To be annoyed that 'save the date' doesn't mean wedding invite

[Corialanusburt]

We received a wedding save the date card several months ago for August. The bride is a relative of dp. We therefore factored wedding in to holiday planning, though we've not booked yet. I also bought a lovely dress.

MIL has now been told that our invite won't be for the service or the reception but for the evening disco. We'd need to do an hour and a half's drive to get there.

I have no problem with receiving an evening invite, but I am annoyed at having received a save the date card which led me to plan for a full wedding.

So what is the etiquette for this? Should they have specified on the save the date card what we were invited to?

"It makes since to you, Yonic, but other people find it rude. I"

Yep, understand that, just have a different view.

FWIW, we didn't have additional wedding guests to our evening do, we did have a later "local" party to which all guests and more (colleagues etc) were asked.

I would have assumed a save the date card was an invite to the whole wedding too. YNBU.

I don't buy into "you know the date before the venue" stuff. Perhaps it's true if it takes you YEARS to organise your wedding. But I really don't think it needs to. (Mine was arranged in 6 months, and we certainly couldn't claim to 'know the date' until everything was confirmed at the registry office.) What if the one venue you wanted is not available on that date and so you change the date so you can have the venue you wanted? The 'save the date' card is then rendered meaningless.

In my case, we booked the venue, it took longer to get the church we wanted, had we not got the church, we would have married at the venue.

So yep, knew the date for certain before we knew timing and location of the ceremony, which need to go on the invite.

Anyway, this thread is going in circles; I agree with the op that I'd only expect a STD to the whole day and the op herself wasn't objecting to STD cards in principle. So hiding now.

They are the 'norm' now but haven't been even in the quite recent past

When do you call 'quite recent' then ?
Certainly every wedding I went to {except one} throughout the 1980s had a ceremony (which anyone could go to) then a sit down meal for family and really close friends, then the couple were also generous enough to invite their other friends in the evening.

I see it as a really nice thing that people who are getting married, also want to invite friends to their party, but then I'm a 'glass half full' sort of a person, not a professionally offended sort of a person that you get a lot of on MN. Unless I am parent or sibling of the couple getting married, I don't "expect" to be invited to the meal. If I am then that is lovely. If I am invited just in the evening, that is also lovely. If I'm not invited at all, I still wish the couple well, ask to see photos afterwards, etc., because that's just the way friends treat each other in my world.

BackforGood yes, of course you wish the couple well and make the best of whatever invitation you receive.

However, it works both ways, and if you are a host, the way friends treat each other IMO is not making people "A" or "B" listers, and not to send them off to look after themselves all afternoon.

I have a job that doesn't give me weekends off and I have to book summer leave before Xmas, so save the date cards are very useful. I've missed a few weddings because I've not been able to book leave,

And I would travel for an evening do. I find them much more fun than a church and a meal. I am happy seeing the bride and groom looking gorgeous and having a good time, and sharing their party.

I only had 25 people at my day do and another 100 at the evening. Luckily my friends are not mumsnet snob types and all came up for my wedding. Many travelled from Brighton, London and the midlands to north of Manchester. And I'd do the same for them. The main put off for me re weddings are the ones where you are obliged to book two or three nights at overly expensive "venue" type hotels.

But, ViewBasket any normal person, who doesn't have any kind of difficulties understanding social relationships in our society, knows that every one of us have people who we are closer to, but that doesn't mean they aren't friends with others, there are just some folk, who for whatever reason are closer than others.
The only debate can be how you view an evening invitation. You can either think - "Oh, that's nice, B&G have invited me to a party", which is what everyone I've ever met would do. On MN, some people think "Oh, I'm offended that the B&G might have some folk that they are a bit closer to them than I am". I think your lives must be pretty sad if that's how you view an invitation to a celebration, myself, but, each to their own.

I think the odd part for those of us from cultures that don't have a separate evening party with the "B-list" guests is what so many on MN describe, the invitation to the church, followed by a long gap, in a sometimes strange town, and then the evening reception. Where I live (in the US South), most weddings take place in the late afternoon or at night so the only party happens in the evening. Also it is not expected to have a full sit down meal after the wedding; often there is a buffet, sometimes with just finger food. So people tend to a) decide on a budget b) decide who they want to invite c) choose venue and type of food, etc. based on a and b.

It is the custom in the US to have a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding which is usually a much smaller group of people: the wedding party, family and sometimes out of town guests.

'Where I live (in the US South), most weddings take place in the late afternoon or at night so the only party happens in the evening. Also it is not expected to have a full sit down meal after the wedding; often there is a buffet, sometimes with just finger food. So people tend to a) decide on a budget b) decide who they want to invite c) choose venue and type of food, etc. based on a and b.'

Or, if it's a smaller wedding or a wedding of people on a budget or whose religion doesn't permit alcohol, then a late morning wedding and a reception to follow with coffee, non-alcoholic beverages, nibbles (sandwiches, sliders, cheese balls, pigs in blankets) and then the couple cuts the cake, it gets doled out, you see the B&G off and it's over.

Or a wedding in someone's home or back garden, a potluck, a BBQ, that type of thing.

The venue and food is decided on accommodating all the guests.

I don't get the hostility to STD cards? All they do is give notice in advance of invitations. How can that be annoying? I live in the California and I was delighted to get a STD card recently for a wedding next spring in Chicago, I was able to book flights etc.. well in advance so they were as cheap as possible. The UK is tiny in comparison so I can understand that such advance notice may not be necessary but to be annoyed at getting an STD card seems a little silly.

For those saying "if they're close enough to invite they'll have saved your date"

Why would you? why would you save a date of a wedding you don't know you're going to

I had that a couple of years ago, chatting to a friend, not best friend, semi regularly about her wedding - you know out of interest to be polite, she did mention her date at some point but never told me I was invited and always emphasised how it was going to be a very small informal thing, keep costs down, mostly family.. me: "great idea to keep it mostly family, these things can get out of hand if you invite everyone" & assumed I wasn't invited

Anyhoo that was apparently my "save the date", 6 weeks before the wedding (not local) I get the details…

..I'ld have rathered a card, then I'ld have known I was definitely invited and not just making wedding small talk

Do the churches are closed to local people while the mass take place? Is it Iike a "private mass"?

I'm pretty sure that you're not allowed to close weddings to people? I thought that legally they had to be open to the public just in case anyone decides to turn up and declare a reason why the wedding can't proceed?

But do people just show up to weddings like that? Or assume that it's ok for them to come to the ceremony if they only get an evening invitation?

Yes, of course.
If someone from our church gets married, everyone in the congregation is invited by default.
Apart from that I can think of half a dozen other people who came to the church to see me get married.

A lovely dress is never wasted. You still have plenty of time to decide what you want to do. You can let go of your hurt pride and go enjoy the disco celebration of your not-very-close relative; or you can book an August holiday and dance the night away in your new dress somewhere else. Presumably the DP also gets a say - what does he want to do? I doubt the bride will be devastated either way, though she would probably be hurt to know she'd caused offence. The etiquette may not have been perfect, on their part; but yours can be impeccable. Just say yes or no, as nicely as possible.