Unclear wedding invite

[Thinkingoutloud3]

More of a WWYD than AIBU

Received a wedding invite from a friend back in March for a wedding this August. It was an email invite and didn’t provide a lot of info but I saw it said 2-2.30pm wedding ceremony and 8.30pm-12am wedding reception. I accepted the invite.

Met with a friend last week who is also invited and she mentioned the wedding and said did I noticed we aren’t invited to the wedding breakfast and asked what I plan to do in-between. This has now caused some confusion as I assumed a ceremony invite meant you were there for the entire day? But as it doesn’t mention the wedding breakfast or any dietary requirements friend thinks we aren’t invited to that. I don’t want to turn up expecting to go to the whole day if that’s not the case, but also don’t want to turn up and then hang around for 6 hours.

Obvious thing is to ask but I just can’t get past that someone would invite you to the ceremony and then expect you to come back 6 hours later, and I don’t want to make it awkward if I say ‘am I invited to the meal or not’ and they say no? And then I excuse myself from the ceremony.

Any ideas how to approach this one ?

Gosh that's quite a different spin if it's all at the same venue. So you're actually meant to bugger off and then return to the same place. How odd.

If it's not an exclusive hire, you could always just plonk yourselves in the lounge for the afternoon to highlight the ridiculousness of it.

Me too but I am not very keen on schmalzy songs and I can't dance to save my life. In your position, I'd do one or the other but not both.

I've just had to re-read my invitation to a wedding next weekend. Phew, it says we're invited for the ceremony, the afternoon and - get this! - the evening do too.

I think it's quite bad mannered to invite people to the I do bit and not anything else until the evening. I would rather have an invitation for the evening do only, with a note saying the wedding ceremony is taking place at whatever time, whatever place, and if you'd like to attend that, please do.

If it’s a country hotel type setting is there a spa. Could be quite nice to go to ceremony and then have nice afternoon in spa/have food and then go to evening do.

Ideal. Just go to the ceremony, get a look at the dress. Then go home! The rest is boring af imho.

What text message?

Sorry to those (few) who think this is perfectly normal. It's rude. I would much rather be invited to the evening party only than the ceremony and then expected to twiddle my thumbs until the evening party 6 hours later.

Bad enough if you live very locally to the venues but staggeringly rude if people have spent time and money travelling to attend.

I agree, @QueSyrahSyrah - it's at the same venue! So some people go to the dining room, others have to bugger off and find a Nandos and an Odeon?

It’s rude and it shouldn’t happen but alas it does. I don’t accept invitations like this. My brother was asked to read at a wedding once and only found out after he accepted that he wasn’t invited to the reception only the evening do. Legally the ceremony is open to all.

They invited him to do a reading but not to the meal? That's really mean.

God I couldn't be arsed with the faff. I'd go to one or the other, whichever was the most convenient for me.

I'm obviously getting old as I think it is extremely rude to invite people to the wedding ceremony and then expect them to mill around for hours before the evening reception. All of the weddings I have been to are an invite for all day and evening invite for bigger groups such as work colleagues.

Hmm I am going to disagree with the majority! I had an almost identical invite many years ago to a very close friends wedding. Presumed she wasn’t having a wedding breakfast so went to ceremony and then home to wait til it was time for the evening doo.

Turns out she had a semi wedding breakfast - cheese and biscuits, speeches etc and she fully expected me to be there with no indication of this on the invite!

i'd also assume you will be shown NO hospitality in the evening - 8.30 suggests just drinks (buy your own) and no buffet.

Think i'd just do the ceremony and not bother with an evening. And no present.

I think it is extremely rude to invite people to the wedding ceremony and then expect them to mill around for hours before the evening reception

I think a better and clearer way of phrasing it is to send an invite to the evening reception and then add a line that evening guests are welcome to attend the ceremony if they would like to. When my sister got married they invited their entire hockey teams to the evening - quite a few did also attend the ceremony as they were all local so just went home in between.

We sent clear evening invitations to local colleagues and neighbours and stated at the bottom that they were also welcome to attend the ceremony at the local church. A few found that more convienient than travelling out to the evening disco and not drinking/ taxis and took up the ceremony only. We also had regular congregation "invite themselves" because they wanted to be there as part of the church community (which was lovely)

It was clear what was on offer.
No gifts anticipated (although one NDN chose a really lovely, thoughtful ornament so they clearly weren't offended)
It was only for local aquaintences that wouldn't have expected a full invitation, and the colleagues have a culture of evening invitation.
The church is a public ceremony, so it was drawing attention to it as an option. Some people favour ceremonies over discos.
There was a plentiful buffet so evening guests were well fed.
Our venue had more capacity for the evening than the wedding breakfast. It was hard enough finding a venue that could accommodate 100 guests let alone the extra.
DH is from a culture of big weddings.

Phrasing it as a single invitation to both ends of the day isn't great, especially if it's a single venue, remote and/ or involves a guest travelling. That's different to drawing attention to the ceremony as an extra option.

Mind you I've been a full guest at poorly organised weddings where there's been hours of vacuous standing while the bride and groom go AWOL for the photos. The worst one being an 8pm wedding breakfast following a 12pm ceremony and up the arse end of nowhere. The happy couple had pissed off to a pub elsewhere with immediate family and left everyone standing around hungry, cold and with no idea of what was happening. TBH I'd prefer to know it's a ceremony and evening and know I'm entertaining myself in the middle than re-live that one!

Are you not British? It's always called that here.

Personally, I would email and ask when we need at submit our dietary requirements, (even if there are none). At least then she would have to stipulate what the invitation means.

So since time immemorial it's been

"Emma and Tim invite you to an evening reception to celebrate their marriage at X venue on Y date at 7.30pm.

NB the marriage will take place at 2pm at St Peters church. All welcome to attend if you wish"

It really is not the done thing to invite people to the ceremony snd the evening. Just comes across as thoughtless and a bit rude

It's perfectly obvious what the invitation means. Why encourage op into an awkward exchange where she has the bleeding obvious explained to her?!

Yep. And even more so when it's all at the same venue!

I live in N Ireland and was once invited to a wedding in Kent where my children, youngest of whom was 6, weren't invited to the wedding breakfast but the adults were.It was baffling as they couldn't be left in the hotel and we obviously had no access to childcare. We went without the children in the end.

The invitation was perfectly clear. You didn’t read it properly.

Love it😂😂😂

Oh blimey, the absolutely horror of turning up at Lovely Country House Dedicated Wedding Venue thinking you’re there for the whole day and then the penny dropping that your name isn’t on the seating plan.