To think an invite to the evening reception is not a wedding invite?

[twasale]

An old friend had been telling me that I was going to be “invited to her wedding”. Lovely, would be nice to go.

Invite arrived and it’s for the evening reception after dinner. So essentially 8pm - midnight for a boogie.

It’s about 4 hours drive from my house and on a working day. I could stay with my parents so that’s not the issue.

If it was me my thoughts process would have been:
Jane's going to invite me to her wedding. That's nice. Oh. It's only to the evening, shame I was looking forward to that. Ah well, do I still want to go? Yes, sounds fun I'll do it. Or I can't be arsed with that, I'll decline.

At no point would I be thinking it was rude or offensive or completely bizarre as so many on here apparently would.

To be fair to OP she doesn’t seem like she's particularly put out, just surprised. So to answer her specific question no, YABU to have interpreted the comment as meaning you were invited to the whole day.

I think when you expect people to travel multiple hours for you then the least you owe them is decent hospitality. When money is an issue I think it's better to have fewer reasonably hosted guests than a larger number of poorly hosted ones.

Yes I can’t imagine that people would think it appropriate to invite people only between 8-10pm after the actual event had happened - particularly if it involves a lot of travel and an overnight hotel stay.

If you want lots of people at your wedding, organise a wedding where you can afford to host them all for the day.

If it’s important to get people together who are ‘far flung and rarely together’, why on earth would you only invite them to arrive after the event, when all the other guests will probably have already had too much to drink.

Ultimately, what you see as the definition of a 'wedding invitation' has no relevance - your friend obviously thinks it counts as one. If you think it's worth the inconvenience go - if not, don't. Its being a four hour drive and on a working day is more than enough of a reason not to.

So don’t go 🤷‍♀️

If someone said they were inviting me to their wedding I wouldn’t expect to only receive evening invite. That said, if I did only receive an evening invite and I didn’t fancy going I would go. The worst option is to be angry and not want to go but go anyway but feel resentful.

Evening invitations are naff. It’s steerage rentacrowd and says ‘you weren’t worth inviting to my whole wedding but I’d still like a wedding gift thanks’.

Well, of course it's not an invitation to the wedding, because you won't be at the wedding, just the reception.

It is categorically an invitation to the wedding reception, and not the wedding. I wouldn't bother unless you're keen on the night out.

Yes I can’t imagine that people would think it appropriate to invite people only between 8-10pm after the actual event had happened - particularly if it involves a lot of travel and an overnight hotel stay.
There's really two schools of thought. One thinks that an invitation puts a deep obligation on the invitee to attend and consequently the host is required to have considered all their needs before imposing the invitation on them. The other considers invitations at face value. That they are just that, a genuine invitation without obligation or guilt if not taken up. This means it is up to the invitee whether they consider it meets their needs and desires or not and leaves it up to them.

I'm in group 2. I like invitations and consider it entirely up to me if I attend. The idea of any kind of invitation being offensive is therefore quite baffling to me.

I have travelled a few hours and paid for an overnight stay for an evening do because I wanted to. I quite fancied a weekend in a nice bit of the country so ai did it. I don't consider the hosts as expecting me to have to travel so it's not a cheeky request.

The professionally offended people will be all over this thread op.

It's fine not to go OP, but it's a bit weird to quibble whether this is a wedding invite or not.

I wouldn’t go and people seem to not think, selfish to consider that anyone would travel hours for the evening party. That said it’s completely legitimate to invite local friends, eg work colleagues, members of clubs you attend etc to the evening if it’s not far from them, we also invited everyone to the actual wedding, you know the I do bit and to champagne and cake following the service in the church hall, this meant everyone could attend the most important bit, you didn’t need an invitation even as weddings in church are public (and had people who attend my warm space come and some food bank clients, I kept the alcoholic drinks as a surprise so that’s not why they came!) sit down meal was only for close family and friends

I wouldn't travel 4 hours for a midweek party. No problem to do so on a weekend (including a friday night) especially if I could combine it with visiting my parents. not if it's mon-thu - wedding venues charge less for mon-thu dates precisely because these weddings will have lower attendance as most people can't come

When did invite become a noun?

Anyway, this has been done to death. I wouldn’t accept an evening invitation, especially not if it was a 4 hour drive away.

Your friend has invited you for the evening on the day she is married to be part of the celebration party. You either accept or decline the invitation you've been kindly given. There is no need to criticise the wording or analyse whether this is a 'wedding' or a 'boogie' or be negative about it. You know what you've been invited to.

It is not difficult to imagine that someone might feel offended if they were truly expecting an invitation to a wedding and looking forward to it and only got a wedding reception invitation.

Those who are invited to the wedding are more important to the bride and groom than those who are only invited to the wedding reception.

I wouldn't care and would either go, or not go, depending on what I wanted, but it's hardly baffling that some people might be offended by being placed in the less important category.

However, it is certainly true that the only rational response to an invitation to an event you don't want to attend is to simply not go.

Don’t go. I only ever accepted one evening only invitation because it was close to home and we hosted a large group of old university friends beforehand. I think we had a better time than the wedding guests!

I don’t find evening invites problematic. I’d be happy to get one. If it was too far away to feasibly travel then I would just send my regrets, but not really think anything else of it. You either want to go or you don’t, if you don’t then just don’t.

The amount of hand-wringing that goes on on MN about invitations, assuming that people are cheeky, looking to always be offended or find a slight where there is none. It can’t be nice living like that. When I get an invitation I think ‘Oh that’s nice’ and assume the person inviting me wants me there or they wouldn’t have invited me in the first place 🤷‍♀️ If it’s a long way away or not feasible then I just don’t go, but I don’t feel badly treated or annoyed about it, it’s just life.

Personally I don’t like evening only invites and didn’t have any at my wedding
I rarely attend them

People get so worked up about weddings g invitations!! I couldn’t be annoyed with this level of emotion.

its an invitation - decline of you don’t want to go.

its not insulting. My heavens!!!

In your shoes, if it’s a long way and a lot of hassle, I would decline politely (although I wouldn’t be “offended” as such, I’d just think that it was too much hassle). And I do think that sometimes people get so wrapped up in their own “biggest ever day” that they forget it simply isn’t anywhere near as important to others.

i think evening invitations can be fine - under certain circumstances. If you have a wide group of colleagues/acquaintances who know each other and they all live reasonably locally, then it can be a really nice and inclusive thing to say “come and have a drink and celebrate with us”. When I was younger, I was invited to a colleague’s evening do - and a few of us from work met up and got a taxi to and from the venue. Really nice evening. Same would apply if you asked all your mates from the squash club/all the near neighbours etc. But yes - when I was invited to drive hours on my own to join a party where most of the people I knew had been there all day, I didn’t fancy it much either! Just send apologies and wish them a lovely day.

I dont see the point so wouldn't go, I have no issues them having whatever wedding they want but unless they were royalty end trying to appease the annoying world leader that is acting like an annoying cousin I dont see the point so would politely decline

We got a save the date card, I bought a dress as I had none (took ages to find one I liked) then got an evening invite! My MIL sold the dress to the mother of the bride funnily, so I recouped a little of the outlay.
I do think it is really, really bad manners and thoughtless to imply or tell you, that you are invited to a wedding when it is not the case. People should be clear with their intentions from the outset.

I've turned down two evening invitations not out of principle and not due to having to travel (which we would have to do) but they were both on a school night and I wasn't prepared to use up two days of my precious annual leave for them.

Invite me on a Saturday night and I'm right there.

Yes indeed 🍿