wedding invitation - unbelievably rude or normal for today?

[marriedinwhiteagain]

Have received a wedding invitation from one of DH's cousins and her parents.

DH and I are invited to the evening do on the other side of London. 7.30

The wedding itself is in Central London at 2pm and we have been told we are welcome to attend that and it would be lovely if we do.

We have also received a covering note saying we aren't invited to the actual wedding breakfast because of expense/limit on numbers.

DH's elderly mother, now the most senior member of the family has been invited to the wedding breakfast and is not robust enough to cope with a full on day without being looked after, etc.

I think this is so wrong on so many counts: the expectation that we will dress up for an event in the middle of the day (both work full time) then have time to waste either coming home to cross London again later or have our own afternoon meal whilst killing time. The message that you have a whole day at my disposal but no although I want you there you aren't important enough to be catered for or for the formal part of the "do"

Also, DH's mother MIL is their guest, they know she will have to be taken to the wedding (at the church where she got married), taken to the reception, escorted to the evening party and brought home. Yet no effort has been made by the bride's family to offer to book her a london hotel, meet her from the station, etc. I think we are expected to care for their guest although it has beenmade crystal clear we are tier two guests, ie, not that important to the bride.

Now I think this is taking the piss big time and we should just formally decline adding a note that we trust they are liaising with MIL over her travel plans as she is elderly and a key family member. DH thinks we should just suck it up. We have had a rare row over this.

So, does the MNet jury think I'm being unreasonable? and if the little madam expects a present from me ....

The thing is, even If you don't get a free toast, you are getting a roof over your head, a chair under your arse, entertainment, most probably a buffet. Who is paying for that?

Father Christmas. THe Tooth Fairy.

Who cares at this point.

To each his own.

I have social expectation to mingle,be convivial.i have no financial expectation that host buy alcohol

I know plenty of people who I would love to invite to a party, who I couldn't possibly afford to accommodate at a meal. It doesn't mean I wouldn't want them there on my wedding day!

No, LadyHarriet. Your host is paying. Hosting the party. Where do they draw the line if they aren't loaded?

i tend to only invite the number of people i can afford to accommodate for myself. i can only speak for myself on that one.

I think my views on evening invites is coloured by the fact that the only ones I have received have involved considerable travel and overnight expense (and no children allowed). I accept that if you have a group of work mates who live close to where you are getting married inviting them for the evening only may make sense.

I completely agree that I'm not remotely important to many of my relations and so an invite to an evening do seems like a present request - they don't actually want me to be there, they can't because they don't know me.

I genuinely find it difficult to understand the view that it is ruder to invite someone than to not invite them.

And surely people who would be offended at not being invited to the whole day would logically be even more offended at not being invited at all?

Mind you, I don't know anyone like that in real life which might be why I'm struggling with the concept.

I know people who would be offended at not being invited to a wedding.

They would be still-offended-but-less-so at being invited to the evening only. (an invitation is better than no invitation)

Thy would be equally-or-less offended at being invited to evening-plus-you-can-come-to-the-ceremony, vs invited to the evening only. (details of the ceremony make things better or have no effect, they do not add offence).

This is the way it should be, right? I imagine it's certainly what people intend.

I am with you Flowery. I cant understand how being invited to the evening do is worse than not being invited at all.. I love to have the opportunity to meet up with people I haven't seen in a while, be it cousins, colleagues or old school friends.

I have to say that this view is colored by the fact that all the evening parties I have been to have been local and none have expected presents. All the ones I have been to are catered, usually buffet (once it was a load of fish & chips with bread & butter from the chippy ). What tends to happen is a few of us will pool together to get the
happy couple something from the list, but that's our choice and we're delighted to do it.

I agree that you should provide some booze.
At my imaginary church hall wedding, I would get my 4 best friends and my mum to help with the food, and I would provide champagne for toasts.
I would ask guests to bring a bottle instead of gifts.
Sorted. Now I just have to find someone to marry...

The best wedding I went to was a Russian one, where each table had a bottle of Stoli in an ice bucket on the table and then there was a paying bar for other drinks.

'And as for the 'two tier is wrong' - the Cambridges had 3 tiers! People invited just to the ceremony, people invited to the ceremony and the meal, people invited to the ceremony and the evening do.'

And? I think it's rude. No resentment, I do't go to evening do's. But I think it's a crummy way to treat guests.

To those who have commented about me not getting back to the thread we were out yesterday afternoon and then at the theatre in the evening.

Today I was at work from 8.30 until just after 7 and have just sat down after cooking dinner and clearing up.

To those who have asked for more information - the bride does not live in London and neither do her parents. There is no family connection with the venue for the evening party.

There is a family connection to the church - the bride's father, my MIL and a younger sister were married there because at the time their parents - DH's grandparents lived in the Parish.

My MIL was married in that church. After 50 years of marriage she was widowed. This will be the first time since her sistr's wedding in 1969 that she will have visited that church. Surely an event for a little empathy for an elderly widow.

For many years when they were alive dH and I were the closest to his grandparents and could reach them in 15/20 minutes. And did in an emergency and the day the carers couldn't get in - it was me the carers called beforw they broke the door down; and me who stayed with the body until the police arrived and the brides father could get there.

We both work Mon-Fri and I would have thought that anyone who does that with two hildren would appreciate how valuable weekends are.

No other cousin with a qualifying connection has married at this church, chosing instead their home towns and more modest occasions. No other cousin has excluded another cousin or sibling. That is not the norm in this family and weddings have ranged from 80-120 guest wise - some with an evening do to which extra wedding guests have been invited without excluding anyone who has been invited to the ceremony. Also DHks siblings live thousands of miles away and DH is the only one of MILs children able to looke after her on what will be a happy but emotional day for her.
Marriage, in my humble opinion is a lifetime commitment before God. MIL's marriage ended after many years and I think it very sad that so many have been so rude about a bereaved and elderly lady attending a wedding alone, without her husband, who was once a groom, for the first time in 50 years. It is not how I would treat a member of my family and in my experience, when the chips are down it is family who support, family who provide, family who defend. Not a fair weather work mate or uni chum.

I have tried to answer unanswered questions and I am ducking put of this thread now.

I accept I am unreasonable; I have shared what we will do. I cannot share more without outing the bride but ultimately whatever any of you might think about me I am shocked at the commments about MIL's situation on here. One day some of you will be 8O and bereaved after a long marriage and I hope your relatives are. Little kinder to you. The young beautiful bride does not exist forever; her day is the start of a union that should be kind to her.

Totally agree expat! And as I said up thread, the cherry on top is when you're expected to produce a gift in order to attend. What do you receive? The tailend of the band, a paying bar and a bit of a buffet if you're lucky. Why bother? Pay a sitter for that....no thanks.

marriedinwhite YANBU!!!! Totally agree with all that you have said. What a crock this wedding sounds, all show and where's the substance?

oh dear,a paying bar?what were you not feted enough.no freebies to be had

I totally agree with you Marriedinwhite and really think YANBU!

Had written a whole lot more but have just seen your reply. I am so glad that your MIL will have her son to support her in the church. It's just a shame that he can't be there to help her the whole day.

OP - have you actually asked the bride's father, (MIL's brother if I've got that right) if there has been any arrangements to get her between venues or are you still assuming the bride and groom haven't shown any consideration?

(It doesn't sound like she wants a 'society wedding' then, it sounds like the bride wants to get married in the church her parents and grandparents got married in)

I do agree LadyHarrietdeSpook weddings seem to have become ticket events rather than a hosted celebration.

What I am seeing is a kind of cherry-picking of different things from different cultures:

B&G writing their own vows, expectation of cash gifts, huge weddings for 1000s of your closest friends and family, inviting people to different parts of the wedding, dancing 'til dawn.

None of these are wrong in their cultural context and actually make lots of sense. The problem is when the B&G want all of the 'benefits' eg cash gifts, lots of guests, huge party but forget that there is a quid pro quo whereby they are responsible for ensuring that all aspects of their wedding consider the comfort of their guests.

If you want to have a 'Hello' magazine style photo shoot then knock yourself out but dont leave your guests sitting around like lemons for the 4 hours it takes. Entertain them.

If you want to impersonate the latest Royal wedding fashions then you need the funds to carry it off with style. You also need to have the pull of a title to make it worth it .

If you want cash gifts to defray the costs then dont forget that guests should be very well treated and you arent supposed to be making a profit.

Cherry-pick the best bits but forget your obligations as a host to your guests then you will come across grabby and rude.

Who said her grandparents were married there? Her father married there because his mum and dad lived round the corner! The bride's parents live many miles away in a different parish.

I would have hoped the bride's father would not need a telephone call about this. I would have hoped he might have picked up the phone to reassure MIL without our intervention - I seem to remember my mum going to great lengths to make sure all DH's gran's needs were catered for when we got arried and enuring flower arrangements and a tier from the cake we're delivered to my gran's nursing home the day after the wedding when gran was far too unwell to attend or even remember the present.

I am seeing a pattern here. Those who don't like evening parties think the host should provide free food and drink and the hosts who invite them do so on condition that they must bring a gift. Have I got that right?

I am fortunate in that neither I, nor the people in my family/social are that grasping. Invitations are issued and accepted on the basis that it is the craic that you bring
that's important.

Exactly as I asked earlier don'tmindifIdo. We still don't seem to know. I appreciate the OP has been very close to her parents in law, but cannot see anywhere that the rest of the family are not equally supportive, or that provision may not have been made.

OP - genuinely (and not from any spiteful basis) I would ask if there is some history between yourself and the bride and/or her immediate family? the only reason I can see for the single exclusion, given everything else you have said, is that you have seriously upset them at some point.

YABU

No. It isn't a single exclusion. Two thirds of the cousins have been treated as we have - in one case one sister has been invited and asked to read her sister has the same invite as us. I understand their mother is livid. There is no adverse history at all.

So OP, you haven't called the father of the bride? Why ever not? It would have taken a lot less time and involved a lot less stress than starting a thread where you are disparaging of his DD's choice of nuptial arrangements. What's more you may actually find that they have made arrangements for your MIL, and you have no cause for consternation as you are happy enough with the evening invitation.