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BUT, putting that to one side, is this practice outdated now?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?

Anyone can attend a church wedding, so I would guess that there us a long tradition of involving the wider community. Sit down meals and speeches are a more recent convention.

Obviously you should have the wedding you want, but it should be easy to see that different people have different kinds of social circles and different budgets and different ways of celebrating.

Why not, though, unless you think of weddings as a carefully-curated party for your inner circle? I mean, I don’t think there are many ‘shoulds’ at weddings, other than ‘Don’t have bride and groom thrones’ or ‘Don’t wear stilettos to an outdoor wedding”.

Well no, you were invited to the evening party from 1930.

That's when you were 'expected' if you'd accepted the invitation.

You were told that you were welcome at the ceremony if you wished to attend since it was open to the public. You weren't actually expected there and could have gone anyway.

It's you who made this about being inferior etc and chose to make a whole day of an evening invitation.

That sounds thoughtless, but would it have been better if you hadn’t been invited at all?

I got married 6 years ago. All our family and some close friends came to the whole day. About 80 in total. I had a group of playgroup friends who I had only met in the past year who I invited to the night do And I invited my work colleagues who I like but not close friends. They all came and it was lovely to have them.

It's fine to do evening invites no different to being invited to a 50th etc but equally not to expect everyone to want to attend.

We got married at our local church then due to capacity for a large family plus friends, the reception was 30 mins away. With family and many closest friends not being local, a DIY village hall type reception wasn't viable. We had evening invitations for neighbours and work colleagues, and phrased it as "you're welcome to join us at the church". Some took one option, some the other. I wouldn't have done that for a single venue event. They were near to home so flexible to pick a combination (or decline) to what suited them.

Where it's local and a wider circle of friendship that wouldn't presume a full day invitation, evening invitations have their place. If capacity is limited and whole groups are invited to the evening and that's made clear at the planning stage, that's also fine.

What isn't fine is expecting people to travel significant distances for an evening, hyping people for a year or two of planning as though they'll be invited to the whole day then springing the evening invitation at the last moment, splitting close groups or split invitations at a single venue in the middle of nowhere where there's nothing to do for a few hours.

Generally evening invitation AIBUs tend to be where someone's had a year or two of listening to planning hype, possibly spent £££ on a hen weekend and then found out with a couple of months to go that some of the friendship group have full invitations, and they haven't when they'd spent years believing that they were all mutually close.

I don’t get it either , we are getting married soon and there are only main invites ,but we are doing it every different it seems , we are getting married in the afternoon and party will last until 2 am . We also don’t expect people to pay for drinks either all meals and drinks are included and we invited full families so children are included .

I'd rather go to part of a friend's wedding than none of it. But I think everyone should be invited to the ceremony unless it's actually impossible to fit them all in! Not inviting many people to the meal - which is a very expensive part - is fine with me.

Well, congratulations, but isn’t it pretty standard to get married in the afternoon, and party on until everyone drops? (It can be a looong day, which is why a pp has a point about a fresh influx peoole peoole showing up at about 7.30 often bringing a new surge of energy to a flagging reception.)

No , not what I see in the wedding posts on MN . Most people will have one meal only , most won’t invite children , most will not have an open bar either .
But just like you when I planned it I assumed it was the norm so maybe we both have the same preconceived ideas .

That sounds very expensive!
A round of drinks for a family of four is going to be £20 easy bar prices, no?
You could easily spend £100 per adult on drinks....for 50 people that's £5000

Unless it's not an open bar and people are limited to a drinks package?

It's all about how many friends you have.
We only have a handful of close friends....but a large number of intermediate friends. More than acquaintances, and would be rude to leave them out but no we could not have afforded a sit down meal and free bar for all of them.

That makes the whole day even more expensive feeding 150 instead of say 40 twice for example.

It is but not as bad as you might think because we choose to marry elsewhere . We have around 100 guests.
we have a drinking package wines beer and sangria all day and then any spirits on top of that after dinner .

I’m also from a European country where evening only wedding invites are not a thing. People generally invite 50-150ish people for a whole day celebration which starts with wedding ceremony in the afternoon, followed by dinner and party.

We got married in a tiny registry office (the only option for us in those days) around 12 present for that. We had photos canapés and champagne immediately afterwards and then had another 90 for a full traditional reception starting at 6ish and going on until very late. We avoided having to think about evening party this way. There were a very few people such as one guests very new girlfriend and my mother’s hairdresser who we said would be very welcome to drink and dance later on and they were very pleased to be asked. I’d refuse an evening invite if it was a very long way away and not possible to turn into a short break but in general I don’t care and am just happy to join in with the special day in any way I can.

I agree. They almost always involve a bridezilla who is asking more than should be expected of the guest in the context of the wedding (whether that is emotional investment or money) or an exclusion that would also be hurtful if there were no invite at all.

At Both my daughter’s weddings. We arranged the weddings for late afternoon, which went on till the evening. I really think it’s better to invite just a few more guests to the actual wedding!
I wouldn’t dream of saying to family or friends, you can just come to the evening do!

We were invited to an evening do. A few years ago! It cost us a lot of money to stay in a city hotel as well as the travelling expenses and wedding gift. We are asked to attend the ceremony, which took place at 12 o clock but not the rest of the wedding, until the evening! At the evening do, there was no food, no entertainment, nothing, we didn’t even get a piece of wedding cake, and drinks were expensive!

Yes we chose a venue which was a blank canvas. So we bought all the booze from majestic (on sale and return) and drinks were free. I was more comfortable doing it this way than inviting more people to a venue with a paid bar just for the evening.

I love the way they do it in Europe - start a bit later and no separate evening do.

Ive heard horror stories of evening guests showing up and the speeches and dinner are still going on. They are just waiting outside to be let in! Probably to an expensive bar. Not what I would want at all.

All our guests were equally important to us and invited to the full wedding celebrations.

Yes, or just invited to the evening reception without being told we didn't mean enough to the bride to be invited to the reception but she'd love to see us at the church. Whilst being cheeky enough to send the gift list!

Also some consideration should have been extended to MIL who had to attend alone, having just lost her husband.

My family is large. I have 18 direct aunts uncles, plus their partners obviously. So we were limited with day time space. So, friends who had to travel a significant distance got all day invites, friends / colleagues who were local, invited for the evening. No one was upset or offended. Everyone had a great time. Venue could hold a lot more for evening fun than it could for a sit down meal. No issues, no problem.

I couldn’t think of anything worse than having work colleagues at my wedding.

Oh absolutely, I don’t disagree with that aspect.
But if I were to get married I’d have everybody I want there for the full day, and id be prepared to cover the costs.

Same as ours. MIL was one of 15 and FIL one of 9 so evening invitations are very common on DHs side. Nobody took offence.

Given that you seem to despise them then you are right not to invite them.

I get on really well with the people I work with. They aren't work colleagues, they are work friends.