To ask why evening invitations to weddings are considered rude/ cold?

[LucyLot]

I am getting married at Christmas time. We can have 140 guests to the full day but both have large ish families and actually there are a lot of people we want to invite but can't afford to have at the full meal so we have had to go through the list and we have an additional 40 or so we are inviting to the evening do.

This number includes some cousins, work friends etc. We still really value these people we just had to draw the line somewhere. MIL seems to think offering an evening invitation is an insult. We are only giving people evening invitations of they live locally (in the same city).

Personally I don't see the problem- we will be inviting them to a party with a hot buffet, cake and some free champagne, what's wrong with that! We are not asking for gifts.

Would anyone here be offended to receive an evening invitation?

I think it depends on how you ask Tater.

I think asking for a monetary gift on top was a little bit but appreciate that's a whole different can of worms on Mumsnet.

I love evening invitations to local weddings. If we are friends, but not especially close, or work colleagues then I would prefer one to a full day invitation to be honest.

Only time I would imagine it could be slightly offensive would be if I considered us to be close friends/close family and you had invited 120 to the full day and I was one of the 30 extras to bump it up to 150 for the evening.

We did that areyoubeingserved at our first wedding (which was quite small) - asked a few extra people to join us in the evening (neighbours and ex DH's work colleagues) but didn't cater it (had wedding breakfast at 5pm) . We were young and clueless and thought that was the norm - I'm still embarrassed 20 years later .

I think asking for a monetary gift on top was a little bit

I completely agree on that. Although I think asking for money is super-tacky anyway.

When we got married we had about 20 evening guests who included: workmates, neighbours, less-close friends so ones that you don't see often but still want to be there in some capacity i.e., old uni friends. We laid on nice sandwiches and cakes/fruit for them, but could not afford for everyone to come to the whole thing! They had their own tables and it was fine. I think it depends on how you welcome them too. Nothing to do with presents, more to go with a costing POV. Was about half the price per person.

This is why I refused to have evening invites for my wedding. It makes you categorise guests into A and B list. I thought anyone who made the effort to come to my wedding should be there for the whole day. Due to space constraints, we couldn't fit everyone in the ceremony room so a few people had to miss that, but there wasn't much we could do about.

I wouldn't be miffed at getting an evening only invite to a colleagues's wedding or a friend I wasn't that close to, but to be honest if it was a close friend I might feel a bit put out.

And don't get me started on the twee poem that came with the invitation that asked for the money - I kid you not

I had read about such things on MN but hadn't really seen them in RL. It made the decision really easy to be honest!

I'd never heard of them till I moved to the UK. They always seem a bit rude to me, especially if you are then told to hand over cash as a gift or travel/overnight stay for them. Local ones, I guess.

It depends, if its done nicely, and the guests are not made to feel like an afterthought, than that's good. I went to one evening reception that we were made to feel like an afterthought. The couple we knew had spent 2 years planning this wonderful wedding which they kept talking about, in a posh hotel. We were invited to the ceremony, than the evening. We turned up at the time stated in the invite and had to wait 2 hours until it started, as the speeches and meal overran. When the food was put out, it was more like kiddies party food, dry pizza and mini sausages. Not good at all!

Another here who'd never heard of them until I moved to the UK (from Australia)- despite having lived here 9 years, I still find it kind of pointless, I want to see my friends get married, not just attend some evening party! We had our wedding in Oz, with about 100 people, in a beautiful venue in the mountains for a fraction of the cost of a UK wedding with all the trimmings...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that a colleague/neighbour you aren't particularly close to should be bumping off close family members. More questioning why you would bother inviting someone at all if you aren't bothered about them seeing the ceremony and they aren't worth feeding. I can only assume it is for the gift
gift. Of course it's rude. Imagine hosting a 50th birthday party for eg and giving out invitations to some people saying to arrive at 7 and some to arrive at 9 (after the food) as you couldn't afford to feed them all. You choose a venue and save up for the number of guests you want at your wedding. If you're not going to bother to save for longer to accommodate people properly then why invite them at all? They clearly aren't that important if you don't want them to actually watch you marry which should be the main event of the day.

Exactly bum generally I am miffed at it. You just would not do that at any other celebration, you invite those who are nearest and dearest. I think with weddings all manners go out of the window. Op you know you can have a smaller wedding, and just invite close family and friends, you don't have to invite work collegues, neighbours, the Postman. If you cannot afford it, have a smaller occasion.

Even worse are invitations that invite people to the ceremony and then to come back for the evening do. 'Come watch us get married, then fuck off as we don't want to feed you. And give us a gift.'

Expat like our *friends one, with 2 hour late evening do!

I think evening is absolutely fine.

'Op you know you can have a smaller wedding, and just invite close family and friends, you don't have to invite work collegues, neighbours, the Postman.'

But then how are they going to pay for their honeymoon? That seems to be the entire point of doing this type of thing so you can have more people to 'celebrate' (give you cash).

Expat I agree!

I have heard of this 'come to the church, bugger off and then come for the evening' nonsense only lately.

Right - I am going to get all dressed up as a rent-a-guest to bulk up your church numbers. Not.

expat I agree with that. A relative of mine was recently invited to a wedding at a resort abroad and then asked to give a money gift so the couple could have a honeymoon the following year.

I should add the wedding party were at the resort a week before and a week after. How many honeymoons do a couple get!? Seems like the guests were invited to fund the next one!

It is cold BowieFan. You're saying to people "you're less important if you are surprised or shocked by this then you can just get lost because you are so unimportant". It's all very princessy/bridezilla. As TheStoic says, circular logic and a very entitled attitude to boot. No class.

I lived abroad and was invited to the evening do of a cousins wedding, on a Tuesday, I declined. My parents were at the whole day and my dad was really hurt when it turned out I was the only one who had been given an evening invite from the cousins. So from that perspective it was a bit rude.

At our wedding we did have evening guests but they were mostly younger friends and children of my parents cousins who would have been at school (Friday wedding) who lived locally. Anyone who had to travel more than 30 mins was given a full invite

Like a few here our wedding was in a register office which had small capacity so we had a small daytime do with family and very close friends, and invited the bulk of our guests in the evening. I have always been very touched by any invite to anyone's wedding and have attended evening only on a few occasions. The only one I felt a bit awkward at was when we turned up at 7pm as requested to find we were the only evening invitees..

I am in Scotland & it is considered normal here to invite close family & & friends all day with extended family , colleauges & acquaintances invitrd at night. Never been to one where there was no buffet or the evening guests made to feel 2nd rate or unwelcome!

i'd never come across it before until i was an evening guest. i was mortified, had made a huge effort with gift and dress and hadn't eaten in anticipation of a meal. when the penny dropped we hadn't been invited to the main do with the 120 other people already there, still seated and enjoying their meal i could have died a thousand deaths. so the evening was spent being really hungry and knowing we weren't really very important at all.

either you have the wedding you can afford and invite everyone you want, or keep it small. you just can't tell people to only come to part of it.

Why don't people get that in many cases evening online invites for some is the wedding they can afford?

I don't think it's rude per se, but it's rude if you would need to travel far and stay overnight.

That said, I have only received two evening invites and I declined both. They were both local, but one was a last minute Facebook invite which definitely was rude (bride has form for shitty behaviour so I wasn't surprised). The other I declined because the bride had invited all but one of a very close knit team of colleagues and no one felt comfortable going in the circumstances.

Round here it's totally normal to have day and evening guests and in my experience, the only people who're offended at receiving an evening invitation are those who have never organised (and paid for) a bloody wedding themselves.