Wedding invitation to dh and not me

[Girl33]

Received separate invites to a friend's wedding in the post. DH is invited to the ceremony and wedding breakfast and I am only invited to the evening do. Aibu to think this is really really rude?? DH is shocked and says he's not going without me.

I wish some people would read the OP's posts...

(If you are on a computer you can colour them to make them easier to identify)

I think it's very rude & given your update sounds to me like they're making some sort of point about you.

It's rude, it's offensive, it's more offensive than no invitation at all. If you are tight on numbers, it's less offensive to invite a couple just to the evening than him to the day and her to the evening, or not at all, few people feel they must be invited unless they are a sibling of the Bride or Groom!

If you really can't fit everyone in, then don't invite them.

It's also showing a lack of social grace and understanding to think that the "plus 1" is just there for you - it's amazing how many people on here think it's ok to say "well, I don't know the husband of X so I didn't invite him" because your enjoyment of the day is the sole priority - having a guest with them, someone to acompany them for the day is actually about being a good host to the person you have invited. It's unlikely, with a wedding with a lot of guests, that you can spend all day chatting with a friend, so having a 'date' with them is showing consideration to their needs. Not everyone will bring their other half or indeed a date at all if single, but turning up alone to a whole day event where your host will not have much time to talk to you is hard to do for the bulk of the population.

A wedding ceremony is about the couple. A wedding reception is a party the couple have hosted, being a good host means you do have to think about the needs and comfort of your guests. This normally would include giving them the opportunity to have their partner with them.

If you really think it's "all about us" then don't have any guests! If you want to throw a party as well, then throw a good one. And good party hosting involves not being a dick towards your guests. You can have the best flowers, the most amazing band, the most fabulous food, but if everyone's having a shit time, it won't matter, it'll still be a really crap wedding.

Same thing happened to me a couple of years ago - in my case DH was actually the best man! I'm still pissed off about it to this day. I think it's incredibly rude. I previously thought of both the bride and groom as my friends, but not any more.

" it's amazing how many people on here think it's ok to say "well, I don't know the husband of X so I didn't invite him" because your enjoyment of the day is the sole priority "

Your conclusion is not warranted by the evidence, inviting one allows that person to attend if they want to, it doesn't require them to attend, it's an invitation. It makes much more sense to me to invite the 50 (say) people you most want there, rather than the 30 people you most want and 20 extra partners who you don't know very well.

Of course, I actually took your advice and had invited no-one...

Another entertaining example of Weird Mundane Shit. There's no logical reason to act as though everyone has an Other Half that they can't function without - if you're having a party it's up to you (as hosts)to decide whether you'dprefer to say to the guests you actually want to attend that they can bring some one else to hold their hand - friend, relatve, sexual/romantic partner, minder, parent - or whether you only have room for the person you actually know and like.

If you are so skint that you can only afford to put one guest on the day list and another, related, guest on the evening only list you should have the guts to call them and explain. Most people, if you ring with the option, will discuss it and would probably agree with the 'you go to the day and I'll join you later' scenario or will say 'we'll both come to the evening do please'. What you don't do is just decide to split them. It is rude. It is also showing a yellow streak to just send the invitation rather than have the conversation. If you just have a 'like it or lump it' attitude as a bride or groom I think it shows your friends either don't mean as much as you say or you know its rude and feel uncomfortable. Otherwise you'd call wouldn't you?

When we got married I wanted work colleagues to come. They had supported me through a messy divorce years before. But we couldn't afford them and spouses, we have a large family on both sides. So I spoke to them all, face to face, before the invitations went out and explained that we could have them to the whole day without partners or evening only if they wanted to bring a partner. Two chose to come to the evening and we made sure they were made very welcome. The others treated it as an office party trip out, hired a mini bus, bought themselves posh hats and had a whale of a time. My ex boss still says it was the best wedding she's been to (and that wasn't to me but to a friend). It's about putting yourself into someone else's shoes. The bride and groom may well have money worries, or just want twenty close friends or whatever, but the OP and her DH aren't mind readers.

People appreciate that weddings are expensive but for goodness sake, a phone call to explain the problem isn't bloody rocket science!

All the bride and groom have done is wasted two stamps, upset a close friend, pissed off close friend's wife and probably won't have close friend at their wedding. If they had called or emailed to explain the problem before sending out the invitation they would have, probably, come to a solution pretty easily and the OP would be posting to say what a decent couple they were to try to keep everyone happy.

It's odd to suggest that the bride and groom should compromise on their venue etc. in order to accommodate people they really don't know. As for etiquette, the kind of etiquette that requires you to treat married people as a social unit surely only applied in the 1950s and certainly not in the 21st century. Being 'insulted' because the invitation doesn't extend to your partner is just entitled behaviour and will have consequences for the working relationship.

I wanted my work colleagues to come to my wedding but we couldn't afford for 10 partners to come as well, so like Esmum friends they were happy to come as a group and nobody took offence. I've been asked to weddings of friends without my partner and have never thought this was rude. As long as I know someone else going I happily trot a long. My husband and I are a partnership but are grown up enough not to think we have to go everywhere together.

Ah, now seeing as they're just inviting men and not wives, I think it is ok. If they'd invited everyone else as couples and then you two separately then I would have said that was not ok. I know lots of people who have just invited a group of friends without partners.

Why do people keep pointing out that married couples think they have to go everywhere together. Nowhere on this thread has anyone said this!

Mary Westmacott has it in a nutshell.

You can have the fanciest wedding, but if your guests aren't enjoying themselves, they will remember your wedding for all the wrong reasons.

clam- I agree and this has happened on similar threads. One poster says " spouses should be invited" and another poster will say "I am not joined at the hip and do not need to accompany my spouse everywhere" rather obliquely missing the point.

I think weddings have got to the point where guests are considered less and less. Look at the evidence: no kids, cash poems, vouchers, extravagant hen and stag dos with accompanying guilt for non attendance, and now, separating couples to save money.

Weddings used to be a family knees up with a drunk uncle, embarrassing elderly disco dancing, a couple of kids under the buffet table and everybody enjoying themselves.

Now its all politics, cash and appearances.

Sorry , that does sound grumpier than I meant it to.

Mary Westmacott has it in a nutshell.

You can have the fanciest wedding, but if your guests aren't enjoying themselves, they will remember your wedding for all the wrong reasons.

clam- I agree and this has happened on similar threads. One poster says " spouses should be invited" and another poster will say "I am not joined at the hip and do not need to accompany my spouse everywhere" rather obliquely missing the point.

I think weddings have got to the point where guests are considered less and less. Look at the evidence: no kids, cash poems, vouchers, extravagant hen and stag dos with accompanying guilt for non attendance, and now, separating couples to save money.

Weddings used to be a family knees up with a drunk uncle, embarrassing elderly disco dancing, a couple of kids under the buffet table and everybody enjoying themselves.

Now its all politics, cash and appearances.

Sorry , that does sound grumpier than I meant it to.

Well yes Fred, people can chose not to go. But your intention in inviting just one half of a couple is to have them there without their partner, so not thinking about the person's enjoyment of the day, just your own. If you did do the 'not inviting anyone' thing then that's far better! If you do want it to be just about you, great, just make it about you. Inviting people to attend an event when you put no thought into if they will enjoy it or not is far ruder than not inviting them at all.

It might make more 'sense' to you to only pay for 50 people you want there, but it doesn't make it better for those 50 people.

Yes, compromise the venue if you want a large number of people there, assuming it's only polite to invite their spouces. Or don't invite them, much better to not invite someone at all than to invite them in a way that's rude. Not inviting a non-family member due to lack of space isn't rude. Inviting a friend but not their DH/W is always rude, they might just decide not to mind enough to still come, it doesn't make it any less rude.

It is up to the bride and groom what they do and who they invite, it isn't up to them to decide if their friends are allowed to get offended by rudeness just because they had good reasons (for them) for their rudeness.

oh and re child-free weddings, there traditionally has been 2 types of weddings in the UK, most 'normal' people experienced weddings being big family events with drunken uncles and small children running around. then there was the way the upper classes did it, and children weren't invited to weddings (you'll only ever see bridesmaids and page boys at a royal wedding, no other children). There are people now who pick the more 'posh' version even if that wasn't the sort of wedding they grew up with their family doing.

However, it's never been acceptable to invite someone without their husband/wife to a formal social occassion, and weddings are a formal occassion no matter how 'relaxed' you do it.

I wouldn't go at all, or buy a present or want to friends with the 'happy' couple any longer

Missed the bit about being in business together but would still feel miffed if it was me.

clam The reason people say it is that the etiquette people are asserting about the reason for inviting married couples (but not everyone who has a partner, or always a +1) is predicated on that fact.

Etiquette dictated it, because the wife just became an extension of the husband, so they had to be invited as a whole. So whilst it's not quite that by supporting that notion of etiquette you're supporting that view, it is an etiquette that needs to be re-imagined. Some things have already unquestionably been changed in that way, e.g. treating non-married co-habiting couples similar to married.

Treating people as individuals, not as extensions of their partners is part of it.

Very rude. I was invited to a wedding last year without dh and even though it was a colleague, I still felt it was wrong and dh couldn't believe it! I've honestly never had that happen before or since. Extremely bad manners. I get there are cost issues but it seems so crass to me....just don't invite if you can't afford it.

generally I find people are becoming more selfish when it comes to weddings. I know it's their day but it's like people think only of themselves, regardless of tact or etiquette. With regards to my colleagues wedding, it's all people remember and it's not in a good way!

Sometimes, of course, you want to invite someone without his/her partner because the partner's a shit - gets drunk, starts arguments, is light-fingered or whatever. OP, have you ever quarelled with the bride to be, or given her advice 'for her own good' or anything?

It isn't about cost for us its about space, anal registry office wedding. Those we have invited without husbands are a small group of my friends, old ante natal type group friends, we have kept in touch though kids now at different high schools etc. But then we are not even paying for meals. Late morning ceremony and then we are going to restaurant (pizza express) and have invited guests to join us in lieu of presents. We are having kids present, we have five our own! And many of our friends kids are friends with ours. After 17 years our wedding day is about the children as well. Getting married for us is a celebration of the family. But we don't want a big wedding or formal or fussy. We have arranged it to suit our family and friends who are happy for us and looking forward to it.

I have been to child free weddings and ones without dp, I go and have fun and for me it is about the couple, even when it's been difficult to organise ie child free I wouldn't dream of complaining, it's not about me it's about the couple or in our case our family unit.

Small registry office NOT anal

I wouldn't mind at all.

Unless you're close enough friends to be able to call the bride and/or groom yourself then I honestly don't know why you'd want to attend their wedding??

And what's all this bollocks about a wedding being a celebration of coupledom? I can assure you that my wedding was about me and DH. Not anybody else in the sense that it was us getting married and committing to each other. However, we did gear our party to our guests to make sure everyone had a good time. That said, it was quite important to us that we knew everyone attending. I also d not much like other people's children so why on earth would I want my wedding ruined by them??

even if you don't like the oh, to invite only one to part of it is just bloody rude. suck it up. invite both or none.

if you're determined to show people what you really think of them by not inviting them to bits, you're causing no end of hurt. and for what end?

Have you fallen out with the Groom for any reason? Seems very odd unless it is a genuine mistake? Perhaps DH should ask the Groom to clarify.