Wedding Invitations & Paper

Ceremony, Dinner, Reception - separate invites?

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Re: Ceremony, Dinner, Reception - separate invites?

  • tigger75 said:
    @HisGirl, I have only been to one wedding-ceremony and reception-where a meal was served. The other weddings I've gone to have provided light refreshments-ranging from desserts, candy bars, mini sandwiches, etc...during receptions. For most of the weddings around here, people generally just go to the reception to see the bride and groom-there's usually a receiving line-maybe munch on some stuff, then leave. People who do stay tend to mingle with each other, but not with the bride and groom. Very few of these weddings have dancing, and the ones that do don't really have anyone dancing.

    Mostly it's just a chance to mingle and congratulate the bride and groom. Of course, I can't speak for the weddings she's been to, just mine. But that's generally what happens.
    I've been to receptions like that, too. But they've always been immediately after the ceremony, and have included all people invited to the ceremony. The idea of having a ceremony, then inviting some people to a dinner, then asking everyone else to come back for a reception baffles me. 

    But OP is planning on feeding SOME people dinner, which tells me that the wedding is over a meal, which means that she's going to host not only a tiered reception but a very oddly tiered one at that.

    If OP wants to move her wedding to a non-meal time and host the reception you described, she would be within the bounds of etiquette. 

    OP, if you are old enough to get married, you are old enough to tell your family that you're not going to do things that are out of your budget just to appease them. PPs have had great advice on how to have the wedding you want on your budget without being rude. 
    My wedding is not over a meal, my ceremony was set for 2:00 pm and dinner was to be served at a different location at 6:00 pm. 
    Wait...  so you have a ceremony, to which everyone is invited.  Then at least a 3 hour gap before a dinner to which only some of your guests are invited.  Then the remainder of your reception, to which you have invited all of the guests who didn't make the cut for dinner, leaving them with what, a 4-5 hour gap between the ceremony and the portion of the reception they are important enough to attend?  

    You really don't see how this is completely unacceptable?  At least the peons will have time to get a meal during the 4-5 hours that they have to wait to come back for what... some music?

    Get your head on straight.  You've been given excellent suggestions on how to fix this and your wedding is still 6 months away, which means you can change absolutely anything without impacting your guests (unless you've sent save the dates, in which case you may need to stick to the same city and date for those who may have made travel plans).

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  • tigger75 said:
    Looks like I will have to cut my guest list then, and not be able to celebrate with those that I really want to because I'm obligated to invite others. Yes I know you all don't understand why I would go with what expectations my family has but then again you don't have to live with them and be ridiculed and criticized for the rest of your life because your wedding didn't measure up, its a very sad and messed up situation and even more sad that I really can't do anything about it unless I'm ok with never speaking to some of my family members again. 

    At this point I'm feeling like none of this should happen if it can't be with those people we truly want to be there...what's the point of having the whole wedding celebration if you can't celebrate with those you want to? 

    Thanks again for all your advice and for clearing things up for me...Thanks for stopping me before I made a huge mistake!
    If my family acted that way about my wedding, I would not include them.  Why would you want to spend your wedding day with a bunch of judgmental assholes?

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  • go through your guest list and see who in the family should be there parents grandparents siblings come first, then its aunts uncles cousins, do you have cousins with children? just invite the cousin and not the children. then add your closest friends to the list.


    we are inviting 160 i originally wanted to keep it at 130 but after putting the guest list together and figuring out i had such a huge list i have a 109 family members that i am very very close to aunts uncles cousins my moms cousins some of my dads cousins i am close with. my fi has very little family that live out of state his aunts and uncles plus his mom so thats less than 10 people, we are also inviting his close friends some of his coworkers hes close with, and my closest friends,


    i know most venues wont push up the times we asked ours if we wanted the recepiton to start earlier and they said no day weddings end at 5 and evenings start at 7 and we have the larger of the two rooms. if we wanted to start our reception earlier it would cost us but if someone wanted to book a day reception in that room they would have first choice, then it would cost us i think 1,000 or 2,000 extra for each additional hour


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