Who was unreasonable at this wedding

[Dottie39]

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.

'Then you would have less A list guests and no B lists so essientally snubbing more people rather than less'

So it's snubbing people to have a small wedding rather than some two-tiered hotel monstrosity? Um, okay.

I would like to know if local friend is from another culture? Some countries don't have "evening only"

Anyone who is offended at the concept of evening guests is an idiot and should decline the invitation for the sake of everyone else. Plonkers.

Evening invitation isn't rude, it's a fact of life.

Not everyone has a huge budget & the couple need to set some priorities.

However it's also not compulsory to accept the invitation - for example if attending the wedding would mean a long journey, and overnight hotel stay, and you are only distantly related to the B&G.

In this case I wonder if the friend misunderstood the invitation?

Local friend was the CF and a chancer.
The hotel were very wrong to allow him to charge it to the B&G's room.

I don't get this horror at evening only invitation, perfectly normal in my neck of the woods.
One odd wedding I went to though I was invited to the ceremony, NOT the reception but I was invited to the evening.

It’s possible the friend was confused about the invitation, especially if the invitation stated both events. This is why Indian wedding invitations include ceremony inserts do you can remove the ceremonies you don’t want specific people to attend.

I remember as a teenager in the 1970s being totally amazed when we went to a wedding in the south of England and it finished when the bride and groom 'went away' at tea time. Scottish weddings went on till the early hours and, even as a child, I had stayed, dancing away. That's how we learn the traditional dances, by osmosis! There was always a big influx after about 7pm and then a buffet around 10pm.

I also remember being at a national student sports event in London around 1982 and meeting up in the evening with a very dischuffed ex-boyfriend who had come down to wave a sword around at an RAF colleague's veh veh posh wedding; he was bitterly complaining that they had been chucked out at 4pm but none of his English colleagues found it unusual. Similarly, at the English wedding above, all the long distance guests had to find something to do with themselves for the evening at their hotel. Though at another south of England wedding we went to, at least the bride's parents put something on for their long-distance guests in the evening though children weren't included to my disgust.

Is the snottiness about evening invitations perhaps coming from areas where it's a relatively new thing? My memory of them goes back to the 1960s and lots of family wedding photos show evening parties, except for the English side of the family.

Evening invites aren’t rude as long as they are for ‘local’ people only and no one is traveling etc.

Which one are you?

Agree with most - this is between the hotel and the rude (ex?) friend.
Hotel shouldn't allow anyone to charge their bill to anyone else without the person paying having agreed it, so it's up to them to chase the debt from the incredibly rude 'friend'.

Can't believe people have started questioning a couple being kind enough to invite extra friends in the evening again - only on MN does this offend anyone.

Ah yes, the thing of the B and G "going away" in the middle of the party is something I know, but have always been horrified by! My own first wedding was a big affair, church then big reception with a band etc. I made it very clear I was not going to be leaving a fab party (which I had partly paid for) in the middle. I was in fact the last one standing on the dance floor at the end of the evening. My first H and his family never forgave me for this unbridelike behaviour, he used to bring it up often when we argued. .

I had my family for meal and friends (about 10) came along in the evening.

It wasn't to do with cost, just not enough space in the venue to have them all at the meal.

So to the people who think it's rude. Is that because of going to one bit and then being expected to go off and entertain yourselves for 4 or 5 hours until the next "bit" you're invited to?

Or would you still consider TooManyPaws description of a typical Scottish wedding or mine of a typical Irish wedding also rude?

I wanted lots of people at my wedding. But we couldn't afford it.
We chose where WE wanted to get married and chose the meal we wanted to eat on OUR special day. We chose the best photographer we could afford to record our day.

If you were not one of the 60 who attended the day shindig, then sorry. But you did get an awesome party in the even with fabulous gourmet miniature food.

We chose not to compromise on what we wanted to make others happy. It is my DH I married not the offended "friends"

My evening guests were local people who I know were delighted we had got married but were not our closest friends. As PP has said we have friends and closer friends. This is not A& B lists this is just RL. We did not ask for gifts from evening guests.

And if you were peeved you did not get an invite for the whole event then we don't care and your're not really my friend are you?

It's the B&G's day not the guests.

P.S would it be opening the can of worms to say we have "no children" too as 3 and 4 yr olds we don't see from one yr to then next were not our priority??

PPS Local chap was a total CF and knew exactly what he was doing!

'It's the B&G's day not the guests. '

No one owns a day.

"staggeringly, flabbergastingly insulting" ?!?

You really have to be incredibly strange to consider someone inviting you to a party "insulting"

I know some people are 'glass half full' people, and are always out to criticise others, but finding it insulting to have a friend invite you to to a wedding (or any celebration) is beyond bizarre. You could think something were 'inconvenient' or 'not worth the hassle' or 'not my cup of tea', but 'insulting' is just ridiculous.

*glass half empty, not full , obviously

And if you were peeved you did not get an invite for the whole event then we don't care

Aren't you charming

No less charming than someone privately whinging about a “second rate” invitation.

I’ve never been to a wedding where you get ceremony then not invited to the meal but reimbursed to the evening. I’d rather just come to the evening lol.

I love evening invitations. I think 'oh that's nice X and Y are getting married' then politely decline and send a wedding gift. Evening invitation means my presence or absence will make no difference so I can stay at home and read my book!

' We did not ask for gifts from evening guests.'

You don't ask for a gift from anyone if you have any manners at all, but erm, from your posts, you don't.

LOL at 'gourmet miniature food'. What exactly is that?