What's your timeline for throwing away wedding invitations?

[sockmuncher]

A relative dropped off her wedding invitation on Saturday morning.

I complimented the beautiful invitation. Then I copied the important details into my calendar and set the invitation on the side with the recycling.

We chatted on for a few hours & had a lovely catch up.

She has text me today to say she's been wondering whether to say anything or not but shes hurt the invitation was 'dumped' so quickly. It's got my back up, I appreciated the invitation and how beautiful it was but how long should I keep it for so it's been appreciated enough?

I'm not going to send anything back other than to apologise for hurting her feelings, but i have done this with every wedding / party invitation. Am I in the minority?

Texted

I’m getting married in 6 months and we’ve just designed and ordered our invitations. They contain masses of info including timeline of the day (we’re providing transport between venues so people need to be in right place at right time), menu choices, gift list, how to RSVP etc. If someone chucked all that stuff right in front of me I’d think they didn’t care about the wedding at all and I’d uninvite them.

Could you be on the spectrum. This seems very unaware behaviour to do in front of the giver.

@Notbridezilla what instructions do people need about how to RSVP?

I recall sending a sheet of info: map to reception, local hotels, etc, let my mother know re any dietary requirements.

Honestly I think this highlights the over-the-top nature and the expense of weddings. She’s probably already spent £100s on her ‘special’ day and lots of time and money organising the invites and is therefore understandably a little over sensitive about it. I think I might have been too given the hype and effort she’s no doubt putting into it. Is her partner putting in equal effort?

I used to keep all of them (invites) and service sheets in a box… as memories of the days. My abusive ex used this as ‘evidence’ that I was wedding obsessed and had lured him into marriage (conveniently forgetting he was the one who proposed).

I am sure she will forgive you - just say, ‘I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me and I am really looking forward to the day and will definitely keep a memory from it!’ X

Are you normally so briskly unimaginative, OP? If wedding invitations were ‘just’ ways of conveying date and venue, people wouldn’t go, in many cases, to endless trouble having them engraved, choosing designs, envelopes etc. However pathological is your fear of ‘clutter’, it seems to me overwhelmingly obvious that treating a wedding invitation as ‘item to be recycled’, like a stray toilet roll insert, in front of the bride to be, was pretty insensitive. Things may be meaningful to others in ways they wouldn’t to you, and just because you texted your wedding invitations, or typed them on half a sheet of A4 from the photocopier room, doesn’t mean everyone else needs to.

You should have got a container, set fire to the invitation in front of her and thrown the ashes in her face. That'll teach her to give you a nice wedding invitation. The very idea. Good thinking about incinerating anything your kids make and draw. They can come out into the garden and watch it happen. #proper parenting.

Generally that is grandparents though that want the photos of the children, they are relatives, DM displayed photos of all her grandchildren so did MIL. when DS graduated we ordered photos for the grandparents.

You’ve just reminded me of an old friend of mine who was bringing up her primary school-aged DD in a tiny Manhattan studio, and had a space for whatever that week’s bit of art was. The previous one was thrown out.

(She’s the only person I know who also had a genuine capsule wardrobe, because she didn’t have storage space for anything more…)

So when it’s Christmas and you have guests, it’s a bare mantelpiece.

I recycle mine by making gift tags out of them. With Christmas cards, there’s a box with cards I send. In it a list of who I sent them to last year and a list of who sent them to us, plus leftover seasonal stamps.

yep.

but my sister is exactly the same! lovely decorations, christmas cards in the recycling

no biggie!

and the christmas cards i receive are all from aged relatives and past workplaces

neither of whom visit for christmas!!

That’s actually what I like about Christmas cards. It’s true that not so many get sent now, but they are usually a lovely reminder of older friends.

yes nice to open, read, think of them

then i pop in recycling 🤷‍♀️

You just do! It comes in the car with you and then you can double check you have the right time and place if you get there and no one else is there! You could have entered it into your phone incorrectly!

OP, I think it might help to think of it this way:
She has given you a thing she values, both for itself and for the event it represents.
The correct thing to do is to at least pretend to value it as she does for the duration of her visit. Therefore, it should stay out in pride of place at least until she has left your house.
I often hang onto invitations until the day simply because they have useful instructions on them!!

A mantelpiece with cards looks lovely, with fairy lights behind great. With just fairy lights, like it’s between occasions for me

yep

but we all have different tastes for our homes don’t we

That's all that's needed.

Soneone spending tons of money designing cards with tons of silly bits of different paper in them is just wasting money. (I say someone, it's generally women adding all that extra stuff into an envelope over just a card with details on)

And horrendous fonts used that are hard to read! Why just why!!

Was there foil or plastic on it? If so it shouldn't have gone in the recycling.

<misses point of thread>

This . You were thoughtless OP . I would have been offended even if I had hand written the invitation on a piece of paper and you had thrown in away in front of me . Just apologise and chalk it up to one of those life lessons.

The website address to RSVP to - we need them to do it there so they can pick their food choices (3 options). I’m pretty chilled but we have LOTS of people with dietary requirements, allergies etc so it needs to be recorded correctly.

Sure, no need to say it. It’s agree to disagree

Often it does need saying

Grandparents are different, pretty sure it's illegal under the age of 75 though 😂