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?

My husband did this 😂but I agree with you that a photo or video of them wearing it is actually better and less wasteful. We had a wedding website rather than invitations. It was mean to bin it in front of her but you’ve got that message now! You’re going to be a great mum.. you sound very organised and efficient which is half the battle really!

😂. ….

This. I would probably keep it up til the day of the wedding.

But if you prefer to just pop in the calendar that’s fine too.

I definitely wouldn't have done it infrastructure of her do you have any idea how much peoppe spend on wedding stationary. I always put the invites up on the fridge and wouldn't chuck until the days been.

It why spend so much? Does anyone really care if it was all emailed out as an" pdf? Or posted for non tech older people.

Would I want £10 spent on my invite? Or as a guest, maybe serve some coffee or tea at the wedding for same cost.

I always put them on the fridge until the wedding day. Pretty harsh for you to recycle it the second she gives it to you.

Haha, I like your sense of humour sockmuncher.
I only started reading this thread today. I was wondering why one with such a seemingly innocuous title kept trending.

Then when I read - you put the card in recycling in front of her! Oh my, I have no sentimentality towards weddings but even I would know that's a no-no.

The bottom line is that nobody needs to hang onto a card. You can throw it away, burn it, shred it, rip it up and use it as toilet paper. But the key is not to do it within minutes of receiving it in front of the sender. Anyway sounds like OP knows this now and hopefully won’t do it again!

I am not very sentimental. I didn’t make personalised thank you cards after my babies were born. But I do know not to rip things up that have just been handed to you, when I know the effort people put into designing this stuff.

totally what i used to do (only keeping the ones that they were really proud of / particularly wow!

Very very rude to do it in front of her. Wedding invites cost a fortune or ages of time to make! I keep them forever. Clearly you don't have to do this, but to throw it in front of her is a complete NO!

You need to do some research on “love languages”. Giving birthday cards (as well as gifts) is part of some people’s love language. It obviously isn’t yours and that’s fine, but you seem to be blind to the fact that some people give birthday cards as a way of showing they care (not just passing on information).

To disregard other people’s love language is incredibly hurtful and offensive to them. You will need to come outside of your own thoughts and empathise with others as a parent. Your child won’t be a carbon copy of you and how you think.

I don't like/appreciate cards. I keep invite in a drawer until after wedding in case i forget any details so if i had put it in calendar i would bin it shortly after. I would never bin a card or invite while the person is there that is really rude. Trying not to do it again shows you dont get it.

Also baby thank you cards are still a thing. Text equally acceptable but photo card stating name and dob still very popular.

Entirely up to you how long you keep it for, but it was a bit thoughtless to throw it away while she was there.

Not had so many wedding invites but party invites I always keep until the day, just incase I’ve recorded anything incorrectly.

Presumably it’s not a wedding where you need to show your invite on arrival to gain entry?

Oh, Gawd! Just a heads up, your child is a separate person to you and, man, does my child get attached to every scribble, picture and card they make or receive! And yes, it drives me to distraction, but that is they way they are and I respect that. You really need to learn about respecting others and not just expecting others to fall in line with your cold and bizzare way of treating people's feelings. You need to learn the basics. Basics of respect and empathy and that others are different and that your process driven ways can be inherently hurtful to others. Just because you have a reason behind certain behaviours, it doesn't make it ok.

I think it was impolite/thoughtless to chuck it in front of her. Surely you know that.

Rude as fuck to put it in your recycling whilst she’s still there. Why wouldn’t you keep it until the wedding anyway to have a reference for details.

Going by OP's comments , she seems to think it's funny that the majority of us disagree with her , not the type to be interested in other people's views .

Seriously insensitive to trash it in front her

You've been personally delivered a thing by her which has obviously had a lot of time, expense, thought, and care into. It doesn't matter what it is.

The social norm is to display it until the date, though you're not obliged to.

Keep mine on display on the mantlepiece until after the event has happened.

Perhaps you could let friends and relative know that you don’t want cards? It’s an utter waste of
money if you’re just putting them straight in the bin. Which, you can do what you like, but as others have said, was cruel to do in front of her, and to help people out with not creating waste - let them know you don’t want cards!

It was rude to do this whilst she was still there.

People put a lot of thought into wedding invitations, often spending a long time getting the wording and design just right.

You could have at least waited until she left the house.

This 💯

Very rude to throw it away in front of your friend. Invitations are not cheap and they will have gone to some trouble to choose something nice, plus in this case your relative went to extra trouble to hand-deliver the card. It's like saying "Oh look, you've spent all that time and trouble to produce something special for your special day that looks really lovely, you've spent a lot of money on it, but to me it's just a piece of rubbishy cardboard that is getting in my way".

Within my own friend group all invitations have been emailed or text.

Including wedding invitations? I don't believe you.

Your bring the bins down the drive for the recycling collection on Saturday morning even though it doesn't go till Tuesday? Why?

This isn’t even true, everyone I know who’s had a baby in recent has sent a card out - birth announcements are really special! I can’t believe you’re so lacking in emotional literacy that you binned it in front of her, that’s so callous.