about friends' families at my wedding?

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

More of a WWYD or 'Would I be being unreasonable?' in the hope that I don't inadvertently inspire a bridezilla thread when I send out my invites!

I'm currently planning my wedding, which will be in my parents' village (about a two and a half hour drive from where we live and from where some of our guests will be travelling from). The service itself will be at the local church and then there will be a meal and a 'disco' at a nearby hall. Like most people, we're struggling with a tight budget versus a long list of people we would like to invite. I've never been a fan of 'tiered' weddings - where some people are invited to all of it, some to the evening reception etc - and always said that anyone I invited would be invited to the whole thing. However, some of our friends (mainly colleagues) have young families. In an ideal world we'd invite the whole family, but there simply won't be room at the meal for them (and, to be honest, we won't be able to afford the extra meals)

Would we be being unreasonable to say on the invite "[Insert name of husband] and [insert name of children] will be very welcome at the church and at the disco afterwards, but unfortunately there is unlikely to be space for them at the wedding breakfast (we'll let you know if this changes). [Insert name of village] is beautiful and we can recommend places to visit for those few hours in between if they would like to accompany you to the wedding" (or a more polite version if you can think of better!)

By the way, I will completely understand if these invitees decide not to attend because of the distance (or for any other reason!) but I want to give them the option of bringing their families to as much of it as possible. It's being held in a beautiful part of the country so it could offer a nice chance for a family break if they want to come.

I think your plan is fine, op. I went to a wedding of a colleague like that once, a bunch of us went to the ceremony then all spent a merry old afternoon getting worse for wear in a charming little pub, before rolling rowdily back to the disco in the evening. None of us had families in those days, but even so, I'd never get offended by my dh/dd not being invited to someone's wedding - weddings are shockingly expensive and guestlists are a minefield; I personally think the only appropriate response to receiving an invitation is to be gracious. Getting offended because you think you should have been invited to more of it or because more of your family should have been invited is rather selfish and ungrateful in my opinion.

YABU - what you are proposing is rude I'm afraid. In etiquette terms, people invited to the ceremony should be included in the hospitality afterwards. You can't invite certain people to certain parts of the event or split up couples/families. It's also traditionally considered rude to invite only one half of a couple to a wedding.

Invite your colleagues and their partners to the whole thing or just the evening and let them worry about babysitters, the distance etc.

Personally, I would invite colleagues and their spouses, not their children(why) just to the evening, and take a chance that the colleagues will more than likely organise amongst themselves to just come without their spouses.
I think its rude not to invite spouses. And if you just leave them off the invite it becomes confusing and awkward and they will all ask the question why
I think a wedding without children invited is much more acceptable than without spouses

Very impractical to have a gappy day. Not fair to invite people to the free bits and kick them out for the meal.

Better to just invite people to the evening do if you can't feed them.

Fine to not invite children.

Not good to exclude partners - it's not much fun going to a wedding on your own, unless there happens to be a group of you.

Ultimately you chose a small venue and you can't invite everyone. This is what happens to most people. Accept that and make your choices. Guests do understand.

I think the main thing is that if you do have the gap, you can't split up families/couples for that bit, that really would seem rude and odd. Still think evening-only invites for work colleagues is the way to go and avoids the whole problem.

I think it is pretty unlikely that your work colleagues are so desperate to attend your wedding that they will drive 2.5 hours, attend a ceremony with their spouses and children and then ask said spouse to entertain the children for a few hours only for them to be welcomed back again later in the evening, so they need to book a hotel, and then all drive home again in the morning. You are trying too hard to please but will actually just annoy people. Just invite work colleagues and partners to the evening do, but don't expect many to attend as it is a long way for an evening. Either you can afford to host a big wedding for everyone you know or you can't, and since you can't you need to think about what you are asking your guests to do.

Interesting thread, OP - I agree its not clear cut, I sympathise with the desire to avoid two-tier wedding but I also agree with SlinkingOutside

In your last post, OP you said you think you're just going to invite the colleagues (without DPs) - Do you mean to the whole day incl. wedding breakfast? I don't think this is a solution. I think most of them would decline going on my own feeling and the general consensus of this thread (i.e. that attending a wedding without DCs is fine but DP no-no.) If you invite people that have partners and children to a full-day event two hours away from their home on their own, you're going to get a lot of decliners and you'll be back to square one.

Do you have that many colleagues you're equally close to that by inviting all of their DPs you'd go over your wedding breakfast maximum? If so, I think you might need to rethink your venue/structure of the day. Initially I assumed your wedding breakfast venue might have a max. occupants for fire restrictions, but that's not the case if its the same place you're contemplating increased numbers later at the disco. If the max. occupants of the venue would accommodate all your colleagues PLUS their DPs then why not implement a more informal catering solution?

Im scared to read everyone elses comments tbh but my thoughts were that perhaps you could just have a big buffet so that they could all stay together and it still comes in on budget for you?

I wanted not to invite partners to our wedding meal (it was very small, actually I wanted to get married not have a wedding but my mother was having none of it and I wasnt assertive enough then, it would have been nonexistent left to me) but I didnt want partners there, I was over ruled as apparently it is Very Bad Form to do this.

I don't think you can invite people to sightsee a pretty village.

I think this is an excellent idea. This way you get to invite the people you know, not 1 + however many partner and kids would be. You also get to include the kids you know. You are giving people notice and the option of not attending if they have a problem.

YANBU

OP- you're making this way too complicated......

There is so much scope for misunderstanding in what you're proposing. People not being sure if partners are included, if children are... Whether they're invited to the ceremony and/or the wedding breakfast and/or the evening do - or one of those or two of them, or all of them - and if they are, does that also apply to all their other family members...?!

My best friend and her DH were invited to a colleagues's ceremony and the evening do, but didn't realise this until they were checking out the seating plan for the breakfast and their names weren't on it. Cue embarrassed faces, quietly slinking out, hoping no-one would notice their faux pas. She'd had her hair done 'n all, so was most miffed.

Do you really want to be dealing with phone calls and texts and emails in that busy week leading up to the wedding, dealing with unsure guests, who don't know exactly what is happening? Plus, getting RSVPs out of people is taxing at the best of times - this is a sure-fire way to make it even more of a headache.

Look - bottom line - there's a reason people do the two-tiered thing, inviting some people to just the evening do, and some to the whole day. It's usually because, like you, they don't have the budget to invite everyone, their wife and their dog to the whole day, and separating guests into all day and evening do is just far easier all round.

well it would mean i couldn't attend your wedding at all as i have children but no partner and at 6 and 2 i couldn't leave them to explore a village on tehir own while i ate dinner, nor could i expect anyone to travel to look after them for a couple of hours.

I agree with what others have said in that I think it's generally considered rude not to invite spouses/partners. I don't think children need to be automatically included though.

You sound very nice & wanting to be accommodating but I do think if you leave it open as a matter for discussion with colleagues who question it as to what they prefer, you are setting yourself for a potential mess. Really, it's your wedding, you need to decide on the numbers and arrangements that suit your budget and people usually are completely ok with that. Trying to tailor the invite list on the basis of what certain individuals want just gets too fraught in my experience.

I was invited to a wedding last summer in the way you describe, and had no problem with the invite atall, understanding that costs were involved etc. The invite said that the mean was to be mainly close family and close friends. I was a work and social friend and understood totally. But in practises it was really uncomfortable and abut upsetting and embarrassing. Standine around waiting for the ceremony to begin, chatting to parents of the bride getting on very well and then feeling very awkward afterwards when they assumed we were coming with them, and having to explain we weren't. Felt like a wedding crashed. Lots of mutual friends there, who before the wedding I would have said would have been as good a friend to the bride as I who I assumed would be wanting to hang out during the meal who were actually invited to the whole thing. Felt really embarrassed going back for the evening do, skulking around outside wondering whether it was OK to come in yet. Fielding questions from people who wondered where we'd gone, realising when we arrived back that the majority if people from the ceremony had been at the meal.... All very awkward and made me feel very sad.

If you were my friend HeresTheThingBooyhoo you and your children would be invited to the whole thing. I wouldn't expect a single parent to leave her children outside! None of the people I'm talking about are single parents and none of the children are under 5; in fact the children are mostly girls who love weddings and dressing up and all the rest of it, which is why I didn't want to exclude them completely. We're talking about 5 women though, all of whom I consider to be 'friends' and who I see outside of work reasonably frequently, but with their families it would work out to be around 20 people - and there just isn't room.

The venue is one of those places that says xx number during the day (whether it's a three course meal or buffet because you still need to sit down to eat a buffet iyswim) and xx number in the evening (as you can move some tables away)

Thank you for all of your comments (and for LuckyRocketshipUnderpants realising I'm nice and trying to do the best thing!) I understand that no-one likes feeling confused/second rate etc at weddings (I've been in a lot of the situations described by other posters) and I know it is a long way and not everyone will want to travel that far or will choose to use family money on a trip to somewhere they all want to go to rather than to the (really very pretty ) location of my wedding.

Back to the drawing board...

Well if its ONLY five colleagues, then I think you've created a problem where there wasn't one.

Just invite the colleagues and their DPs, that's only 10 places. Tough that their children would have enjoyed it, you don't have the room. Your colleagues won't mind in the slightest.

I think you're making it a bit complicated. Not easy to go sightseeing in your best wedding guest clothes. I'd invite people to the evening only

It sounds reasonable but it also sounds like you're overcomplicating things.

We couldn't afford whole families, so we didn't invite whole families. I don't think YABU though.

Another thought. ANYONE can go to the church, invited or not. SO, your issue is really regarding the catering. In which case I WOULD do a tiered system. Invite people to the disco in the evening, and put a footnote saying that of course they are also welcome to the church... random strangers can turn up at the church after all.

I've been to all dayers, and just evening do's and tbh they're all 'nice' and no offence has ever been taken on my part.

I do understand you wanting your day to be 'all in' we did that too and faced the dilemma of children... we were just rather straight foreward as we didn't have children then and didn't much like them at parties (this has changed now!!)

We had a wedding for 200 people, invited to the whole day and evening. We fed everybody hot food twice, gave them all a few glasses of champagne and a couple of cocktails and the total cost for food and drink was about £500. It can be done. You just have to be a bit creative and think outside the traditional venue caterer route.

I would invite friends paste era to the whole thing. DD1 invited friends and their partners to all of her wedding. But she didn't invite friends children because of space. Family children were there. Her friends were fine with this but would have thought it odd not to include their partners.

ditziness, that's amazing - £500 to cater for 200 people! Would you mind sharing a few more details - what sort of venue was it, did you get a discount/deal of some sort, what sort of food did you have?
Sorry for hijack, just gobsmacked and have to know more!

ditziness's experience at a similar wedding sounds awful and something you definitely want to avoid.

Can you not just invite the colleagues (for the whole day), and say to each one, when you hand them the invitation "I'm hoping that you, jane, jean, jill and jack will be able to travel down to the wedding together - I'm really sorry but the budget means we can't also accommodate spouses and children, but I really hope you'll be able to come".

josieRosie my friends catered very cheaply for their wedding by doing a hog roast, rolls, and dressed green salad, followed by apple crumble and custard. Was actually the tastiest wedding breakfast I've had. If you keep it ultra simple it actually adds to the charm of the occasion.

Wow, that sounds fab Llanarth! My sister will probably be getting engaged in the next few months and neither of them are exactly flush so I will share your idea with her - ta!