Going on hen do but not invited to main wedding

[SantasComingToTown]

Opinions please as I feel a bit put out….

As the title suggests I’m going on a hen do but my husband and I aren’t invited to the wedding, just the evening reception.

The hen is 3 days and has cost me £200. The Wedding was planned well before the hen do started to be arranged, but the bride (family) is very secretive so wouldn’t share the date or venue etc with anyone until the invites came out. We talk really regularly and the conversation for well over the last year has mainly been wedding based. I know she is having 80 people all day (more in the evening) so I wouldn’t say it’s a small wedding. She has also asked me to make loads of wedding signs and bits for her which I was happy to do (presuming I would be bringing them down with me to the wedding).

Now the invites have come through, we are only invited to the evening reception. We live 200 miles away and have a baby (wedding is baby free), it’s also on a weekday and both my husband and work the day of and the day after the wedding, so it’s going to be no mean feat to get there for what will be a few hours in reality.

AIBU to feel a bit put out about this? Why would you invite someone to your expensive hen do and then not even give the courtesy of a day time invite, especially when you know how far away they live. I would understand if they wedding was really small (30/40 people) but it’s not.

For context, we had the same size wedding and they were invited all day because we appreciated how long it was going to take them to get there and she also came on my hen do.

Definitely cut your losses and lose the £100.
Don't go to the hen or the evening part of the wedding.
I have a bit of a rule about weddings, if I'm not invited to the whole day I don't need to be there at all as we're obviously not that close.
An evening invite is just to make up the numbers for the party imo.
Weddings are expensive for the guest, travel, outfits, gift, overnight stay etc.
She's taking the piss out of you, getting you to make stuff for a wedding that you're not invited to and I assume the hen party is also covering the cost of the bride too.
Nah! Back out and leave them to it, I'd tell them why too but I'm an arsehole 😁

I had people at my hen who were only invited to the evening but
A) there were only 20 people at my day, so the evening was kind of a separate party in its own right.
B) pretty much as soon as we told people we were getting married, we warned them the wedding would be tiny, so no one had false expectations
C) the hen do was a local night out, so inexpensive. The only non local people invited were people who knew and could crash with local friends or me.
D) I didn't ask any evening guests for huge wedding related favours!

She sounds really cheeky and / or thoughtless.

I hadn’t even thought about the transactional part but you are so right! She expects me to pay £200 to celebrate her, but she isn’t willing to spend £80 on having me attend, even the cost of both me and my husband is less than what I’m paying for the hen. I’ve come to the conclusion she is just very rude!

Nah! Back out and leave them to it, I'd tell them why too but I'm an arsehole 😁

🤣🤣

Are you sure you’re not my husband?! 😂This is exactly what he said to me this morning, almost word for word haha 😆

Is there any minuscule chance that she’s sent you the wrong invitation? I’m guessing not, but just in case?
I’d sacrifice the 100 quid, personally. Call it a ‘finding out my friend is a fake twat’ tax.
And I’d challenge her about it. Even if she is in full-fire bridezilla mode, I’d want to hear her reasoning.

I would have no problem with anything you said if you were my friend!

I’d be fine with either evening do + hen do, or hen do only, if everything was local to me and didn’t require any more organising or expense than a normal night out. But I wouldn’t travel, stay overnight, take time off work or spend a lot for either.

If it were me, I'd be happy with just the fun bits (hen and evening do) unless it's close family, I find weddings a little bit dull. That said, I can understand why you feel put out.
You've got the baby and the distance as the perfect excuse to decline all of it without creating bad feelings for the bride and groom as there are probably legitimate reasons for the reduced numbers to the wedding itself.

No I don’t think so. Since starting this thread my husbands Grandma has called me and has shared her dissatisfaction with the situation. She would have absolutely spoken to the bride before calling me and she doesn’t mince her words, so I am pretty sure that if it was a mistake, I would have heard from the bride by now.

I wouldnt go to either. You've been invited to the hen because either they think

• You can afford it and will make up numbers
• you can afford it and they need a certain number of people to go to reduce costs for others.

Both are a slap in the face

You're just numbers to make up the hen night.

Nope nope. its the unwritten rule ( unless your are eloping or having a small family only wedding) that people invited to the hen party are invited to the full day of wedding. feck of with herself now
also don't get the idea if not telling people the date. that's really weird. it's not a big reveal thing ? it's causing everyone issues can't book accommodation hair and make up time off work etc

LOL what a cheeky fecker! Treating you like a wedding planner and then not inviting you to the wedding. Only the 'night do.' The part that you invite work colleagues and acquaintances to, (and people you are not close to.) You are close enough/friendly enough to help with the wedding preparation, but not to be invited to the wedding. I could not come back from this tbh.

I had a 'friend' many years ago, who I had been mates with for about 15 years since 'little' school. We dated men together - best mates and brothers, so we went out as a foursome - and went on holiday together a few times. Even lived together for a short spell in another part of the country. Went pubbing and clubbing 2 or 3 times a month when we hit 18-19. Bought each other gifts for Christmas, and had a great laugh when we were together.

She announced one day she was getting married in 5 months - and she didn't invite me. I was gobsmacked as we were really good friends. She chatted about it excitedly, and about the bridesmaids dresses (there were 6 of them, 2 nieces, 2 sisters, and 2 friends,) and it was at the Church 3 miles from where we she lived, and 5 miles from me ... (we lived 2 miles apart.)

Not a single mention of me going at ALL. And NO INVITATION.

And I was not going to ask.

To add insult to injury, she asked me if I wanted to go for a drink the week before the wedding - it was actually 10 days before. We went to a pub 10 miles away. Taxi there and back. No mention of any hen party. Said she wasn't fussed when I asked her.

So the wedding went ahead and I was excluded.

3 weeks after, I discovered from a work colleague of hers, that she had had a hen party, the week before the wedding. 3 days after we had gone out for a drink together. Around 30 women invited. All went to a nightclub (in a coach she had hired) 25 miles away - in the city. They all had a meal together first in a big Chinese restaurant, and then went on to the club after.

I was so hurt and upset and embarrassed. And to this say, I do not know why she excluded me. Not only from the wedding, but the hen party too.

I never asked her. And I never spoke to her again. I didn't return her messages when she contacted me 3 or 4 times over a few weeks, and I moved away a few months after, and didn't give her a forwarding address. She could have asked my parents where I was, but she didn't. Never spoke to her again. Saw her a few times in passing a year or so later, and we both ignored each other.

Weirdest thing ever. Still stings a bit. Even after 30+ years

That's good, I do wonder who we offended sometimes!
Although actually thinking about it I have happily been to a hen do of someone I was only invited to evening of, but again the hen do was a local night out so not expensive (and it wasnt family or a very close friend, so I wouldnt ever have expected a day invitation). The evening do was a night away, but got a budget hotel and had a really good night out. And again no favours asked by the bride though!!

I would double check it isn’t a mistake. Assuming it isn’t - I would decline all three. Why would toy bother?! It’s going to cost you close to a thousand pounds by the time you add up the costs. A fantastic holiday instead 😎

You're being daft. If ahe invited you to the night do and didn't onvite you to the hen you wpuld be put out. Eithet accept the invite or don't. Up to you

Easy to decline - you can't get the time off work. Don't make her wedding signs etc... Go to the hen night only if you want to!

Wasn’t the famous ‘are you on glue?!’ thread written by a woman who got a ‘save the date’ for her friends wedding but then instead of being actually invited to it, she was asked to help set up and decorate?
Don’t go to any of it OP, really, and don’t make anything for her.

Fuck that noise. Cheeky cah.

This 100%
I think it’s really rude , I’d just decline , no way would I drive 200 miles for an evening reception.

Do you think you're invited to the hen do because you'll deliver the signage stuff up then, at your cost, whilst paying to be there? 🤔

Nope

I wouldn’t go to hen or wedding.

She can drive to yours for the signs you made.

Cheeky bitch.

She has used you badly.

Don't bother going to the Hen do , it'll end up costing you more than what you've spent already.

Don't go to the evening do either... much too stressful and knackering for you.

She sound very self centred and can't look beyond the end of her own nose.

They sound like shit friends.! Have you already paid the 200? If you haven’t, don’t show and don’t bring the signs she’s had you make. What lame people! Sorry but if you can invite someone to come on your hen do, you can invite them to your damn wedding 🤷🏽‍♀️