Invited to ceremony and evening reception but not wedding breakfast

[jonathanvanness]

More than happy to be told I am BU.

DH and I are invited to a wedding on the weekend and upon first reading the invite, thought that we were invited to the whole day but we have just had it confirmed that although we are invited to the ceremony, we aren't invited to the wedding breakfast. So essentially we will be in a town we don't know in our glad rags with bugger all to do for over 5 hours. We do not live close by so going home is not an option and we have already booked for a babysitter for the whole day.

AIBU?

Frankly, inviting guests who have to travel long distances for the evening only is already pretty rude. Inviting them for all but the meal is a cherry on top.

I’ve had it happen once, when much younger and less comfortable politely declining. There was not a great deal to do in the small town the bride’s parents were from. We drank a lot.

When dh and I got married we put a note with our evening invitations that they were welcome to come to the ceremony too and they were welcome to join us for drinks afterwards.
I have a massive Irish family and DH is from a big family too, we just couldn’t afford to feed everyone at £40 a head, the evening invites were mainly to work colleagues and my step family (who I’m not massively close to and are also a large Irish family!)
My immediate work team all came to see me get married which was lovely but no one else did. We did make it very clear that they weren’t getting fed though.

People get married in their parish church, yes? seeing as that isnt going to extend, you're kind of bolloxed really.

Only a third of people in the UK have a religious ceremony, and lots of those won't be in their own parish church (ours wasn't).

Anyway, whether you can have everyone at the ceremony is besides the point. If OP hadn't been invited to the ceremony then that would be a standard evening invitation - fine, normal. It's the 'shit sandwich' (come to parts A and C of the day but fuck off for B) that OP objects to, and I agree with her.

We used evening invites for the likes of colleagues as we got married on a Friday. But there was no expectation that they attend the service (though some did)

Will make the most of a child free day and head to a pub in between I suppose.

I'd skip the entire wedding and just enjoy the child free day.
And tell the B&G why.

Oh hell I did this at my wedding! 12 years ago and a traditional wedding. I was married from home. Most of our friends lived locally (we're rural though... So still had to drive to the church because you have to drive bloody everywhere) but most family not local. I wanted everyone who could come, to come to church because that was the most important bit. But my parents were paying and couldn't have paid for the breakfast for 150 guests. So we invited the family plus wedding party plus the friends who had had to travel (no more than 10). 55 or so at the breakfast and still my great aunt was deeply offended at not getting an invite and didn't send a Christmas card to my mum...

Almost everyone invited turned up to both. They didn't seem to mind. Although there was a bit of the situation described above by a pp 'get pissed, come back, storm up the dancefloor, hoover up the buffet, leave with a waiter'. My college friends (I got married right after my A levels) all went to the pub, had a few nuts and about 10 pints, and were pretty damn pissed by 6pm when they came back.
Also my new husband, in the lull between the breakfast and evening, went for a nap in our room at the hotel so I just had a couple of g&TS with one uncle and a couple of the long distance friends. Everyone else napped!

We had lots of evening-only guests, but only those who lived locally (we got married in the same city that we lived and worked in). We didn't expect everyone to drive a long way for an evening-only invite.

I don't think this is rude at all!
Often venues have limits on numbers. They may be able to have 150 at the ceremony and in the evening, but only 60 for the meal. You don't actually have to go to the ceremony. You could leave home early and go for a nice meal then on to the evening reception. Are you intending to drive home at the end of the evening? If not, then you can check in to your hotel early and get ready there.

I find these invites a bit odd. Me and husband were invited to my nephews sedding a couple of years ago but my adult son, his cousin , was invited to the evening only. Would have been ok except we were all travelling together to the wedding which was 200 miles away.

He chose not to go. We didnt make a fuss, just privately thought it odd.

GottenGottenGotten, it's perfectly obvious what OP's AIBU is about

Of course - its massively entitled of guests to dictate that they should be invited to all parts.

The York wedding went on for 2 days and included a fun fair

The Sussex Wedding had 2 receptions, 3 if you include the picnic:
With a smaller ceremony and reception at St George's Hall, the guest list included approximately 600 people, most of whom have a "direct relationship" with the couple.[117] Also, 200 close friends of the couple were invited to attend the evening reception at Frogmore House.[118] Approximately 1,200 members of the public were invited to greet the couple outside the chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle.[117] The invitees outside the chapel were "people from charities, Windsor Castle community members, people from the royal households and the Crown Estate, and local school children".[119]The 2,640 members of the public invited to Windsor Castle for the wedding were gifted gift bags to commemorate the event.

I went to a wedding that ended up similar to this. The difference was that after the (early) ceremony and meal everyone was told to 'disappear' for 4 hours until the evening do started. The bride, Groom and all their immediate family buggered off home!
The problem was that it was a tiny, gloomy hotel in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. Only a tiny bar with one beer and a few peanuts. No-one knew the area.

I was 7 months pregnant at the time and me, dh and my mum and dad made the decision to just drive the few hours home and not come back.

There's was no indication in the invite this would happen.

All my family got a thank you card for gifts later in the post (I didn't though). My mum was told by a relative that the B & G were really pissed off that not many people returned for the evening do 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think it depends on how good friends you are. Despite the rudeness of such invites, if it's a special friend then I'd go. But then again a good friend really should invite you to the reception.

This happened to me, also only realised I was only invited to the church bit and evening reception a couple weeks before the day. I really regret going... travelling 5 hours to that wedding to be treated like a second class of guest and trying to find somewhere to eat in the middle of nowhere. I had better things to do with my time. I only lasted 10 minutes in the evening reception as it was clear the evening guests weren't really wanted.

I have never heard of someone doing this. I'm surprised people are okay with it to be honest, to me it's incredibly rude.

It is really bad form.

Very very rude.

What are you supposed to do for the five hours in between?? I would go out for the day with dh, and pop into the evening reception on the way home.

I'd not go to the ceremony and spend the day with my husband having lunch and drinks etc then go to the evening.

I’ve been to a few of these, they are usually at the same type of venue, a super posh boutique hotel where the ceremony takes place in the same room they have the reception in, the room rental is reasonably priced, so you can get a big room for the reception relatively cheaply but the breakfast is very expensive per head.
so what they choose to do is have a wedding breakfast just for the bridal party and imitate family, which is fine and totally acceptable.
But because they already have the big room booked for the ceremony and reception they think its acceptable to invite everyone to both but then expect them to leave while the room is being rescheduled for the reception and entertain themselves until the reception starts.

Usually the venue will prompt it as a totally acceptable option as in these posh boutique places there usually isn’t really anywhere else to go, so they assume the majority of the guests will all book in to have a overpriced meal in the separate restaurant at the venue, or at least sit in the bar and buy drinks.

So they get their money one way or another.

@PlainSpeakingStraghtTalking that's entirely different. Neither the yorks nor the sussexes invited people to the wedding ceremony and the evening party with a big gap of nothing in between. The op is invited to ceremony and evening bit not the reception in between. The sussexes had an evening party for their actual friends. Nobody was hanging around for the afternoon.

I’ve had two of these invites recently.

One was very local and very much a we’d love to see you, and explaining that they couldn’t fit more people in as it was a very small venue, but we were very welcome to either part. We accepted and they seemed genuinely delighted.

The other was for a wedding 6 hours away with no reference to the fact we’re not invited to the whole thing, like you I had to read a couple of times to realise it. I was very much less than impressed to be honest.

I don’t think it is automatically a terrible thing to do, but I think context and the way it is approached is key.

Yanbu OP. You don't invite people to a party and not feed them ffs, doesn't matter if it's a child's birthday party or a wedding or anything in between. I can understand the idea of evening invites for local acquaintances or work colleagues, totally fair enough. But the sheer cost of attending a wedding these days (outfit, travel, accommodation and oh, don't forget the gift) only to be told right, sod off for a few hours and pay for your own lunch in some crap overpriced pub while we enjoy ourselves with our 1st class guests. No thank you, I'd be politely declining and heading out somewhere nice for the day for probably a fraction of the cost. If you can't afford to feed people, have a smaller wedding. Did the invite also have a tacky poem asking for cash instead of presents, OP?

Often venues have limits on numbers. They may be able to have 150 at the ceremony and in the evening, but only 60 for the meal.

Ours was like that - so we just had 60 guests, rather than only invite people to parts of it. I'm not saying everyone has to do that, but you made it sound like it's not an option to just actually only invite people that you want to and can afford to have to the whole thing.

Our church looked a bit empty, which I suppose isn't ideal in the photos. For me it was a lot nicer than having an awkward situation at the end of the ceremony where the chosen half of the guests went off with us for food and the others had to go in the other direction.

I also went to a wedding where the bride and groom considered the church bit to be the most important and had champagne and cake there straight after the ceremony so all guests felt included. Then just had small family meal after that. I personally thought it was a lovely idea.

I think anyone who is trying to draw a comparison between their own ordinary wedding, and the social expectations, manners and kindness between them and their guests, and what royalty do is perhaps slightly overestimating their own social importance in their social and family circle.

It's what happens when people want big weddings but don't want to spend money on them.

It's just a wedding, not the opening of the Olympics.

Just invite the people you really want there and you're prepared to cater for.

I'd skip the ceremony, have a nice child free lunch with dh, then get ready to go to evening ceremony.