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.

We made all our own booze ( 100 litres elderflower or rasberry champagne, And a range of fruit vodka cocktails). We borrowed catering pans and made two simple massive pots of mild chilli ( one veggie, one meat) with hot sauce on the side the week before, then froze them. We bought tortillas, cheese and extras to serve with it and asked guests to bring salads and puddings instead of wedding presents. At night we barbecued lots of baked potatoes on the bonfire, and ate them with cheese and baked beans and left overs. We had some amazed friends who Made sure it all reached the buffet table hot, and everyone helped themselves.

Wow ditziness - that's pretty much nigh-on identical to how we catered DPs 30th

:-)

Not too difficult eh, if you're happy to do all the prep and organising in advance . And if ourselves when it's your wedding have friends to help heat stuff up and lay it all out.

Before we did it we had no end of people say we were mad and that it wasn't possible. And now afterwards I'm amazed that people pay the kind of prices that venues and caterers charge. (unless of course they specifically want that kind of treatment)

Two and a half hours drive seems too far for this sort of split invite to be honest. The problem is you will be expecting the partners and children to put themselves out for your benefit, not the colleagues who actually know you. I've been to a church and evening do held somewhere rural and apparently pretty but we had pouring rain for the entire four hour wait, stuggled to find somewhere even to get a cup of tea and use the loo and was I very very fed up by the end of it. And that was with no children to entertain.

ofcourse not ourselves

Also meant to say- when i look at my wedding photos i always think- who the hell are all these people?? really I wish i'd been braver about not inviting some people. (in my case it was worry about not upsetting people and lots of pressure from both sets of parents) With some of the colleagues i'm wondering if you might feel the same in a couple of years or if you change job? Are these people you would stay in touch with?

Either invite less people like online friend suggests, or do it cheaper and invite who you want. If you're just in a local hall, then presumably it doesn't come as a package with the caterers so you can do your own catering. A buffet doesn't need to be a sit down meal with table names and all, just have some tables, seats around the edges and let people mill and eat! Unless ofcourse having a sit down meal is more important to you than being able to invite everyone, which is fine. But if that's the case be honest about it and don't put your friends in the awkward position if knowing you don't carevabout them enough to put them on the all day list. Choose, but don't try and do both, that's selfish.

OP, yours is a a similar to situation to ours.
We married in my parent's home town (also very close to DH's, so sensible for both families). We both lived and worked about an hour and a half away.

We ended up taking the decision to just have a main event - no evening 'do' at all as we knew work/casual friends couldn't be expected to travel down just for a few hours at night. Did feel a bit bad at not asking them to anything, but there was no way we could have had everyone at the reception as DH already had loads of relatives who needed to be invited (I also have quite a lot) and we'd had a hard time finding a large but cheap venue as it was.

YABU. If you don't know/like people enough for their families to be invited too, don't invite them at all.

If they are collegues, just invite them for the evening do.
No-one will drive 2.5 hours to watch a ceremony and then hang round a village, possibly in pouring rain, with toddlers etc, and then go to an evening do wih tired children / no babysitting if they then have to drive hime 2.5 hours - leaving early with tired kids, or soending ££ to stay in a hotel, when they have not even had a sasage roll at a buffet! I wouldn't, anyway.

Could you:
recalibrate so that the reception is a cheaper buffet affair and more affordable for all comers
or
Invite collegues for the evening only
or
Say that it is a child free wedding?

Actually the more I think about it the more I think it's a bad idea. You're basically expecting that these people will care enough about you that they would want to see you married, but you don't care enough about them to feed them and their families. You can't just expect them to hang around all day. Just be honest, ask the colleague only without family to while thing, ask colleague and family to eve or change the nature of your wedding and invite everyone to everything. Don't try and do it all.

Thank you again for your thoughts. They're all interesting to hear and I appreciate you being blunt enough to tell me that my latest plan is actually crap. As I said, 'back to the drawing board...' (nothing is actually booked yet, so we can rethink it all)

I do feel I need to defend myself against one comment though: The problem is you will be expecting the partners and children to put themselves out for your benefit, not the colleagues who actually know you

I'm not expecting anyone to put themselves out. Really I'm not. I just want to ensure that if my colleagues do want to come, then rather than travel all that way on their own they have the option of including the rest of their families if they want to. I'm hoping that llanarth's "you, jane, jean, jill and jack will be able to travel down to the wedding together" idea is exactly what will happen.

(Ditziness your catering sounds great)