Different wedding invites for bridesmaids partner

[Sunnyheart]

Hello all,

I wanted some opinions on this situation.

I am a bridesmaid for a friend this summer, and received the official invite to the wedding yesterday. When I went to respond on their wedding website, my partner and I had different tabs for our RSVP. I am listed as attending the whole day ( lunchtime ceremony, afternoon reception which includes sit down meal & speeches etc, and evening do) however my partner was listed as only attending the evening do. I messaged my friend to check this was right and in fact he is able to attend the ceremony ( which finishes at 1) and the evening do from 7pm.

Am I being unreasonable to find this strange ?
My partner and I totally understands costs etc and limits to numbers, but part of me does find this rude.

We will need to travel and stay over night in order to attend, and as the venues are slightly out in the sticks it would be logistically a pain for my partner to go back and forth between a hotel and the venues.

I will caveat by saying that my friend hasn't met my partner even though we have been together for 3 years, as my friend has lived across the country for years now. We are very much firm friends and we have known eachother since college, but not as close day to day as we once were and don't see eachother for months at a time.

My partner doesn't really want to attend which I totally understand , although I would love to have him there ofcourse ( and for selfish reasons it would be much more ideal as I don't feel comfortable driving the distance so it will be the cost of a train there and back , looking at close to £100)

Thank you all.

Yes, thank you, I think that's my point really.

It’s a no, the right number of chairs or at least chairs sashes are hired at a cost per guest and the ceremony rooms are number restricted by fire regs/registrar.
If they turned up unexpected they would likely be refused admittance and wouldn’t have a chair.

I hate weddings like this. The bride should be ashamed of herself.

I'm tempted not to go to modern weddings. They are nothing more than an exercise in instagram narcissism.

Invite your loved ones, entertain them as you can afford, don't exclude, always have babies and children, allow a bit of generosity to enter the day.

It's probably just the cost. Try not to take it personally. Your friend has nothing against your partner because she's never met him. If he's happy to stay home you go alone.

I just don't see it that way. More of a standard invitation to the evening (completely normal) and also information that of course you are also invited to the (semi-public anyway) ceremony. But I take all invitations as that and not as expectations on me.

It's not cheap because it isn't saying "come to St Thomas's at 11 then to the Royal Oak hotel at 7.30 and screw you in-between because we don't really like you" despite people choosing to take it that way. It's "please join us at the Royal Oak hotel at 7.30 to celebrate and if it suits you you are of course also welcome to join us at St Thomas's for our wedding at 11".

I like choosing not to be pointlessly offended.

While it does sound rude, I do understand the bride and groom a bit.
We are married for many years now and did invite all +1s to everything, however, when I look at our wedding pictures now I can’t even remember the names of around 30% of the “partners”. Our wedding was the first and last time we saw them.

Oh me too.
That's why I'm not offended by any wedding invitations, but then I've always been invited to the wedding and not told to occupy myself while they have the reception and come back later.
That's the norm in my social circle.

It’s rude, plain and simple. If you’re a good enough friend to be a bridesmaid, he should get an invitation. If your friend doesn’t want people she hasn’t met at her wedding (reasonable), she should make the effort to meet your long term partner. He’s not just a date you picked up a couple of weeks ago.

We didn’t do evening guests at all - if you were friend enough to come to the evening, you were friend enough to come to the whole thing. Your friend is stingy.

A wedding is a joining together of two people. A celebration of that joining.

Yes, it is. It's about the bride and groom. A day celebrating their union. Not the relationships of their wider circle but them, themselves.

Why do you consider it disrespectful to not invite someone that the bride and groom have never met?

i Wouldn’t want people I’d never met at my own wedding, to be honest. So no one’s +1 would be going.

It’s rude, plain and simple. If you’re a good enough friend to be a bridesmaid, he should get an invitation.

If you are a good enough friend to be a bridesmaid, then you should be a good enough friend to introduce them to your partner. If not, why not? Who is not good enough here?

Why? Typically a bridesmaid sits at the top table - so even if the OP’s partner was invited for the full day, she wouldn’t really see anything of him until the evening do anyway.

I very much doubt the bride expects OP’s partner to come to the ceremony. It’s probably just a standard invitation for everyone not going to the main reception - people who live down the road might like to watch the ceremony and then go to the evening do later.

The bride should be ashamed of herself.

...and what about the groom?!

Neither should be ashamed of making a decision for themselves.

Perfectly reasonable and normal.

I know my dh wouldn't want to go to a wedding where he hadn't even met the B&G, let alone anyone else, and to be on his own all day whilst I was doing bridesmaid duties.
You aren't going to be able to spend much time together, so I suspect he would rather not be at the wedding.
It is generous of them to invite him to the evening.

@helldorado, for a church wedding an invitation to the ceremony isn't required.

DS got married a couple of years ago. Late afternoon church wedding, followed by a reception that extended into the early evening and afterwards there was music and dancing and drinks in the gardens.

Everyone who was invited was invited to the whole occasion. DS hadn't met some guests before, DIL hadn't met some guests before. Their friendship with the other prevailed.

I don't think it would have been a MNet style wedding. There were no favours, the Bride's shoulders were covered, the photos were swift, no video and nobody had to buy drinks. It wasn't outrageously expensive or a spectacle and they didn't ask for money.

It's rude and selfish, shows how little they care about their 'guests'. If you're hosting an event it's polite to think about the people you're inviting and what they will enjoy, how to make them comfortable, and not just insist on the day being solely about you. Even if your partner doesn't go, you'll spend more money travelling and the room will likely cost the same whether he comes or not? It's shit of them.

@RosesAndHellebores sounds perfect 👌!

I think a wedding is the joining of two families. There will be shared grandchildren and the brokering of expectations arising from different upbringings.

They don't want him there and have invited him to the evening as a compromise, and he doesn't want to go. So may as well save them the money and just go on your own. Perhaps you can ask if someone else is coming from the same area as you? It must be a several hour trip if it's that expensive by train.

okay AI

?

That’s got nothing to do with inviting a bridesmaid’s partner you’ve never met though, has it? He’s not going to be sharing any grandchildren.

I wouldn't be bothered going if I was him. I think weddings in general are pretty pointless for everyone except the immediate family but are a good time to catch up with family and friends you haven't seen for a while. He won't know a soul and obviously it would be great for him to be on the top table but realistically there's limited space so he'd end up on a table full of strangers. My brother got married a few months ago and I'd not even met the bride beforehand but I still enjoyed the day as it was good catching up with family I hadn't seen since the last family wedding.

I think if a friend is close enough to be a Bridesmaid, and the BM has been with her partner for three years, they should be invited.

for a church wedding an invitation to the ceremony isn't required.

I’m aware of that - but a) that doesn’t mean nobody ever makes it explicit that evening guests are welcome to watch the ceremony and b) OP hasn’t said this is a church wedding.