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 ....

Ah, you are bitter about your nephew's wedding. I see. I think people said you sounded bitter because the whole celeb thing was a bit random and angry, and you don't seem to have any understanding of different viewpoints or circumstances. It wasn't just one person who thought it.

So you conclude that by not inviting all my family and by inviting some people to an evening part I don't give a fuck about community (which as others have pointed out, can mean friends not just family). You're wrong, but thanks for your analysis. And I don't give a damn about what celebrities do!

I agree that guests should be treated well on the day and that the day should consider the comfort and enjoyment of the guests as well as the bride and groom. I think most (not all) people aim to do that.

Springy, what was it about your nephew's wedding that lead the anger and vitriol that you have displayed on this thread?

woh, hold up! It's getting a bit black & white here. I was making a point, which often necessitates making it bluntly to get it across. I'm still astonished that some posters don't recognise the obvious link between our celeb-obsessed/fame culture and how that has bled into our everyday eg weddings.

I'm not 'bitter' about my nephew's wedding, but I was very hurt at the time - on behalf of my poor parents, who tried to put a brave face on it. It was just awful and I cried and cried afterwards - just too awful to see them in an environment wholly unsuited to them, no thought given to them at all. It really hurt to see how badly they were treated by the b&g (and the b&g's parents, it has to be said).

The b&g just didn't 'get' the value of family - actively rejected any idea of 'family', deeming them completely irrelevant and unimportant. That is a huge loss imo.

Just checking we're on the viper AIBU. Yep, we are. par for the course to cut to the chase here ime.

It's just that you seemed to be judging everyone who didn't do things in exactly the way you thought it should be done as wanting a celebrity wedding. That really pisses me off, because I really do not like celebrity culture and shudder at the idea of that sort of wedding.

It's just that you seemed to be judging everyone who didn't do things in exactly the way you thought it should be done

that's a good example of black and white there Binky!

I am really sorry that your nephew and his family are a bunch of arises who were rude to your parents. But that does not mean that all people who have similar weddings are rude arses too. All the evening parties I have attended have been delightful affairs.

The OP here have decided that the bride is a rude arse, not because of her MIL, (no one has actually picked up a phone to find out what the arrangements are), but because she has not been invited to the wedding breakfast. The OP is not part of the brides community, they live nowhere near her and have minimal contact.

Well sorry, but going into an odd tirade about celeb weddings in response to people disagreeing with you does come across like that to me, and as good as saying that not inviting all family means you don't care about community is a big generalisation.

These people wanted to get married in same church as parents then have a meal, and were then inviting some additional people to celebrate with them in the evening. Some people may be influenced by celeb weddings, but I really think that saying if someone doesn't invite all their 100s of extended family, or has an evening do just wants to be worshipped in a celeb style wedding is daft.

posted early -

you may shudder at all things sleb, but if you look at weddings in even the past century, they have rocketted in star value in at least the past decade or so = direct link to the rise in the sleb/fame culture.

My mum got married in a suit (1950s). She looked lovely, but the wedding wasn't the big part of their marriage. My older sister certainly had a nice wedding (1970s), but it wasn't bells and whistles at all. Beautiful dresses, flowers etc, hotel reception. That was it. The wedding was supposed to be nice, lovely, special etc but it wasn't the be-all and end-all.

Well yes - I'm not arguing a wedding should be the be all and end all. A correlation isn't a direct link btw. There are many reasons things have changed.

Look, I'm not saying it's ok to treat guests badly or to use them as props in a wedding. Im normally on the 'people need to consider their guests more' side of this debate. I just think that you have very rigid views and seem very scathing if people don't do it how you think it should be done, when there are any number of different circumstances.

Ie correlation does not prove a causal link, and I don't think the main driving force for people having evening dos is celeb weddings.

I've got time to kill - I'm waiting for the tennis (put back an hour!)

My degree was in fashion and one of the best aspects of it was looking at the history of fashion and the direct links to what was going on in the world at the time eg:

Manolo Blahnik sales plummetted after 9/11. SATC had made them famous - high, strappy. After 9/11, people wanted to be able to run. They subconsciously lost interest in shoes you can't run in.

When the pill came out in the 1960s, skirts went up. Women could be sexual without getting pregnant.

Corsets/stays represented the oppression of women (held in); ditto Japanese foot-binding. 1920s, the decade women got the vote, women cut their hair (boyish, wanting to be boys = get the vote) and wore shift-like dresses (loose, soft fabrics) to represent kicking off being held in.

etc. What's going on in the world just does affect what we wear and how we express ourselves. The sleb/fame culture has affected weddings.

Look

I'm looking, thanks.

I think that at the end of the day, no one gives a shit.

I think 27 pages beg to differ on that one dave.

I was a scientist and believe in using evidence to back up definitive statements and to explore theories about things, whether sales of high heels (interested to see the evidence on that one - sounds interesting) or why people have evening dos at weddings.

I'm not disputing the fact that what's going in in world changes how we think and express ourselves - just the direct conclusion you have drawn here, seemingly about all weddings that are different to how you would like - and the fact you have excluded other factors that many people have pointed out in drawing your conclusion. You've then been pretty judgemental about other people's choices based on this conclusion.

I invited all my cousins to our wedding. Every. One. Of. Them. There are 23 of them. Since then, eight of them have been married and I only got invited to the whole thing for four of them. If I'd know that when I got married I wouldn't have bothered to invite them at all, the fuckers.

Actually I think big dave's right. Even OP has gone. What am I doing?!

*Look

I'm looking, thanks*

You're just being pointlessly argumentative now about something that I thought was a discussion where people had different views.

Bigdave appears to have made some interesting contributions on other threads too.

chipmonkey

Then I'd expect you to address the issue not the person. YOu are making personal comments about me, when it is only my opinion that you are.. misrepresenting, as it happens.

I have expressed my preference, and I have backed that up. My first post on this thread, way back, concluded with the point that we all have different viewpoints.

It is different times now (as it was then, and then). I am making the point that imo we have lost some important core values in the bling of weddings. I have also said that I had some lofty ideas at my wedding, too, so I'm hardly pointing fingers at people wanting a very special day.

That's probably more to do with increased affluence than sleb culture Springy. My granny could only afford cheap cuts in the 40s, my mum could only afford sausages and mince in the 70s, I can afford chicken and chops now.

I am making the point that imo we have lost some important core values in the bling of weddings
Now that is a different thing, Springy, ( probably worth a thread all by itself ) and while I disagree on the whole matter of who should be the focus at a wedding, and whether or not there is a 'style over content' issue, I absolutely agree with you on this point
But then, I'm getting old!!

I think everyone is being a bit harsh on OP. Does no one care about the principle of reciprocity? If you invite your cousins to the your wedding breakfast it is good form for them to do likewise. If they're on a tight budget then fair enough, but it doesn't sound like this is the case if the rest of the event is fancy.

What 'core values'? The big difference in weddings now is that people invite who they want to invite rather than inviting people they aren't close to because they feel they have to as they're family.

My Mum and Dad were told how many places they had for friends at their wedding by their parents because that's how it was done then. That's terribly sad imo, their wedding wasn't their wedding. Consequently they tried the same thing on me, wanting me to invite cousins I haven't seen for 20 years (all with plus ones, naturally) at the expense of our friends, people who know us, we spend time with regularly and wanted to celebrate with us and vice versa. We had several rows about it but in the end those strangers weren't invited.

As a result, one of the things most people have sad about our wedding was the feeling of warmth - the guests who attended were all people we're close to and it meant as much to us that they were there as it did to them.