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.

I don't see the big deal, it wouldn't bother me. Weddings are expensive and I understand after planning my own. I'd just be happy to celebrate with my friend.

There's a big difference between a hen night (which is generally a local night out) and a hen weekend that costs hundreds.

Have you're invite but be clear that your wedding will be family and most will only be invited to the evening celebration so they can decide if they want to spend money on the hen do too.

To make matters even worse, sorry to suggest this but are you absolutely sure she is not deliberately trying to humiliate you, OP?

You say you will be the only one on the Hen who isn't invited to the full day.
Just imagine how that is going to make you feel. Is she envious or have some secret grievance against you for any reason you can think of?

Sorry OP but you will be totally miserable and embarrassed if you go on this Hen. Write off the £100 and just concentrate on having a lovely few days with your gorgeous baby and really supportive DH.💐

Let her have the signs you have already made and tell her this is her wedding gift from you all.

I'd decline the whole thing! What a cheeky mare!

I’d not go to a wedding if it was miles away just for an evening do, especially if it was complicated to arrange childcare

as for the hen do, go if you want to go, but ditch that as well if you can’t be arsed

I’d be miffed!

This is so harsh! Most because you’ve been making the signs (!!!) and she was invited all day to yours. How did it go in the end?

I would torch the signs you've made.
Ask her sister for your 'deposit' for the hen do back, as you will no longer be attending.
And decline the evening invite.
Tell anyone who asks why.

YOu've only been asked on the hen do so you'll deliver her her 'free stuff'; don't do it. And she knows the evening invite makes it unlikely you'll go at all due to it being on a weekday.

She's a CF of the highest order.

So... party that you'd maybe have to buy drinks at, and have actual fun with the girls... OR... long boring wedding, seating with people you probably don't care about, AND have to fork out on expensive gifts etc...

Easy choice.

Sounds to me like you've actually got the choice bits of the whole ordeal.

It would do my head in to be in a hen do and everyone else attending f whole thing and they keep insisting that "let's treat the bride"

As she isn't treating you!

Do I'd now be unable to attend that, decline the evening do as no childcare for evening,

I'd maybe give the signs already done if that didn't put you out and make that your wedding gift. Bit do no more ones.

That is a joke. £200 for a hen do? While not even invited to the wedding? Hard no from me (and I hope from you too)

Loud, noisy party part of the wedding that is the most torturous part of a wedding and you are just counting the minutes until it is acceptable to leave vs the wonderful ceremony and meal that is actually the enjoyable part of a wedding where you get to visit with family and friends.

My guess is that she would have ended up telling you to get the materials, and she would pay you back. Which would then never happen and if you called her on it, she would look hurt and say, "I thought that was part of your wedding gift to me". Then make you feel badly.

Decline the hen do. Tell her she needs to do her own signs or buy them elsewhere, and decline the evening wedding get-together. Send a card wishing them well, and that's all she wrote. She is not a very good friend, or even much of a friend at all.

Go out to dinner that night, you and your DH. Get dressed up and have fun celebrating yourselves.

I wouldnt go to either Hen party or evening event. I would message her and say you find that you cant take time off work the next day in order to attend the evening do (since it would involve a 200 mile trip and a late night).
Do not offer to send the wedding bits up leave it to her to arrange and decide what line she wants to take with it.
tell her that you have also decided on reflection that you cant justify spending so much on a hen do especially with a young family.
You hope they have a lovely day etc

Incredibly bad mannered of her. I would decline both unless the hen is something you’d really like to do anyway

Hi @SantasComingToTown how are you related to the bride? Bride is being unreasonable expecting you to do things for her but leaving you out of the main event.

This happened to me too OP - someone I thought was a close friend invited me to her hen do, the cost was around £100 + travel + drinks - so £150ish (and this was 15 years ago!). It was a themed night as well and I had to buy a costume

The hen do was organised the best part of a year before the wedding - the wedding invites went out four months before. I had the humiliation of seeing loads of mutual friends on Facebook saying "thank you for the invitation! I'm soooo excited!!" and so on, whilst gradually working out that my invitation wasn't going to be forthcoming...

In the end it was me and one other friend who didn't receive invitations but were still going to the hen do of around 20 people. It was about six weeks before the wedding and we had to listen to everyone being talking about going to the wedding, what they were going to wear to the wedding etc etc whilst having no idea what to say

About three weeks later we both received wedding invitations! Evening only. To a weekday wedding around an hour's drive from us. No explanation of why we hadn't had them before.

I declined, said I couldn't get the time off work at such short notice, didn't bother buying anything from the wedding list as I was planning to. TBH I wouldn't have gone to the hen do either except by the time I realised I hadn't had a wedding invitation, I'd already bought the costume, arranged the travel, arranged to meet a friend who lived nearby beforehand and so on - plus (ever the optimist!) I thought the bride might explain my lack of invitation/ realise that I hadn't RSVP'd and asked me about it, and the whole thing would have been a misunderstanding.

Nope, she didn't bother. And our friendship never recovered, I still can't understand why she expected me to spend £££ on her and then wouldn't even do me the courtesy of sending my wedding invitation out with the rest of them!

@Meggie2008 I think the only problem is if you are expecting guests to travel a long way just for the evening. I got married young and didn’t know anything about weddings. My parents taught me that guests travelling a long way should be invited to the whole event. If you do have evening guests then they should be local people who don’t have to travel far.

I have been to a few weddings where I was invited to the church service and the evening reception only. If you have traveled a long way it really sucks as you have to find someone to hang around all day. I wouldn’t do it again.

I'd rather be out the 100 instead of paying another 100 plus travel costs and incidentals that will "appear", knowing that I wasn't even close enough to be invited to the wedding. I'd be too pissed off.

Just say, "No". Value yourself since she doesn't seem to value you enough.

So rude. So entitled.
Honestly, some people forget what weddings are about.
Only being invited to an evening do is rude anyway, imo (I know people disagree), but this is a step beyond being a second tier guest but still bring us a gift. Nope.

I wouldn't go neither to the wedding nor the hen do. It's good you have not paid the full cost of the hen do, don't pay anything more. And don't do any more free work for the wedding.

@DaisyWells That is just a nasty thing to do to someone. Good for you for not going at all or getting her some expensive crap from her wedding register.

Honestly, I have never even heard of just inviting people to the evening part (after the wedding and dinner) until I started reading here.

Last wedding (my DDs) we had though, was 2002, and everyone was invited for the whole thing.

Having read all your updates, the situation is bizarre. You're so close, talk a few times a week, a relative, making all the signs for her wedding, yet you're only invited to evening when it's a fairly large wedding?
Unless as a pp mentioned, she thought you wouldn't want to because of your baby, I can't honestly think of a reason why unless bride isn't as nice you thought all these years?

I would feel as though I had been asked to the hen do to spread the cost of the accommodation.

As far as the wedding goes, I agree, there is no point travelling all that way and presumably paying for accommodation, just for a buffet and a disco.

I think the question is do you actually want to go to the hen do?

I’d just bin the hen do, wouldn’t hand over or make any more signs and would refuse the night invite.
Id find it hard to enjoy the hen knowing I’m such a spare wheel that im not invited to the whole day.
And even if an all day invite did come, because other people raise it, I wouldn’t go, the damage for me has been done.

Life events like this in the past have opened my eyes as to who my real friends truly are.
It’s just people and life isn’t it. You get your eyes opened or a jolt and see how people see you.
Maybe I’ve had bad luck and chosen the wrong friends to begin with but I’ve been disappointed too many times by people like this. I’m never shocked when I see it happen to others.

Hell would freeze over before I gave her those things.