Invitation to non consecutive bits of a wedding

[TobyChestnut]

Close friend’s son getting married in a city a few hours away and we have received an invitation to the ceremony at 11.45am but not to the meal/speeches part which is after the ceremony. We are then invited to the evening at 7pm. All three parts are at the same venue. No accommodation at the venue other than for their immediate family so we have booked 2 x Premier Inn rooms for us and our 17 and 19 year old children about 6 miles away.

Felt obliged to accept both parts of the invitation despite the void in the middle as assumed that they wanted us to see them get married but couldn’t afford for more than a small number for the meal.

Was wondering what to do to fill 5- 6 hour gap between the two parts as the premier inn room not available until later and also because we will have had to get dressed up for the Ceremony so will be in our finery, hair done etc which we’d also want for the evening.

I’ve now just been told that there are 50 people at the meal/speeches part (I had assumed it was a small gathering for a dozen or so) and a further 100 who like us are invited to the other two parts. Also that the Ceremony isn’t the actually wedding as the venue isn’t licensed so they are having a civil ceremony elsewhere the day before (with families in attendance).

AIBU to think that this is an unfair ask but to feel uncomfortable saying so to my close friend? Wish they had just invited anyone not in the select 50 to the evening then we could use the day to travel, get ready at the premier inn and go to the evening part. Really don’t want to cause bad feeling as we have been friends for 40 years.

YABU

You didn’t have to accept. Given the travel, hotel situation I don’t think it’s unreasonable to just say, we’d love to come but can’t make the ceremony, see you at the evening do.

As for selecting 50 people, I’d never be able to narrow my side down to just 25. Both my parents have 9 siblings each, I have over 60 first cousins, then add in any close friends or people you really want involved in your big day.

You have no idea what the thought process was on selecting the 50 day guests.

Talking to a friend of about 5 years this week, she was telling me about her first wedding. I knew her parents were separated and she had step siblings but not the full family tree. She had an entire table with her Dads ex-wife’s and partners. I asked why she invited them all and she said well they were stepmoms who were part of her life and 2 of them were mothers of her half siblings. I had no idea, she has 1 full sibling, 4 half siblings and 3 step siblings. Then there were her 2 stepdads she had a close relationship with.

The last wedding I went to, the couple really struggled, they drew lines in the sand on guest lists and stuck to this. It caused a lot of upset, mainly on the grooms side as so many of the family were excluded. I can’t remember the exact number but they easily had 100 at the reception and that as based on a very tight criteria including not inviting most partners. The evening do doubled.

No meal for anyone - no A and B list guests. Everyone gets the same level of hospitality. If that’s a cup of tea and a biscuit in a church hall, that’s what everyone gets.

There is nothing rude about offering hospitality limited by your means. What is rude is aiming for a champagne wedding on a beer budget and being a poor host to a large number of your guests as a result.

Not coordinated the way you are describing ‘right Sarah, you mention it first then at 19.27 precisely it’s Bob’s turn’ etc.

But 25 different people all managing to bring up the same point to the bride (what we did for the multiple hours you couldn’t be bothered with us) in the course of one wedding? There has definitely been gossip behind the scenes and no, I don’t think that gossip was approving.

Completely agree

Sure. Or its just, you know, ordinary conversation.

"Thank you for coming Jane! You look lovely"
"You look wonderful, did the meal all go well? We popped into Townname and had a lovely lunch at that cafe by the river"
"I love that place. Glad you had a good afternoon. Hope you'll be on the dance floor later!"
Etc. And repeat. Standard chit-chat.

Why would anyone accept an invitation then deliberately try to make the inviter feel bad about it? What kind of arseholes are you friends with that you think that's a more likely scenario than it's just people who've had a nice day and are chatting about it?

Ever heard the phrase ‘birds of a feather…’? They are friends with someone who thinks kicking out half her wedding guests for hours in the middle of the wedding is justified because ‘my daaaay’.

When one member of a friends group shows certain character traits, it’s not a huge jump to think their friends might be similar types of people.

So no, my friends wouldn’t treat me like that but that’s at least in part because I’d never treat them like that either.

Nobody got kicked out of anywhere. People were invited to two bits of an event and chose to accept that invitation.

No harm, no foul. But you're determined to take it as insulting so I'm not going to keep trying to change your mind. You seem to enjoy thinking the worst of people, I take the opposite view. And will continue to enjoy weddings I'm invited to whatever parts of it I'm invited to.

Either attend the ceremony then go home, or just go to the evening do.

It's unreasonable of them to expect anyone to hang around for hours.

Would you not consider that rude to ask someone to travel 7 hours for a cup of tea and a biscuit?

Would you? Be honest now.

No, you'd just give them a biscuit after travelling for 7 hours.

Nice

I’d see it as less rude than what the poster actually did which was not offer any meal at all. One is intentional, targeted rudeness, the other is a side effect of not being well off. If I knew that’s all broke students could afford, yes, I would be fine with it.

It would be unlikely that’s all that could be afforded though - if the poster could afford a sit down meal for a big chunk of their guests, a church hall and pizzas or subway for everyone would probably cost about the same.

Well it’s been suggested that ‘but finances’ is an excuse for any degree of poor hospitality so what would you do?

I wouldn’t do this actually - I’d scale back the invitations instead but the poster I was responding to has already said she wasn’t prepared to do that.

And Nice biscuits are about the most horrible you can get! I'd hope at least for a chocolate hob nob. Though thinking about it, if I was wearing wedding "finery" I'd avoid chocolate biscuits. Maybe a ginger nut?

I know, it's just incredible how thoughtless and rude some people are.
However, I suspect it's as pp said it's a "gift grab".

Yes, so grabby.

In a similar situation, I just went to the evening do and didn't bother with the non-ceremony ceremony bit which was the first part of the day.

Nobody batted an eyelid particularly as lots of others similarly invited did the same!

Quite. It was like that in the UK when I was growing up. No different "classes" of friends. Most people weren't well off, they didn't have the disposable income of couples nowadays, so often it was just the ceremony and reception. No evening do. I've been to some lovely weddings which were just that. You'd have a sit down meal and the speeches etc then wave the bride and groom off. No second class event in the evening!

How very dare you.

Nice biscuits are fabulous!

Along with fruit shortcakes. The biscuit of the gods.

This, absolutely.

Oh, the Nice faction have turned up!

@DappledThings

I think we are in the minority

I mean at the end of the day OP is friends of the parents and not part of the wedding party. My in laws asked if they could invite some old friends (in laws had moved away from where we married). Yes crack on bring them to the evening reception and the in-laws contributed to the evening buffet to cover their guests. Happy days all round.

This happened to us a couple of years ago for a relative's wedding. Luckily I read the invitation carefully as I don't think DH would have twigged. It was a town an hour or so away from us for the ceremony then reception/ evening do in a village a couple of miles from there. We looked at going for a meal in between but everywhere nice didn't do food in the afternoon! We ended up going home in between which did at least mean we felt refreshed for the evening.
PIL were invited to the whole thing and were angling for us to give them a lift to the reception we weren't invited to! We suggested they found someone else.

If there is significant travel involved and no nice pub/ restaurant for the in between, I would just go to the evening do.

To rsvp you have to login to their wedding website and each of our names show (us and both our teen children). Next to each of our names is a tick box for each section we have been invited to and we have to tick the relevant boxes and submit by the deadline. No ambiguity at all over which parts you are invited to!

To answer the question asked by a few posters about whether we know the couple getting married or just the parents - the groom is my close friends son and so had numerous play dates with my children when they were little. Moving away, university and early careers has meant they see each other very rarely now but that’s only in the last 5 years or so as they have got older and are no longer children.

I think you are overthinkjng and they don't expect you to feel obliged to be at the ceremony. They are just saying anyone can come to that

I think you probably feel you know the person getting married better than they feel they know you. As a friend of their parents/ parent of someone they used to be mates with, you will come much further down the list than family and their own adult friends. It's nice you've been invited to two thirds of it.