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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

242 replies

Corialanusburt · 02/11/2016 09:20

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?

OP posts:
minniem0use · 03/11/2016 18:04

At least you're invited...
Last year I got a STD card for a childhood friend's wedding, then never received the invite! Guessing we got cut on cost grounds!

Tapandgo · 03/11/2016 18:16

STD cards - just another way of hoisting up the cost and drama of weddings. Can't believe you got one for an evening do - but amazed you bought a dress so far in advance. Book a nice do for yourself to wear the dress and forget the disco.

MargaretCavendish · 03/11/2016 18:19

Speaking as someone who missed her best friend's wedding because it fell in the same week as a foreign holiday I'd already booked and paid for (and was going on with another friend so couldn't just ditch it entirely) , I like save the date cards.

You didn't know when your best friend's wedding was until the invitations went out?

expatinscotland · 03/11/2016 18:20

YANBU. Get the evening do invite will come with a tacky beg for money. I'd decline.

Winemamma · 03/11/2016 18:22

I don't think they are a total waste of money/modern day wank, but then we did have them for our wedding. Mainly because we got married on a Friday at the start of the summer hols and we have a LOT of teacher friends, many of whom go away for most of the summer hols, so we wanted to let them know well in advance so hopefully they would 'save the date' and come if they could.
We got married 10 years ago so they are not that modern!
Also we got them done in a bundle with invites, place cards and thank you cards, and got a good deal on them.
Agree save the dates are for daytime only though.

EweAreHere · 03/11/2016 18:30

It's a rude British thing to have 'A' lists and 'B lists like this for weddings. I don't know of any other country that does this!

I would decline. It's incredibly rude that they asked you to save the day, then didn't invite you to the majority of the wedding day. They essentially don't want to pay to feed you, but are happy for you to show up for the band/dj they're already paying for and presumably to bring them a gift. No thanks.

LuluJakey1 · 03/11/2016 18:49

We don't go to weddings unless we can't avoid them. Last year we were invited to a ceremony and the evenng do in Bristol. We would have had to drive 300+ miles and stay over for that. Just said no thanks. It is just plain silly.

twinmamma2b · 03/11/2016 18:51

Ewe, evening guests DO get fed; it's just not a sit down meal.

MargaretCavendish · 03/11/2016 19:16

Ewe, evening guests DO get fed; it's just not a sit down meal.

Hmm. I think it would be a brave person who went to the evening of a wedding on an empty stomach; it's by no means guaranteed that you'll get more than a snack!

YuckYuckEwwww · 03/11/2016 19:20

Ewe, evening guests DO get fed; it's just not a sit down meal

It's rarely any sort of meal.

It's usually finger foods/nibbles. At best you might get a bacon butty or a burger if you're VERY lucky, at worst you'll get bloody candyfloss or sweet buffet or something "different" Hmm and "quirky" Hmm

It's not an actual meal, it's snacks, you go to the evening do after eating dinner

Smiler64 · 03/11/2016 19:27

We had a save the date for next April, thinking it would be for the family inc daughters. Just had the invite (0nly 5 weeks after the STD card) so not sure why we had the first card anyway. Invite is for main and not children they are invited to evening only , luckily they are old enough to 1. Decide if they want to go. 2. Get themselves there, though I am sure others won't be as lucky and won't know what to do with their children during the day as most of the people you would normally ask to look after them will be at the wedding.

CoffeeWithMyOxygen · 03/11/2016 19:27

We sent out STD cards because our wedding was quite a long way to travel for most of our guests (though still UK based) and we wanted people to have time to think about hotels and so on whilst we finished getting organised with the details you need for the full invites (such as a start time!). We didn't even consider having evening only invites though, as we felt it would be extraordinarily rude to ask people to travel for several hours only to be shut out of part of the day.

Not quite the same thing, but I once went to a wedding where it turned out we were the 'B' guests and we didn't even know it! Myself and two friends went to the wedding of a fourth friend, travelling about 2 hours to attend. Ceremony and casual buffet lunch were all lovely. It was only when we started wondering about the fact that they hadn't cut into the beautiful wedding cake in the corner that we discovered there was a much posher evening do planned for the chosen A listers! To be honest we just found it funny, but it was very awkward when it became clear it was time for the B list to clear out so that the 'proper' party could get going. Weddings can be so weird.

Rolopolo83 · 03/11/2016 19:32

YANBU. Woeful etiquette to send a save the date and then not invite you to the wedding. An invitation to the evening do is fine, but it is not an invitation to their wedding. By the time you get there, they will already be married.

Decline and don't send a gift.

CoffeeWithMyOxygen · 03/11/2016 19:33

Ewe, evening guests DO get fed; it's just not a sit down meal.

I'll say. The evening buffet at my wedding got completely out of hand - we could have fed the whole county! It was in a restaurant and the sit down meal earlier had been really filling, then they rolled out the evening buffet when everyone was still pretty full with about three times as much food as I'd expected them to provide. I've never seen anything like it even though we knew it was coming. In the end my DM offered it to the bar staff as they'd been on their feet all day and she figured they were probably starving. She was very popular at the bar after that!

erchissick · 03/11/2016 19:51

Personally, I would have jotted the date in the diary and then forgotten about it until the proper invite arrived. That being said, if I was sending std cards. I would at least have put on it which bit I was inviting you to.

Maireadplastic · 03/11/2016 20:35

I think sending out Sexually Transmitted Disease cards is only good etiquette.

Jojofjo44 · 03/11/2016 20:36

I'm amazed at all the people saying that they wouldn't go to 'a disco'. Even an evening invitation is to celebrate with the couple and if you thought anything of them, the distance or fact that they didn't ask you to the day would not matter.
On the other hand, I think Save the Date cards are pointless. That's what an invitation is for. Another money making non necessity.

Horsepower9 · 03/11/2016 20:52

STD card Grin hope there not infectious Grin

expatinscotland · 03/11/2016 21:03

'I'm amazed at all the people saying that they wouldn't go to 'a disco'. Even an evening invitation is to celebrate with the couple and if you thought anything of them, the distance or fact that they didn't ask you to the day would not matter. '

Oh, bullshit! It's downright rude and entitled to expect people to travel long distances/have to stay in hotels/take days off work/etc for a poxy evening do just because it's your wedding. If you thought anything of your guests you'd realise that's taking the piss out of them.

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es · 03/11/2016 21:08

I agree with you Jojo, to me an invitationis a compliment not an insult, whether it's day or evening.

Aeroflotgirl · 03/11/2016 21:11

I agree expat, and to be only invited to the disco, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel, not good enough for the ceremony, or the meal. No in op shoes she can decline, it's not a summons as they say.

Aeroflotgirl · 03/11/2016 21:13

I would go to local evening do if I was free, if it required a long travel and a stay in a hotel, no.

MissSeventies · 03/11/2016 21:14

OP I agree with you. A STD card would suggest to me that you were invited to the ceremony and reception. It also inclines you not to make or alter other plans which is a bit unreasonable for the evening disco tbh. That said I had the opposite experience. I was engaged for a long(ish) time, just over two years, we secured the reception early, but did not finalise the ceremony details until later on. We sent the STD about a year before the wedding to those we were to invite to the whole day. Yet when the actual invitations came out quite a few people said they did not know when the wedding was and weren't available that day.

MissSeventies · 03/11/2016 21:17

Also expat, I tend to agree. I was once invited to an evening do in another country that would have involved 3 days off work, travel, hotels etc all while I was 5 months pregnant.

ARumWithAView · 03/11/2016 21:17

I'm amazed at all the people saying that they wouldn't go to 'a disco'. Even an evening invitation is to celebrate with the couple and if you thought anything of them, the distance or fact that they didn't ask you to the day would not matter.

I'll happily attend a local evening do, but if the venue's far away enough to need an overnight stay then probably not. If there are 100+ people invited to the ceremony/meal, and I'm not one of them, it's obvious we're not particularly close.

Best evening-only invite is when a colleague/neighbour/acquaintance kindly asks you to join their post-wedding party. Worst is when someone makes you feel like rent-a-crowd. Sending STD cards to people who aren't invited to the ceremony/main meal definitely smacks of this.

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