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AIBU?

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Original poster

Who was unreasonable at this wedding

340 replies

Dottie39 · 06/01/2018 10:15

Couple getting married. Family and long distance friends invited for whole thing, fairly small ceremony with around 40 guests and sit down meal.
Local friends invited to party afterwards.

After the ceremony, but before the meal, local friend arrives. His invite clearly said to come for evening only. He asks if he can join for meal but is told by staff all good is prepared however he can go to bar and order something himself. Bride and groom are oblivious to all this. (I'm sure if they had known they would have been more accommodating)

Local friend orders meal and stays for party.

The next morning when bride and groom check out they discover local friend has charged his meal and drinks to their room. They refuse to pay assuming mistake. Local friend, who had stayed at venue also is asked to pay. He argues couple should pay as they invited him to wedding and is now not talking to couple for embarrassing him and making him unwelcome.

Who should pay for the meal?
Who was unreasonable in this situation?
Local friend say they thought they were invited to whole thing, but was late and therefore missed ceremony.

OP posts:
NataliaOsipova · 06/01/2018 11:34

How is saying 'I like you, but I don't, like, really like you' not rude?

In that situation - a group of work colleagues - I think it’s okay, as long as all the work people are just invited to the evening party. Because you’re treating everyone in that circle the same. So it won’t cause offence that you’ve seen your mum, your Auntie Marge and your best friend from university as “more important” and the invitation is likely to be accepted in the spirit it’s offered - ie do come and have a drink and celebrate with us in the evening if you’d like to. If, however, you’ve invited Bob and Susan all day, but only asked Jane and Peter for the evening - and Bob and Susan know Jane and Peter and they’ve talked about it, then Jane and Peter may well feel slighted.

astoundedgoat · 06/01/2018 11:36

Hotel was massively in the wrong.

When he turned up late, it was massively out of order for the hotel staff to take it upon themselves to just not admit him to the reception without contacting the wedding party to say "there's an extra guest here - what would you like us to do" - what if he had been the grandmother of the bride, who had been inadvertently been left off the seating plan? Would they have told her to sit at the bar all evening?

Then the hotel was in the wrong a second time to allow the guest to charge his meal to the bride & groom's account without checking with the bridal party. For that ALONE the hotel should be covering his meal. They are handling this abysmally.

However, assuming the guest turned up in genuine error (I always believe the best in people, so my - possibly misguided - instinct is to believe him), as the host, your job is to make your guests comfortable and relaxed, and to avoid causing them any embarrassment. The hotel, acting in the bride & groom's stead, caused this guest embarrassment, and the bride & groom should be glossing over the guest's mistake and making sure he doesn't pay for his meal (and then coming down like a tonne of bricks on the hotel for making such a pig's ear of a straightforward situation).

Yes, the guest was in the wrong, but he should still have been treated with dignity.

Curious though - is he a young man (and too inexperienced to know that he should have sent an RSVP, READ THE INVITATION etc.) or an older man (too old to know that evening-only invitations are now a "thing")?

GetYourRocksOff · 06/01/2018 11:37

I wonder if there's a difference in attitudes to evening invites regionally? Here in Scotland it's really common to have family and closest friends then a big influx of evening guests. That could be work mates, friends family, neighbours, distant family etc. To not unusual in my experience for the same numbers again to come to the evening. I've been to manyour and never once took offence.

reallyorange · 06/01/2018 11:38

Amazed at the people who think evening-only invitations are rude! If you're asked over for coffee by friends do you also insist on a 3-course meal?
Loads of ppl may want something small and intimate to actually say the vows with a party at some point after the event to celebrate with colleagues etc. I was invited to a celebration party after an elopement, I didn't get offended that I wasn't invited to the holiday where they got married.

if ppl aren't local I can see why an evening-only invite isn't practical but ime it's mostly local friends. (And no, I didn't actually have any evening-only guests because I wanted everyone at the whole thing, was before I had a proper job so no colleagues etc only family and school friends, and still ppl assumed they could turn up when they wanted or not at all after rsvping despite us having paid for meals for them...)

GetYourRocksOff · 06/01/2018 11:39

And that's going back 25 years in my memory!

codswallopandbalderdash · 06/01/2018 11:40

Ha ha ha. What a cheeky sod ... FWIW one of my DH friends did something similar at our wedding - invited to evening but turned up with GF before meal. DH politely told them they could stay and have a drink on us but we hadn't ordered enough food for them to say for the meal.

wednesdayswench · 06/01/2018 11:41

Local friends behaviour was out of line, but he obviously did not understand how an evening invite works, and has no idea if wedding etiquette. He is clueless and that is why he feels so offended.

YellowMakesMeSmile · 06/01/2018 11:41

I hate evening only invites too. What they amount to is saying you are not good enough to see us get married but we want large numbers for a party and presents so you can come to just part of it.

Unless the invite was confusing he was very cheeky, nobody knows without seeing the wording of his. However he now knows he isn't really a friend as they didn't want him there or the extra costs he brought.

reallyorange · 06/01/2018 11:42

Reading the posts here, I think the idea that there's an 'A' party and a 'B' party is a bit of a projection on the guests' part.
One part is a wedding, an exchange of vows, another is a party to celebrate it.
Do christening guests expect to be present at the birth? Grin

MargaretCavendish · 06/01/2018 11:43

Amazed at the people who think evening-only invitations are rude! If you're asked over for coffee by friends do you also insist on a 3-course meal?

No, but if a friend invited me over for after-dinner coffee at 9pm after they'd served their real friends a 3 course meal I'd think they were pretty bloody rude.

rothbury · 06/01/2018 11:46

I think it is plausible that the LF made an honest mistake, but then why was he so late if he only lives half an hour away? It is still possible he was aggrieved at being EO guest and was making a point.

The hotel have no right to charge B&G and should take this on the chin as they should not have allowed LF to charge meal in this way.

I wouldn't accept/attend an EO invitation to a wedding. I have been told off before for leaving after the ceremony and meal, I don't really like the evening bit, am only interested in the ceremony itself and the speeches etc.

GetYourRocksOff · 06/01/2018 11:46

Sometimes it's a relief to get an evening only invite. Then up and party without all the faff and hanging around and making small talk over a usually mediocre meal with strangers. Hoping you are at a table with kids or non drinkers so you can have over your designated half bottle of wine.

reallyorange · 06/01/2018 11:47

What if they'd gone out for brunch with other friends earlier? Just trying to see where 'rude' begins as I wouldn't really find that example rude in the first place, I'd hate to assume being invited to one event but not another was for reasons I knew better than the hosts

Shadow666 · 06/01/2018 11:47

Yes, I think its common in Ireland too. Main day is mostly for family and very close friends and evening is for less close friends or more distant family.

MiddleClassProblem · 06/01/2018 11:48

MargaretCavendish but that’s a different situation...
Anyway, what if all those people at the meal were all family?

ClaryFray · 06/01/2018 11:48

Do christening guests expect to be present at the birth?

GrinGrinGrinGrin

He's a cheeky fuck. He wasn't invited to the whole day. If he was he was running late and should have just gone to the reception. He wanted a free meal, the reasons why are his.

If it was a genuine mistake he'd have either left and come back, without the need for the rest of the quests knowing his error. Or sat quietly while eating dinner at the bar. Then joined in after.

My bet is he turned up in time to get his moneys worth from his booked room and decided to chance his arm. Charging it to the bride and grooms room was a dick move for him suggesting it. And a dick move for he hotel doing it.

GetYourRocksOff · 06/01/2018 11:49

It's also great to have new people arriving - the are refreshing after quite whole day with the same faces.

Darknessinthevalley · 06/01/2018 11:50

We had the biggest room at the registry office, but this was only 50 people. We couldn't have had more to the ceremony, as a registry office was all we could afford. There were never any chair covers as an option!

SandyDenny · 06/01/2018 11:50

I hate evening only invites too. What they amount to is saying you are not good enough to see us get married but we want large numbers for a party and presents so you can come to just part of it

OR, you're more than welcome to come to the church, as it's the law, and please come back later if feasible as we'd like to host a party for all our friends, no need to bring a present, come and enjoy yourself. I really don't see any bad side to wanting your friends to come to a party

FlouncyDoves · 06/01/2018 11:50

The ‘friend’, clearly.

So, come on OP, which are you?

NataliaOsipova · 06/01/2018 11:50

*Amazed at the people who think evening-only invitations are rude! If you're asked over for coffee by friends do you also insist on a 3-course meal?

No, but if a friend invited me over for after-dinner coffee at 9pm after they'd served their real friends a 3 course meal I'd think they were pretty bloody rude.*

MargaretCavendish I agree. Nothing wrong with being invited for coffee, but being invited for after dinner coffee with all the dinner guests would be looked at askance by most people, I think.

JaneEyre70 · 06/01/2018 11:51

All of that could have been avoided had the B & G pre-agreed with the venue as to things being charged to their room/tab. Not helpful here, I appreciate, but very sensible for anyone hosting a party with a paid bar/food.

Kittykatmacbill · 06/01/2018 11:53

The friend is a cf, facilitated by the hotel.

Are you the ‘friend’ op?

nobutreally · 06/01/2018 11:58

Obviously CF is cheeky, but the Hotel is absolutely to blame here, and I'd be batting it back to them if I was the B&G: so you let in an extra person with no permission from anyone from the bridal party? Then charged all his food and drinks to the bride and groom with no permission from anyone in the bridal party? Your problem, I'm afraid, hotel manager!

StopCallingMeShirley · 06/01/2018 11:58

The fact that he asked to be admitted to the meal suggests he knew damn well he wasn't invited and was chancing his luck that there's be a spare space. No way did he lose his invitation.

I dislike 'evening only' invitations, but can completely understand why some people choose to have them. There is nothing rude or two tier about cutting your cloth to suit your purse. This is the 21st century, not a 19th century society wedding after all.

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