So stressed with wedding planning! Guest list and gift list...

[Cerulean60]

I'm getting married later this year (Covid postponement from 2020!) and am getting so stressed trying to navigate etiquette and politics.

Firstly - guest list. I must have updated this about 20 times over the last year, moving people from day to evening, back to day, back to evening, and removing some people completely, adding plus ones, removing plus ones... There are considerations re budget, coronavirus, my anxieties about saying my vows in front of a big audience etc. We've come up with a final list now and I'm set here writing my invites and feeling AWFUL about sending people evening-only lists, having visions they're going to be hugely offended and it'll damage the relationship.

I'm also getting stressed over the gift list. I looked at Prezola but there's nothing we really wanted. OH wants to ask for honeymoon contributions but I saw stuff online where people said this was vulgar, particularly where the couple can afford it. We can afford it in that it was always part of our wedding budget so it's been saved for. On the other hand, we live in a small flat and want to move to a house next year, so we're also saving for that - it's not like we're very settled and comfortable financially, we're just not broke either. I've now become worried about asking for honeymoon contributions. This is entirely normal amongst my friends - most of whom asked for cash gifts for their weddings - but reading stuff online has got me second-guessing the idea.

I'm also stressing about a million and one other things but these are the top two things keeping me awake at night!

We didn't even want the big wedding - we wanted a microwedding with close family only, but my family convinced us we'd regret it; and it's been nothing but stress. Everyone keeps saying 'it's your wedding, do what you like', but what I'd like is for no-one to be offended by choices we're making and I'm struggling to navigate that.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thank you

No gifts...charity donation?

I have to say I'm not a fan of being asked to pay for peoples luxury holidays, but I've been to weddings where the couple are saving for a house/extension/ furniture for the house they are moving into and happily given money for that. Whatever you do, no twee poems please just a 'If you want to give us a gift, we are saving hard for our future family home and would really appreciate vouchers for to help us furnish it, or a contribution towards our future home'

Try not to let the stress get to you. This should be a fun time for you.

We asked for no gifts and got some really serious complaints so we asked anyone who insisted to get us selfridges vouchers.

We didn't need anything and were very happy with the people who did not give things. We had quite a fun day spending them.

Friends asked for nothing , but if you insisted a bottle of champagne would be very welcome. In the year after their wedding, they invited everyone who had given a bottle to dinner and served them their bottle

I have never experinced a wedding with evening only invites so I wpuld be inclined to scale it down and have all to all.
When I was a child we would often go to the church bit only (even just outside) with my grandparents, while my parents attended the whole wedding.

@CMOTDibbler

I have to say I'm not a fan of being asked to pay for peoples luxury holidays, but I've been to weddings where the couple are saving for a house/extension/ furniture for the house they are moving into and happily given money for that. Whatever you do, no twee poems please just a 'If you want to give us a gift, we are saving hard for our future family home and would really appreciate vouchers for to help us furnish it, or a contribution towards our future home'

Thanks for sharing your thoughts - out of interest, why are you more comfortable contributing to a house/extension/furniture than a holiday?

@habibihabibi

I have never experinced a wedding with evening only invites so I wpuld be inclined to scale it down and have all to all. When I was a child we would often go to the church bit only (even just outside) with my grandparents, while my parents attended the whole wedding.

Thanks - we are already on the venue's cheapest package, and also have all suppliers booked so there's not much scaling down we can do. It's only recently I've become aware people can be offended by evening invites, so when we booked our venue we thought nothing of it.

I’m also happier contributing to a house fund or related vouchers towards than a holiday. Wedding gifts are supposed to be about helping a couple build their life. A holiday is a very nice, but temporary thing. A home or even a blender is something that lasts.

Tbh I'm more than happy to give money, for whatever reason they have.
Went to one wedding who had a list and I hated picking tbh.

Who are the people you have moved to nighttime? Friends, family, co worker's etc?

I wasn't a fan of cash gifts - but at my brother's wedding I knew they had to save money for doing the house up ( it needed it - not just wallpaper ) so was happy to do it.

I would find a way of saying - any cash gift will be used with gratitude ,

or a voucher , if you want to buy us a present - that is lovely or and in most cases we would just like to see you so nothing required.

My advice is that you have the micro wedding you want. It’s stressing you out because you don’t want to do it.

It’s a lot of time, money and effort for a party that you don’t want.

As you have discovered, you will still have to say No to someone . And whatever you do, people will sulk or be offended. You can’t keep everyone happy all the time.

So you might as well have the day you want and put your time and money into your new home.

If you look at wedding threads on MN there are hundreds of posters saying that they wish they had done what they wanted, had a small / informal wedding and spent less money.

Hardly anyone ever says “ I had a small wedding and I now regret not having a Big Day and spending a small fortune “.

If you didn't mention gifts at all, what do you think people would do? In our case, we didn't mention gifts, a number of people asked my parents and they told them we were saving for a house but there was no obligation to give anything. We got about 80% cash gifts and an assortment of kind, weird and wonderful gifts ranging from fancy kitchen knives to paintings that I actually really like. I'm never sure why people feel they have to put something with the invitation, as that can sound like you're asking for something.

Set up a just giving page and ask for charity donations. We did that for WaterAid, still ended up with some gifts though which were small house items.

@Micemakingclothes

I’m also happier contributing to a house fund or related vouchers towards than a holiday. Wedding gifts are supposed to be about helping a couple build their life. A holiday is a very nice, but temporary thing. A home or even a blender is something that lasts.

Hmm, I actually see it as the opposite - 'stuff' gets old and will eventually be thrown away, but memories last forever. When I buy things for others I have a tendency towards 'experiences' e.g. afternoon tea, theatre, rather than actual items.

@R0SEMARY

My advice is that you have the micro wedding you want. It’s stressing you out because you don’t want to do it.

It’s a lot of time, money and effort for a party that you don’t want.

As you have discovered, you will still have to say No to someone . And whatever you do, people will sulk or be offended. You can’t keep everyone happy all the time.

So you might as well have the day you want and put your time and money into your new home.

If you look at wedding threads on MN there are hundreds of posters saying that they wish they had done what they wanted, had a small / informal wedding and spent less money.

Hardly anyone ever says “ I had a small wedding and I now regret not having a Big Day and spending a small fortune “.

Too late now - the wedding is in 10 weeks, so I need to work with where we are. I guess I just mentioned it because it adds context to the stress!

My advice on gifts is set up a small registry of items that tend to wear out and come at reasonable price points. Towels and bed linens are perfect for this. Also look through your kitchen and see if anything is close to needing replacement.

That way you have a list available for people who want to give you a physical gift. Most people will give you cash anyway. There is no need to say it is for a particular goal. I’m the past this was always unspoken. You made a registry and did get boxes, but you also got cards filled with money and checks.

I just wouldn’t mention gifts tbh people will ask someone else or they’ll just give money

Don't stress, no matter what you do you will manage to offend someone. And I say offend but really it is just slightly annoy. But the good thing is they most people will never tell you so you can just enjoy your day being non the wiser.

Most of your gifts will probably be cash, it's most people's go to now days. And those that want to give you gifts will bring them no matter what you say. We did a John Lewis gift list just so we do not end of with 10 engraved champagne glasses. It's quite nice to do, you make an appointment and you go round the store with a scanner and you scan the things you like and it will be added to your list. Just think of things you might like for your further house. We got things like a speaker, wine cooler, vase, cutlery. You can also add things for your honeymoon like beach towels or luggage.

If you don't want that many people there just don't invite evening guest. Personally I think it's nicer to only have all day guest. But it's very normal in some circles to have some evening only guest. Again if people are offended by an evening only invite they probably won't tell you and just decide not to come.

If you want to cut out evening guest it's worth asking the venue/ suppliers if you can move items meant for evening guests to another part of the day. For example if the package includes one glass of champagne for evening guests ask if this can be moved to an extra glass of wine for the dinner guests. My venue was very flexible and I was able to move many things around.

You have to remember this is MN land, where asking for cash, ever, under any circumstances is the height of vulgarity and will cause all your friends and family to disown you in disgust . Meanwhile, back in the real world, the vast, vast majority of the weddings I've been the in the last 20 years have asked for some combination of cash, vouchers or honeymoon contributions so I really don't see anything wrong with that - the maybe one anomalous wedding that had a gift list actually felt the most 'grabby', since it felt a bit odd to only buy them one fork or whatever off their list when you were clearly meant to buy the set and the cheaper items went very quickly!

I do agree that the poems you sometimes see recommended elsewhere, not on here, heaven forbid swoons at thought are quite twee and a bit naff. I don't agree with the 'don't say anything, people will ask' as that's just inconveniencing your guests more, making them have to message you separately or just guess what you'd like - I think the best middle ground is not saying anything on the formal invite itself but having a supplementary sheet (or these days more often a website) that has all sorts of useful info, timings for the day, dress code, transport/hotel info and a nice polite line on gifts such as 'no gifts are expected but if you would like to make a small contribution to our future home then XYZ vouchers would be greatly appreciated' or something similar? I honestly can't see how that would be offensive...

@GreenMeeple

Don't stress, no matter what you do you will manage to offend someone. And I say offend but really it is just slightly annoy. But the good thing is they most people will never tell you so you can just enjoy your day being non the wiser.

Most of your gifts will probably be cash, it's most people's go to now days. And those that want to give you gifts will bring them no matter what you say. We did a John Lewis gift list just so we do not end of with 10 engraved champagne glasses. It's quite nice to do, you make an appointment and you go round the store with a scanner and you scan the things you like and it will be added to your list. Just think of things you might like for your further house. We got things like a speaker, wine cooler, vase, cutlery. You can also add things for your honeymoon like beach towels or luggage.

If you don't want that many people there just don't invite evening guest. Personally I think it's nicer to only have all day guest. But it's very normal in some circles to have some evening only guest. Again if people are offended by an evening only invite they probably won't tell you and just decide not to come.

If you want to cut out evening guest it's worth asking the venue/ suppliers if you can move items meant for evening guests to another part of the day. For example if the package includes one glass of champagne for evening guests ask if this can be moved to an extra glass of wine for the dinner guests. My venue was very flexible and I was able to move many things around.

Thank you, this message helped to put things in perspective.

I did try to take off the evening guests but all my evening guests I really would love to be there, I just can't afford to extend a full invite to them all, which would cost another £2,000. So it's a choice between not inviting them at all, or evening only, and it feels a lot worse just not inviting someone at all.

@maxelly

You have to remember this is MN land, where asking for cash, ever, under any circumstances is the height of vulgarity and will cause all your friends and family to disown you in disgust . Meanwhile, back in the real world, the vast, vast majority of the weddings I've been the in the last 20 years have asked for some combination of cash, vouchers or honeymoon contributions so I really don't see anything wrong with that - the maybe one anomalous wedding that had a gift list actually felt the most 'grabby', since it felt a bit odd to only buy them one fork or whatever off their list when you were clearly meant to buy the set and the cheaper items went very quickly!

I do agree that the poems you sometimes see recommended elsewhere, not on here, heaven forbid swoons at thought are quite twee and a bit naff. I don't agree with the 'don't say anything, people will ask' as that's just inconveniencing your guests more, making them have to message you separately or just guess what you'd like - I think the best middle ground is not saying anything on the formal invite itself but having a supplementary sheet (or these days more often a website) that has all sorts of useful info, timings for the day, dress code, transport/hotel info and a nice polite line on gifts such as 'no gifts are expected but if you would like to make a small contribution to our future home then XYZ vouchers would be greatly appreciated' or something similar? I honestly can't see how that would be offensive...

Thank you - I have been quite taken aback with the strength of feeling on here and expected responses to be more balanced.

Agreed on the poems, will avoid those!

On Mumsnet everyone gets hideously offended by even being invited to a wedding but in real life evening invitations and requests for contributions are absolutely fine

Congratulations, relax and enjoy it!

Honestly, I think it’s better to not invite people at all than to invite them to evening only. Not invited people will understand you’re only having a small wedding and I think it’s much better than a two tier system to be honest. This will probably be an unpopular opinion but evening guest to me says “I want you to come, but not enough to stump up for /allocate you to have a day guest place.

Also, I’m another one who thinks it’s quite rude to ask for money. The most polite way to do it is to say nothing, most people will just give cash or vouchers and if people ASK what you would like, then you can tell them you’d like XYZ towards your honeymoon. I think it’s quite to include a gift list with the invitation, a bit like “here buy me presents”!

This will probably be an unpopular opinion but evening guest to me says “I want you to come, but not enough to stump up for /allocate you to have a day guest place.

But that is LITERALLY what it means. I’d be very happy to attend a work colleague’s evening reception but would never expect them to invite me to the full day!

When they said it is your wedding, do what you like that was when you should have said we want a tiny wedding so that is what we will do.

OP, if you don't want wedding anxiety, then get off MN. Seriously.

Round here it is very very common to be invited to evening only parties, it is a rural area, large farming families, everyone knows hundreds of people, and you can't invite everyone to the wedding. It is quite common to have 100 at the wedding and another 200 in the evening. It is always lovely to be invited to a party of a wedding that you would not expect to be invited to.

Nobody is offended, as it has happened for years and nobody cares, it is just the done thing.