Wedding invitation… who is being unreasonable?

[Anon133]

Hi all, I’m looking for advice regarding a dispute that has kicked off in my family this morning.

We have had a ‘save the date’ card come through the post this morning for the wedding of a friend of my partner. They are also friends with my partner’s father.

Both my partner and his father have been invited to ceremony and reception afterwards, whilst myself and partner’s step mum have been invited to the evening only.

I personally don’t see an issue with this, I don’t know the couple particularly well and I know that budgets/numbers can be tight (the wedding so happens to fall on my Grandad’s 80th birthday so it’s unlikely I’ll be able to attend in any event).

However, my partner’s father and his step mum have taken it extremely personally and said that couples should be invited to the same parts of the wedding. They also say that they are travelling 2 hours for the wedding so are left in a situation where step mum will be left on her own in an unfamiliar town whilst the ceremony is ongoing.

My partner has also commented that it was rude that I was not invited to both parts of the wedding if he was.

Partner’s father has now approached the bride and groom, who have said they are unable to accommodate and have been upset by the question.

Who’s in the right here? Getting sick of the arguments already 😡😡

Terrible form to invite only one half of a married couple to the whole wedding. Just embarrassing for all concerned. I would decline.

I don’t understand this bad form to only invite one half. I have friends that don’t know DH and vice versa.

Totally fine for them to do that invite. I wouldn’t do it myself and usually we decline invites that don’t include both of us and our kids because it is practically difficult and usually means we aren’t that close to the couple. However, my DH has gone to a couple without me when it’s been an invite for us but not the kids and this year my sister and I have been invited to a childhood family friend’s daughters wedding and our husbands and kids haven’t. This is because they wanted us there (more to represent our deceased parent really) but couldn’t invite 9 but had space to invite 2. I would much rather my husband and kids came with me and would have loved even just an evening invite for them but it’s an honour to be wanted there for the day and I have said thank you and I will be there. It used to upset more when I was younger and felt more vulnerable in my relationship as we used to let both families dominate us… so maybe this is a reflection that the step Mum feels a little bit of an outside in the family still and this triggers those feelings?

I think it was unnecessarily rude to ask for more invitations.

Married couples should be invited together to weddings. Very rude not to invite both.

People can be understanding as they like about money but marriage is a social unit. Engaged couples also meet traditional wedding etiquette for units, and modern day etiquette counts people "living as married" as a unit.

I think you’ve all made a mountain out of a mole hill. Perhaps they thought you and the mil could have a nice day somewhere and then join for the evening? Weddings are massively expensive and they have to do the cut somewhere. They obviously have a relationship with your partner and the dad but not you or mil to the same extent.

Inviting only one half of a married couple is disgraceful in my opinion

The OP didn’t make a mountain out of anything. She wasn’t bothered by the invitation and knew she was likely to decline anyway because of her grandfather’s birthday.

The father in law was the one who went in all guns blazing and dragged them into it too.

Very bad form to invite only half of a married couple. Of course they can do what they like, their wedding their rules blah blah blah, but if it were me I wouldn't be putting myself out to attend the wedding of such rude people. I certainly wouldn't be pootling about for a couple of hours in my guest-at-a-wedding outfit trying to find somewhere to have lunch. That's silly.

You could all reply that you'll all go to the evening, but no thank you to the day bit, I suppose.

I'd have assumed they were expecting you to hang out with her, before both turning up to the evening part. Perhaps you're not close enough though.

@Doesthepopeshitinthewoods I’d have agreed with you based on the first posts but I think their reply back to the couple was a bit odd.

”My partner and I have both declined the invite and said ‘whilst we are sorry that FIL approached you about it in the way he did, we would be unable to attend due to the logistics of it all.’

They could have simply said thanks but it clashes with grandfathers 80th so unable to attend by they brought logistics into it which does make it sound like they had an issue with the arrangements as well.

Remember when weddings were all about couples? If you were single, you got a plus one invitation, and could invite whomever you liked. If we reined in all the modern wedding excesses, perhaps we could revive the old custom of a generous welcome to ceremony and party for all.

I agree with FIL that the couple getting married have made a fuck up.

I suspect they haven’t really thought much about the social faux pas of inviting only one half of a couple to the main event when it’s a considerable distance away for them to travel. You should only do that when the couple live nearby.

Contrary to modern opinion, the wedding party should be about the comfort of the guests. If a couple want to make it all about themselves, then feck off and elope.

I have voted YANBU because you are such an understanding and accommodating and tolerant person OP! However the situation itself is tricky, I can see both sides tbh. They shouldn’t be offended, because it’s the couple’s choice, but the couple need to understand people may not attend in these circumstances.

I'm a bit confused by the Save the Date card. If it's not a formal invitation, then you don't have to RSVP. Yet it seems to have all the detail of an actual invitation, and OP's family seems to be responding to it as an invitation. Does anyone know what the etiquette is?

You're assuming there's a nice little town to be explored for 6/7 hours (from the time she would have to drop her partner at the ceremony until the evening do starts, most likely around 7pm) and that there will be places open.

I live in the Lakes, we have lots of lovely wedding venues but many of the nearest towns/villages have a cafe, pub, touristy gift shop and post office at most so 7 hours is a lot of time to fill by yourself, especially after 5pm when everything is closed. I love going out to places by myself but if I'm doing something to kill time rather than out of choice then those hours start to drag, even more so when you know you can't just pop home and literally the only place you have to go is to sit in the car.

Additionally, who wants to get ready for a fancy event in a toilet at the venue because you weren't invited to the whole day and therefore have had to drive for hours first thing, wander around aimlessly for hours and then come and get ready in the loo without an opportunity to shower/freshen up in between?

Not only that but to add insult to injury unless they also pay out for a hotel room then since her partner is more likely to have had a drink throughout the day's proceedings, she can't even relax with a few glasses of wine through the evening as she will presumably have to be the one driving the two hours home.

Why should anyone have to majorly inconvenience themselves because a couple decided that they weren't going to invite married couples to a wedding as a single social unit?

I agree, @YellowDaffodillie - this one is about the B&G actually being quite inconsiderate. However, I suspect it's more about gifts and social media for some couples. Don't invite the spouse, that's one less meal but the same gift.

I wouldnt do it myself, id either book a venue big enough or run off and do it small. But I'd never be offended by only 1 of us being invited. Plenty of reasons for this. If you've got a group of friends who you really want there, and you don't know or don't really know their partners, are you really expected to invite those partners before say aunties/uncles/cousins if you're stuck for space. Or if space dictates that you can have the aunties/uncles/cousins and friend group (excl partners), why shouldn't you? So assuming all the posters on here against it would actually just rather not be invited at all? Because the B&G can't just magic up more space for people they don't even know.

Valuing having a ‘exclusive and expensive’ wedding over family is a choice. I assume that bride and groom made a lasting impression on their family members - and not a good one.

My DH recently received a save the date addressed only to him, to our home. We are married with 2 children.
It’s one of his good friends’ wedding - I’ve spent a fair bit of time with the groom socially.
Not to sound too harsh (!) but bride is younger and very much a go all out for Instagram, would like to be an influencer type who uses all the vocabulary associated with that such as ‘dreamy’ / ‘vibes’ and made themselves a house Instagram account etc etc.. so very probable this will be an expensive wedding with how the photos will look in mind based on what’s already been posted.
He was told via WhatsApp it was only him invited to the day but they’d ‘love’ to have me on the evening.
We’re either going to just both attend the evening together and DH decline the day or both not go at all. Yes it is their day and decision and budgets do feature into a wedding but, I do think modern weddings get so bogged down in additional expenses that when you look back, weren’t really necessary and it’s lovely to share a wedding with a loved one by your side.

I agree with this.

I heard of this during Covid and could absolutely understand the reasoning behind it.

Whatever about my generation in their 50's I could well imagine the generation ahead of us thinking it is off.

I wouldn't dream of querying it.

I would simply decline.

Looking at it from B&G perspective, they wanted to invite your DP and his dad because they know them well, but are constrained by numbers so what are they to do? Not invite them at all which risked causing offence? Tell them that they would have loved to have invited them but can't stretch to including their OHs ? Or do a split invite and let them, as the adults they are, decide how best to manage it? That side of things, managing the logistics of the invite, is your business not the B&G's.

The father approaching the B&G was very poor form as was your response in citing logistics which simply tells them you think they were being arseholes for issuing split invites. A simple, "so sorry, we'd loved to have been there but we are unable to attend that day" would have been sufficient.

A bit of adulting, good grace and consideration would have gone a long way here.

I do think its a generation thing. Back in the day B&G would draw up the guest list first, then find a venue that could accommodate the number of guests at a price they could afford.

Now its the other way round, choose a swanky venue and don't give F* who comes or not 'cos its all about me!'

Weddings have ceased to be the family occasion I looked forward to and become more of a drama 😬

I agree, @victoriaspongesandwich
Weddings used to be a social occasion.
Now, all to often, they're a social media occasion.
Imagine inviting a relative and not their wife of many years!

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' here, it's a matter of what does a wedding ceremony actually mean to you?

Increasingly, a wedding is seen as a big swanky expensive party with the chance to dress up and have photo opportunities galore. B&G want only their friends there because it's their day, nobody else's.

In the past, it was seen as a celebration of the start of a marriage, the legal joining of two people, the legal joining of two families (what did you think the "in law" part of 'mother in law meant, eh?) the continuation of those two families into the next generation, an opportunity for the family and close friends of the couple to gift items towards their married life (they'd be young and not have much, this was important back then). This is why Great-Auntie Edna that you never see and all the kids of all the adults were there because a wedding was an important family event. And as a celebration of marriage, all marriages were respected and the very notion that only one half of a marriage 'qualified' to be invited would have been unthinkable.

So for the couple marrying, it's their party and their inviting their friends (your partner and his dad). For your partner and his dad it's a celebration of a new marriage which is asking guests to disrespect their own marriage.

Hmm. Maybe there is a 'right' after all.

Excellent points, @WhereYouLeftIt