To only invite people to only evening wedding reception?

[Amby99]

I feel really bad but our wedding is priced per head for the drinks reception / wedding breakfast etc at nearly £200 pp. For this reason we really do have to limit numbers so it doesn’t start getting ridiculous. our wedding is close family (which is already ~ 40 people with their partners) and then about 10-15 close friends. For the evening do, we can invite up to 100 people free of charge.

There are some people that our parents have requested to invite (even just for the evening). For example my aunty (by marriage) son from her marriage previously before my uncle has been requested. But I haven’t seen him in 5 years and aren’t particularly close but we would like him and his partner at the evening do.

is it offensive though? I’m worried it comes across like ‘you’re not important enough to come to the ceremony but you are to the evening’…

Also do I do evening invites? Or just let them know?

I would be neither upset nor offended at an evening only invite, but it’s a different vibe to another type of evening party where people arrive at roughly the same time.

It is completely normal and acceptable, but normal for some invitees to decline due to cost for what is a few hours, if it’s a trek.

Unless it’s less than a tenner taxi ride home, I wouldn’t accept an evening invite. Absolutely not offended to receive it, just not something I’d budget for

Nobody suggested otherwise…

Evening invites are perfectly normal.

ive been to a few evening receptions,

dh and I had close family during the day for our wedding and then invited extended family and our friends at night. No one batted an eyelid.

my mum was adamant she was paying for the full reception so we did it this way to keep it cheaper for her. (Obviously without her knowing that was how we felt) I would have loved my friends during the day but it also meant inviting dh’s friends which I wasn’t as keen on 😂

evening only are fine for people who live close to the venue, work colleagues, old school friends etc. If I get invited to an evening only do which would involve an overnight stay I’d be unlikely (depending on circumstances) to accept and assume it was a duty invite….

but otherwise it’s fine and normal. I quite like an evening invite….have a bop and and a beige buffet.