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?

I keep the invitation and take it along with me to the wedding so I have all the details on hand on the day. Then after the wedding I’ll normally get rid of.

Tbh you were a bit rude I think to dump it so quickly in front of her as people spend a lot of time and thought designing their perfect invitation.

You were definitely rude to dump it with the recycling in front of her!

Some people keep invitations and wedding favours from close friends/family indefinitely. I don't, but I'd probably shove it in a drawer until closer to the day.

I'm not a very sentimental person.

I would hate to think I've upset a relative I'm very fond of

I think the least you have done is upset them, more than likely they are pissed that you think so little of them that you would dump the invite to their wedding so quickly

The fact that it’s already been taken away so you can’t rectify this, means that it’s going to be more than a little awkward

I certainly would think different of you and that’s not being a bridezilla, it’s just observing some really bad manners and would think the same if you immediately dumped a birthday card

Are you planning to do the same if anyone is so kind to send you a congratulations card when your child is born?

Very insensitive and just pure bad manners on your part

I usually keep them in a box but I have very few. I would keep invite to show DH and DD, then put it out as a reminder of the event and colour scheme (usually it’s the same colours) and then it would go into a special box
By the way I once got rid of envelope too quickly ( I was upset for entirely different reason) and it turned out that I threw away a note asking DD if she’d like to be a flower girl 😓
I’m more careful since then.

Please apologise to your relative, it’s very unnecessary upset for them.

God this happened to me. It was a very close male friend from uni getting married and I turned up wearing the exact - very distinctive - colours the bridesmaids were in. Totally accidental, we were skint so I hadn't even bought a new outfit, but I'm sure it looked like sour grapes! I was really embarrassed. No idea whether the bride noticed.

recent relative did this for their wedding recently - god it was such a huge F up, invites when to spam, missing details, peoples emails addresses wrong, missing people on the invite. It really confused older generation as well as most not used to email as much as others - not age discriminating there just speaking from experience. The bride and groom ended up rushing paper invites out via post after as barley half invited replied to the email invite. In this electronic age i actually think its lovely to get a wedding invite in the post , having only recently married my self alot of time and money is taken in picking and designing wedding invites ( not to mention the money) i would think you were very crass to put it in the bin in front of her, i don't put them on the shelf but do keep them on my desk or my diary ( WFH) as more than likely, even though i would have put it on my diary there would have been details i missed. Sometimes does come in handy especially one time we went to the wrong church, it was the same name church but different county 😂

Regardless of how you feel about clutter or recycling, to take receipt of any type of card from a friend and then dump it in the recycling when you've read it is unbelievably rude, particularly in front of them.
Most people spend time and money chosing a card that they think you will appreciate. Even more so with a wedding invitation. Weddings matter massively to the people who are getting married.
Throwing it away in front of their face would indicate that you really couldn't care less about the effort or importance that has been placed on the card/invite.

I think you have been rude and insensitive and I am not surprised that your relative is offended.

@sockmuncher I have a baby on the way and I'll definitely keep any of the cards he gives me but that's obviously a bit of a different situation.

Will be interesting to know if your opinion on this changes when you send thank you cards for any baby gifts, probably with a carefully chosen photo of your new baby on it. If the relative glanced at it, said 'aw cute!' and tossed it aside I bet you'd be pissed off

You're getting a hard time here, it's a faux pas and really rude but not the end of the world! Are you neurodivergent? This is something my Asperger's brother would do. Do you realise people put a lot of effort into designing them often

Would never have thought of that - noticeable dip
I agree - see my post above re wedding invites done by email - it was a disaster

MN never fails to surprise me with how some people behave!

You typically keep an invitation until the event at least, because there's information on it.

The very last thing you do is throw it out in front of the bride 😂 how can anybody be so entirely lacking in social skills? Even my autistic 12yo would know that this would be an absolute no no!

It possibly made her realise that no one else really gives a crap that she spent a grand on stationery.

Harsh to show her, but reality can hurt 😂

How would she know if you hadn’t done it in front of her.

I always keep invitations up to the day of the event.

If it’s a wedding invite then I’ll keep it afterwards for a keepsake too.

Thats why people put do much effort into them, because many people have them as keepsakes or keep them for a while.

Were you aware that she was going to send one out?
If so, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just ask her to text you the details instead.

Recycling it was fine but I wouldn't have done it infront of her.

Um, why did you throw away the invitation in front of her? And how do you not realise that that's really rude?

Binning it in front of her is awful!

Depends on your tolerance of clutter . I have zero tolerance so in the bin it would have gone. The same day , but not in front of her.

This is very kindly and patiently put. I have been here a really long time and thought I had seen it all but did not foresee the day when someone would need an explanation of why you don't bin a wedding invitation in front of the bride five minutes after receiving it.

No wonder you relative was upset. You were downright rude.

What do people do with all this stuff they keep? Cards, invites, general life that hopefully happens for 70+ years. I live in a pretty big house, but we’d not have the room for this!

Are you joking?!

This is why I've never understood why people pay so much money and spend so much time on wedding invitations. The recipient pops the date in their calendar and then, will likely throw it in the bin. Certainly after the wedding.

I might now have done ot in front of the bride but mine clip on the calendar and in the bin after the wedding

@PlumpAndDeliciousFatcat

"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."

Best response - almost spit out my tea!

S'alright, I'm not bothered by the opinion of people I don't know and who don't know me either.