To be irritated by wedding invite

[YogiBear13]

My cousin got engaged a few months ago and we recently received the wedding invites.

I'm 26 years old, and haven't lived at my parents since I left for uni when I was 18, I currently live with my long term partner, a fair distance from where my parents live. He hasn't been invited which doesn't really bother me, she's never met him and I get that money can put constraints on things and she won't want to pay for someone she doesn't know to attend.

The thing that irritates me slightly is that the invite wasn't sent to me, I was included, along with my sisters who also don't live with our parents, on my parents' invite. Is this a weird wedding etiquette I'm not aware of? I find it really odd to invite an adult, who lives elsewhere, through their parents. What would I need to do to qualify for my own invite? Get married myself? If I never get married will I still be included on my parents' invites when I'm 50? I can't quite put my finger on why it bothers me so much, but it feels a bit patronising, like I'm not an independent person.

To be clear, I'm obviously not going to say anything to the bride about it! And I'm perfectly happy to be told I'm being unreasonable, I'm 8 weeks pregnant and very tired and hormonal so quite possibly don't have a good gauge on whether I'm right to be irritated, or if I'm overthinking.

YANBU, even if you were living with your parents, as an adult you should receive a separate invitation. Admittedly when I had this I put all the invitations into a single jiffy bag.

I come from a very large Irish family and have had this a fair few times. Sometimes it has been a separate invite to me and DH.
Doesn’t bother me at all!

I remember invitations like that right through into my 30s. I never went, nor did I reply individually, I assumed that I wasn't really invitated. It was always people I hadn't seen in years or decades. If you no longer live with your parents a "family invitation" including you isn't really including you, it's a sop to your parents or another older relative to say they invited you.

Also not inviting someone's partner is not on, IMO. Just invite fewer people. But expecting people to attend a social event, esp. one to celebrate love, without their significant other ?!?

It's pure laziness. They couldn't be bothered finding out addresses. I had someone do this repeatedly, not just with wedding invites. Last event I didn't go and they were asking other relatives why I wasn't there. Well I didn't bloody get the invite til the week of because it wasn't sent to my house.

Yanbu

We did this.

We had have a smallish wedding of 45 with our friends having children in their twenties. Have known the children from birth but we (and they) don't keep in contact with us personally. It's a family group and that's how we sent the invite.
In addition the print run of invites went up in fives. We went for 20 (with one spare blank) but 25 would cost another £45. Just seemed unnecessary. It wasn't done to upset anyone and I never considered it would.

I invited my cousins (unmarried) on their parents invite too 🤷🏼‍♀️ I see them as a family unit still when they are in their 20's, unmarried, with no children if their own. Not really something you should be getting worked up about TBH.

I don't think it's a big deal and cannot understand why people are getting their knickers in a twist over it. If I was very close to a particular bride pr groom but if its a once a year cousin. Meh.

A poster above has mentioned it - you may be adult and living away from home but if ONE invitation goes to your family home the reply will be from the 'family'. Parents will almost certainly do the herding - the 'are you coming or not? I need to write back and ......'. It saves on the is he/she invited?

If it’s a cousin you rarely see she may not know your current address. It’s just easier to invite a family together as a family. I think we did the same with cousins when we go married, I never thought I might be giving my cousins the rage at not having their own invite If said cousin was married though I’d have invited her and her husband separately, so maybe that’s it?

Organising a weding is a PITA. I expect they don't have your address. Nice of them to invite you though. Cousins often don't make the list at all as weddings are expensive. If they read this thread they'll probably wonder why they are wasting money on you.

And we certainly wouldn't be expecting gifts from the adult children either ( although we have asked for no gifts from anyone).

Although I suppose if the Op had their own invitation, they would be happy to provide their own card and present?

I’m married and live in my own home with my husband and we as a couple have both been included on family invites (one from his extended family and one from mine) in the last 18 months. I didn’t really think anything of it I have to admit - I just assumed it was for the sake of efficiency.

INVITATION, INVITATION, INVIATION!

Not ‘invite’!

Oops. Last one is typoed but you get the drift.

My DH’s Family do this too.

Everything from Birthday cards, Christmas cards to invitations all goes to PIL’s house.

It drives me (silently) bananas. They know our address. We’ve lived here for years.

We note it on every birthday, Christmas and anniversary card we send them.

The particularly annoying thing is that we don’t live close to our PILs and they won’t post things on so we have to wait until we next see them and then we get hassled because we haven’t rsvp’d.

TBF I suspect MIL encourages it.

The invitation is polite. She's probably aware you won't come.
It's not a Biggie

Also not inviting someone's partner is not on, IMO. Just invite fewer people. But expecting people to attend a social event, esp. one to celebrate love, without their significant other ?!?

• this is such a strange attitude. Where the wedding is of a cousin, why oh why would your partner, who hasn't met great auntie Maud and cousin Sylvia and has no interest in any family stories etc. ever want to come?

Of course it's completely usual to get invited as an adult with your original family. IRL most people have some level of functional relationship with family and don't flounce off taking offence at the slightest thing.

Have had this multiple times and judged it individually, depending on relationship with cousin and whether it suited. Brilliant time at one a few months ago with parents Ana sisters---- - husband would have been bored without really knowing anyone and without any frame of reference for 30 year-old stories of 10 children packed into a car with no seatbelts to go to beach etc.

Didn't invite cousins to mine 40 + cousins each, without spouses or partners - sooner or later that adds up to a lot of people! --

Invites are like £2! She's saving money so good on her! Weddings are so expensive, why send 4 invites when you can add them together!

Genuinely it’s something that it wouldn’t even cross my mind to be annoyed about.

@Cherubfish - never mind not knowing cousin's addresses - I am not sure of a couple of surnames!

I think it's rude. I understand about costs affecting number of guests, but number of invitations? That's just tacky. I like Chardonm's idea.

You are a 26 year old independent woman, you should have received your own invite YANBU. Society seems to be increasingly happy to baby people in their 20's which is not helpful. Personally I wouldn't be thrilled about the lack of +1 tbh but you seem okay with that so whatever.

I'd assume from this sort of invite that they really didn't care if me and my sister (both with other halves) attended. If they wanted us there we'd get a separate invite to our address and including our partners/kids.
So I'd just politely decline (unless it was zero effort to attend as local and good way to catch up with family.

Topcat

We received a family invite for me DH, DD1 (25 and living 359 miles away with her partner) and DD2 (20 uni student). None of of us thought it was strange at all. DD1 was even a bridesmaid at that wedding but her partner wasn't invited.

We are all going to another family wedding soon but DD1 and her partner got their own invite for it. DD2 was going to get her own invite too but I reminded the bride she was home for the summer now and wouldn't actually get it so she was added to ours.

Surely as long as you know you are invited and have all the details it doesn't really matter one way or the other?