may well be true but again just because people say something over and over doesn’t mean it’s fact. For example on this thread many people were saying two tier weddings weren’t a thing where they were from, I’m I really going to believe them and think that they couldn’t be possibly lying? Why on earth would they lie? I don’t know why they would lie but people do. If you want to go round believing everything you read on MN is true then that’s on you but I don’t.

You honestly think it’s okay for a random person to just turn up uninvited to a wedding just because it’s law? You’re kidding yourself if you think it’s okay.

I’m absolutely fine 12oclock, if you feel that way then probably best you step away. I have the right to respond the same as everyone else 😄

You honestly think it’s okay for a random person to just turn up uninvited to a wedding just because it’s law? You’re kidding yourself if you think it’s okay.

Not a single person has said it's ok to just turn up at a wedding uninvited.

However it's not "frothing" or "delulu" to say that people can do so, and can't be stopped legally, when you said they could be.

Exactly. The social implications of it are entirely different to the legal right.

The social implications of it are entirely different to the legal right.

Exactly.

The hotel ex employee I mentioned being a prime example!

Legally in his right to do so. Cannot imagine it helped him find another hotel wedding planning job!!

I don’t believe everything a stranger writes on the internet, why on earth would I?

Because what that stranger said was backed by a link to a .gov.uk website that confirms what that stranger said is true.

You can’t stop uninvited guests attending a wedding ceremony.

I had "uninvited guests" at my wedding: some members of the church community attended without specific invitation because we're part of their community and they liked us. They were very welcome to come and it cost us nothing. There was plenty of capacity.

It would be more weird at a smaller, more private civil ceremony though.

We had evening invitations for colleagues and neighbours. We were at full capacity for the weddng breakfast, but had spare for the evening. Some accepted. Some declined. We did include the details of the church as an either/ or option and some went to that instead
I would hope that they thought that it was nice to be thought of on some level and offered some hospitality, rather than insulted.

Inviting people long-distance, where they'd reasonably expect a full invitation or splitting peer groups up is a different issue.

Would not be the hill I die on. I can’t imagine going to that much effort to tell someone/frothing at the mouth that is legal and others piggybacking off it. Very strange behaviour to try and prove a legal point but not having common sense to understand this could ruin a wedding. Okay. I think it’s fair to understand why so many people complain about not being invited to weddings if this is the attitude. You do you hun.

I’d much rather be invited to the evening do than the whole day.

I find it incredible that people get pissy when they receive an invite to a party in the evening because they think it should be all day or nothing.

Entitled much?

I’ve been to a couple of weddings recently where after the ceremony they had lots of lovely cakes and Pimm’s for everyone. There were photos and It felt like a nice little mini party. After that, close friends and family only then went off to an evening meal and dancing but everyone was invited to the ceremony and afternoon tea. I think that’s the perfect way to do it.

It’s the weird splitting up of attending a ceremony, not going to the lunch but then later being invited to the evening, which I think is odd. If it’s in a location you’re not familiar with, you need to find somewhere to hang out all day. I’m not ‘entitled’ but purely from a logistical point of view, I think it’s a strange way to slice up a day.