To scrap ‘evening’ invitations to weddings

[AgualusasLover]

I don’t really get it anyway as I come from a culture where you either invite people or you don’t.

BUT, putting that to one side, is this practice outdated now? More people get married further away making an evening invitation costly for what it is (according to what I read here anyway), often requiring travel and accommodation etc. For example, I’ve previously been invited to the evening portion of a wedding of someone I used to work with, we have coffee every so often etc. I couldn’t make the date anyway, but I would not have been offended to have not been invited since we aren’t close enough for ‘whole’ day.

Should we just scrap evening invitations?

I'm wondering why people are inviting work colleagues or neighbours? Invite those dear yo you to your wedding. Others will understand. I do suspect it's for the extra gifts and money (for some).

I had a small wedding, 30 guests, and a bigger evening do. It was fun. People got dressed up it was in the centre of town where we all lived. Our friends were the band, the food was good. I don’t think people were offended.

I wouldn’t travel or put myself out for an evening do but I’ve been to a few that were fun colleagues, old uni friends. I like them.

Because they want to have a big party?

Legally a wedding is just the couple, the officiant and 2 witnesses.

Everything else is personal choice.

People have different sized families, different sized groups of friends and different expectations of what a wedding should be. Why should they conform to a particular expectation?

The normal social rules should apply and there will obviously be situations where people will be offended, but there is no one size fits all way to avoid that.

Just a nice way of including people not in your close circle, but whom you still value. I don’t think evening guests give more than a token present, if that, so it’s not going to swell the coffers.

No, surely if you value people, you invite them to your wedding? I'm just looking at pp comments about tiers of friendship, and that's what it looks like. I had a colleague get married last year
She told all of us it was close friends and family only. Fine. No-one was offended, we understood.
She didn't create a second level for us.
I'm just understanding why some get offended.

But there is a difference between being designated ‘friend in circle 2b’ and understanding that your neighbour wants you to come along and share a drink but can’t pay for a sit down meal.

A traditional French wedding is the other way round. Everyone to the church. Fewer for the champagne reception. Then just close friends and family to the sit down meal. So the party gets bigger not smaller. (A big like a royal wedding!) Always causes a lot of confusion when non-French people don’t understand. I think this is dying out though. And the civil ceremony is usually low-key and the day before.

You can’t invite everyone to your wedding! And of course there are degrees of friendship /acquaintanceship — your close friend of 30 years is going to be on a different level to ‘neighbour from your last house of whom you are mildly fond and who had you as an evening guest at their wedding’ or ‘school friends you stay in touch with and like but aren’t that close to any more’..

I mean, I don’t see how any of this is controversial. Many Mners are terribly insecure about friendships.

@Merrymouse agree 💯

Why invite her for a drink, a partial participation?
I'm just trying to understand why people feel that there are two tiers, that's all.

Well, people must do what suits them. I don't judge. If you can't afford a big wedding, that's no shame - have a small one.
If you want 100 people, invite them! I just don't understand a two parter, but hey. Whatever suits.

I'm wondering why people are inviting work colleagues or neighbours? Invite those dear yo you to your wedding.

People often book weddings years in advance and it’s a huge topic of conversation for them. So if you’re having a “big do” and want a party that continues into the evening, then it can be nice to say to people locally “come and see us/have a drink with us to celebrate). As I said upthread, where it’s done well, it can be a really nice atmosphere; all your work colleagues come, they all know each other, it’s a party that you can all talk about at work for years to come. It’s where it gets to the level of “my friend Sarah is invited all day, but her husband can only come in the evening” or “I was at university with Katy, Beth and Lucy, but I’ve only invited Lucy in the evening as she lives miles away and I don’t see her that much” that it gets to the point where it causes irritation or offence.

That's fine. Like I said, invite who you want, when you want. It just seems that people have significant disposable incomes to spend on these huge weddings and I wonder why they don't invite everyone they want to, but it's a personal choice.

Because it would be fun and I have a limited budget?

Agree

Yes, fine. Go for it.
I'm just looking at the issue of the levels of friendship and offence as pp have said.

Its not really a thing in Australia - you have a wedding, one meal, one event. Frankly, this inviting of some and not others and different events is batshit. Designed for sad people who think in Instagram not real life

I don't think they should be 'banned' - and I say this as someone who had a small wedding with no evening do.

People do need to have sensible expectations, though - they shouldn't expect guests to travel/stay overnight for an evening do, or provide a gift - a card should be enough for evening guests.

There is nothing wrong with having 'tier two' attendees - no one is equally close to all their friends and family - but the B&G may need to exercise diplomacy by applying the same approach to each category of person - e.g. work colleagues and neighbours = evening do; family = whole thing.

And also you still have potential to cause offence (and instigate a thread on MN) if you just don’t invite people.

Evening invite only weddings are the height of bad manners. Invite people or don't bother.

I don't understand why people get offended if they only get invited to the evening part. I went to a lovely evening do a few months ago. It was the wedding of an ex work colleague, and we were all delighted to be invited to both the hen do (an afternoon tea) and the evening do. Both were local BTW.

It must be exhausting to be so full of self importance and so easily offended all the time.

An ex work colleague is different to a good friend, don’t you think?

I would be happy for an evening invite, but if it was a good friend I spoke to weekly went out with helped etc, then an evening invite would be a slap in the face!

Oh, is that what Mn thinks this is about — someone trying to make a ‘small wedding’ look ‘big’? That’s very ‘aspirational LMC/what will the neighbours think?’ Probably not surprising it’s so controversial on Mn, home of the socially aspirational and insecure about friendships, then. It hadn’t occurred to me in that light.

A ‘normal’ sized wedding where I grew up would be 200-250 people, but you still can’t invite everyone in your life to the whole thing. If I’d done a traditional wedding in the parish I grew up in, where my parents still live, we’d have issued evening invitations to elderly neighbours of my parents (who would have come down to the church to see the bride coming out), cousins I only see at weddings and funerals, colleagues from a past job, old school friends who’d stayed local etc. These are ‘second tier’, sure, but that’s hardly controversial.

What an odd thread, seriously odd. Like let’s all get together and decide what the world should do.

i am fine with an evening invite, i enjoy a party, and often find weddings a very long day, so unless I was especially close then I’d be happy to turn up and help them celebrate in the evening. I don’t need to sit there and watch them get married or have the wedding breakfast.

No! I invited work frolleagues, not so close friends etc to the evening part. Was a long time ago but it was about a third of the cost and they got lovely platters of food and fruit and a free bar. I would imagine it was around 8pm start and everyone was relatively local. The party bit is the best part 😝
I also travelled for an evening so years ago (pre my wedding) and it was crappy sandwiches and a paid bar )and we stayed over with another couple). We were young (20s) and we had a nice mini break!
As they say, it’s an invite not a summons.