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?

Cor, you savage beast! Doing it in front of her was a bit wild 😂 I usually peg invites of any type to the fridge until the event has happened, then they get binned.

What a tell-tale! Who cares if this is true or not?! I happen to believe it is true, but if it isn’t, it makes no difference to my day.

To be fair, using WhatsApp isn’t a bad idea. Would save some money and stop this kind of dilemma.

Some people are this rude and obviously proud of it to come and make a thread about it

As others have said, it is pretty brutal to open the card, note down the information and then effectively throw it away. Obviously it makes sense logically, but emotionally it feels harsh. She probably put a lot of time and effort into choosing and preparing every detail of the card. And then you flung it into the recycling bin in front of her!

I absolutely love stationery and adore a good wedding invitation. Nothing better than a bit of letterpress.

Goodness knows why people are still doing paper invitations though - I'm emailing mine!

We have received a few email invites in recent years. So much better imo!

I generally keep them until the actual wedding just so I keep all the informations on hand.
For other cards, I wait a few weeks. It's silly but I really love cards and seeing them in my kitchen makes me happy and grateful for a few weeks. Especially the ones with photos. But I always end up binning them because eventually I hate clutter and the gratitude effect wears off.

In your case I'd defo would have waited at least until she left the house, I understand why she feels a bit hurt. If anything, it's great she felt like she could talk to you about that, don't dismiss her feelings now.

I don't think you even get now how rude you've been.

I'm sure your relative was quite upset. You don't throw the bloody thing out in front of the person! It's incredibly callous.

You threw it away in front of her? What the fuck? That's so so so rude. You do need to apologise, say you just weren't thinking or something.

She's absolutely bonkers.

Its an invite. Its there to tell you about the time and location of the wedding. If she wants to spend time designing it etc, that's up to her, but you she can't expect people to keep in hanging around to justify her time and expense in creating them.

I keep them until after the wedding. Well actually I just keep them usually I have a little box of keepsakes and will add the wedding photo and thank you card afterwards too. I have some very old postcards of my great grandparents so might be nice for my future ancestors to have a few similar keepsakes of my life too.

Throw it away whenever you like, but don't do it in front of the person who just handed it to you, ffs!

It's the OP that's bonkers, not the bride!!

To chuck it out right in front of her - do you think that's a nice thing to do?!!

@mobogogi Goodness knows why people are still doing paper invitations though - I'm emailing mine!

A sense of occasion, for us. Also emails can get lost/misinterpreted. We're currently in a situation where DH has an e-vite to a wedding with no plus one, I didn't get an email, our friends (a couple) both got individual e-vites, and various other mutual friends got nothing but we're all too polite to ask. Less potential for confusion with a card through the door (I did electronic RSVPs through a website though, much easier)

I wait until the wedding has taken place (or event if physical invitation to something else).

It's essentially a way of passing on information, I got the important details and that was that

I completely agree with you OP. I printed my own and sent them out. Could not have cared less if people threw them away after putting them in their diaries.

It sounds really insensitive and disrespectful to have put it in the same place as you put your toilet roll inners, cereal boxes and yogurt pots. And in front of the person who has invited you to one of the most important days of their life. It just gives a pretty awful message.

Your relative needs to get a grip

that said, I would have waited for her to leave the house before binning it !

"Ah, thank you for my birthday card. I have read it and it has served its function in communicating your good wishes on the anniversary of an arbitrary event which took place nine months after my parents had some sex. I will now burn it in front of you as it ceased to serve any purpose."

I would have kept hold of it, if it was similar to a card and could be displayed I would probably do so the same as I do with cards. I wouldn’t have put it straight in the recycling. When I was a child all invites were pinned to the pin board in the kitchen until the even has been and gone.

So rude and so unrepentant about it too.

I have held on to some wedding invitations from years ago — a huge amount of time, money and care can go into them and some make for lovely keepsakes.

It's quite rude of you to do it in front of her and very rude of her for mentioning it.

Oh gosh it's just a non issue isn't it, completely understand your friend spend a lot of time and money on her invite but also your prerogative if you want endless pieces of paper in your house! I would throw it away / maybe we don't need wedding invites anymore and a text would suffice?

I keep them in a keepsake box, as a reminder that someone cared enough about me to invite me to an important event.