AIBU to think this is a strange wedding invite?!

[palomapaloma]

Just got my eagerly awaited wedding invite from my first cousin who is getting married in a few months. She sent a group invite for my parents, me and my siblings (all adults) I assumed it included my husband and 2 children and my brothers long term partners. Messaged her just to check and she told me no it's only people named on the invite! Am I being off for feeling a bit put out? I'm now in a dilemma with what to do as hubby has the hump with not being invited! The wedding is about 40 miles away so if I go I'd have to stay over somewhere or not drink( not gonna happen!) I just feel quite disappointed because we grew up together, we are still close and shared a flat a few years back. I've been married for 6 years so it's not like I've got an on off bf that she barely knows. What's everyone's opinion and what would you do?

I can understand people not wanting children, as that does happen sometimes. However, to not invite your husband or to explain that she can only afford for you to come, is very odd, considering your close relationship. I'd be inclined to not go, especially as your DH will struggle alone with two children. I have ms and I'd struggle with that too, tbh.

We've invited some friends without their partners and husbands to my wedding and some just their eldest child, including the best man. We are in our mid 40s and practically all our friends have at least 2 children + step children. We can not afford to pay for guests to bring 2, 3 or 4 children each and I've had to make culls based on how well I know friend's husband or partner too. Family children are invited and a friend with one child who can't get a babysitter has asked if he can bring his child (we said he could).
I really hope our guests have made the correct assumptions about our motivation and not thought too deeply or self absorbedly about it.
If anyone thinks our guest list is "weird" or we have made arrangements thoughtlessly or without a good reason, they don't know me very well and shouldn't attend if they don't understand we don't have a magic bottomless wedding purse.
I would imagine your cousin has had a similar dilemma and it's not fair for you and your husband to take this so personally. I understand you are disappointed but she wasn't to know you'd been making assumptions and planning your DC's outfits. I'd be gracious, go and enjoy yourself with your family and tell your husband to get over it.

Child free, yes (although I'd always invite children) husband free, definitely not.

I'd politely decline.

Can we please just knock this idea on the head that people expecting to be invited to a wedding as a couple (which is a formal occasion, after all, however it's planned), are somehow old-fashioned and joined at the hip for all eventualities.
I've been married over 20 years, and dh and I have a wide and varied social life, sometimes together, sometimes apart - it depends on who it's with and what it's for. If a work colleague got married and invited just one of us to the evening do, I think that's one thing. However, for a family/close friend's wedding, I think it's pretty off to only invite one partner. No kids on the invitation - fine and understandable (certainly don't "get" the number of people on MN who maintain that "we come as a unit") but your husband? Not on.

Totally agree octopus I think it's pretty cheap bizarre to split a couple on a day that celebrates marriage . I wouldn't go because I'd feel like a right lemon by myself.

If the bride and groom have to invite both and can't as it is to expensive to do so, so they don't invite the cousins at all. Which then would cause upset too.

They can't win really.

I was married 12 years ago FWIW.

Faithless Of course people understand that there is no bottomless purse when it comes to wedding guest lists. But I think you're being naive to think that you won't have pissed off a fair number of your guests with what they will undoubtedly see as an arbitrary and unfair pecking order, even if they are too polite to say so out loud or to your face.

Your DH is only miffed because he'll have to mind his own children. Go and have a good time. Tell him to ask someone to come over to help him, if he doesn't want to do it alone.

Your DH is only miffed because he'll have to mind his own children.

WTF? That's a bit of a projection, isn't it? Maybe your husband behaves like that, but that's no reason to suppose everyone else's does, and that's quite apart from the fact that she's already said he is unwell.

Tisme or maybe he's miffed because he's always felt part of OP's family but being excluded from the wedding feels otherwise.

Your DH is only miffed because he'll have to mind his own children

And you know this how??

Mmmm, 'etiquette' isn't used much; I wonder if its opposite is more appropriate here? I once made up a word for its opposite, not knowing what the antonym actually was, - unetiquettical. I still thinks that's rather a good word.

The opposite of etiquette is rudeness.

The most recent weddings I have been to are weddings of friends' children, so brides and grooms in their twenties. Relatives' spouses and partners have been in attendance at them all except for unusual circumstances where an individual had to decline an invitation.

Based on my observations, I don't think this is a generational thing, in other words.

I think it is the brides and grooms who won't compromise on location or any other details to make it possible to invite people they should invite who are the self absorbed ones here.

When a cousin of mine was married she sent an invite to my parents with a +4. I have 6 siblings plus partners so we decided between us which 4 of us would go.
In the end just me and my brother went. The wedding was in a different country so it was difficult for everyone else.
I had a great time.
I thought this was a good idea.

So maths Who decides who should or shouldn't be invited?

You can only compromise so much. My best friends mum is one of 12. She has over 30 cousins. If you invite them all plus partners that's 60 guests without even looking at the rest of her family or the grooms.

You have to draw a line somewhere. They eloped in the end as too many people were becoming professionally offended about who should be invited

I went to a wedding in the Summer of a very old school friend. We, all six of us, sat at one table and it was one of the best weddings I have been to. No partners. No small talk. No houses/schools/jobs talk and that dreadful posturing / joking/bantering that men who don't know each other have to assume when in circumstances when all their partners know each other well. We had a laugh, shared stories and the bride - when she could - joined in!

And etiquette just means the way things are usually done within a specified group of people; the acceptable norm within that group. The etiquette of bringing a bottle of wine to dinner which is acceptable in middle class UK households would horrify hosts in other countries for example. Weddings by their very nature combine two families, (classes? cultures? generations?) so the etiquette is fluid.

The etiquette of asking for cash gifts has now changed to the point where many, many people find it acceptable. The etiquette of the bride's father paying for everything and her mother choosing most of the guests went out for many couples with their grandparents.

So no, the opposite of etiquette is not rudeness. From henceforth it shall be "unetiquettical" - thanks Memoires

Can we please just knock this idea on the head that people expecting to be invited to a wedding as a couple (which is a formal occasion, after all, however it's planned), are somehow old-fashioned and joined at the hip for all eventualities.

Because this particular ceremony is about two single people about to get married and the OP's OH is her husband.

It's expectations, I grew up in a close but large group of cousins just on my dads side (over 30), weddings where no cousins or a group cousin invite. The first few weddings set the tone and a single invite was never seen as rude but as a necessity. We have a cousin reunion every four years with no partners. On my mums side it would be slightly strange to receive an invite without DP but because of disabled child have not been to a wedding together for ten years so would not bother me.

For my recent wedding I didn't invite husbands or partners of many family members and/or friends, we simply could not afford to have them there. WEddings are so expensive these days that it was not an option and people have to understand this.

You appear to be one of the only ones speaking sense strawberry!!!

See i would class husbands/wives of family members as family and therefore equal.

Buttercup - exactly

Mum, a widow in her 90's and the matriarch of the family so to speak, was once invited to a close relative's wedding. My sister and husband and daughter were invited, but my husband and myself were not. Mum, bless her soul, phoned up her nephew and gave him a piece of her mind, saying how dare they invite one daughter, husband and their daughter, but not mum's only other daughter and husband. She told them there was no way she was going to the wedding with one of her two daughters not being there. And she did not go. Years later I still don't know why they selectively left us out.

The thing is in my day you wrote the list of who you needed to invite , including spouses but not necessarily children . Once you knew how many there were and what your budget was you found a venue to suit , if that was a village hall with a cold buffet as one friend did then that was fine or a posh London hotel like another .

My memories of my wedding day were overwhelmingly of the people who were there to celebrate it with me .Not of the co ordinated chair bows or the cake or the food or the flowers even . It was my uncle shedding a tear , my cousin beaming from ear to ear , my step grandmother offering the usher a humbug for showing him to his seat .

I cried the whole day after because I felt so moved by being surrounded by all these people who had known us from various places .

Now it's all about the smart venue and the photos and dress and if that means no guests well that's fine because that's what they want .