HELP!!! How Do We Notify Guests Wedding Has Been Decreased To "Family Only?"

Jen4948 · July 2013

cheapbrideincentpa said:

margaretskye said:

The PPs are right - there isn't a polite/proper way to do this. But in my opinion, your mom's cancer is far more important than wedding etiquette and I think you should just send out a notice to the "uninvitees" that due to extenuating circumstances the wedding will not continue as planned. I would recommend calling the guests that you are uninviting and explaining the situation. I'm sure people will be understanding.

This- uninvite, if you decide to tell them later, I am sure they will understand. Things happen, your mom's life/health is far more important than some hurt feelings.

The circumstances aren't "extenuating" because the OP is still trying to have the same scale wedding. If she was just going to have a private wedding with a few people and without the bells and whistles, then the circumstances might be extenuating. So "hurt feelings" are still going to be hurt if she uninvites some but not everyone-and with justification.

She'd have to send out a general announcement of cancellation and then re-schedule the wedding with the smaller number of guests and other scale-backs.

southernbelle0915 · July 2013

I'm very sorry to hear about your mother. I understand what you're going through.

You can't "uninvite" 200 people (about 60% of your guest list) and move forward with a 150 person wedding without being extremely rude to those who were uninvited. Also, any announcement you make should not be in a "cute" or "witty" format - the situation at hand doesn't warrant a poem or saying and you risk people being confused by your message. Be direct, simple and to the point.

What you CAN do is:

1 - Send out announcements to everyone except a VERY small group (read: immediately family only - parents, grandparents, siblings and WP) that "The wedding of ___ and ____ will not take place as planned. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience."

2 - Cancel your contracts, reschedule the wedding and send announcements to everyone.

3 - Send an announcement to just over half your guests with something like, "You're not really invited, hope you don't feel slighted. We had to cut 60 percent and away your name went!"

Obviously 3 is a joke. Options 1 and 2 save you way more money than your current plan and won't horribly offend 60% of your family and friends.

itzMS · July 2013

CMGr said:

I am sorry about your mother's diagnosis. Does she have medical insurance?
I am a cancer survivor. It was very advanced stage 3+ breast cancer with 13 lymph nodes positive.
I am still here. My medical insurance paid for most of my treatment.
I looked forward to my daughter's wedding, and that was one of the things that kept me going through it all. I wore a hat at the ceremony, partly because my hair wasn't completely grown out from chemo.
How does your Mom feel about cancelling the plans? If it was my choice, I would want things to proceed as planned.
There is no polite way you can uninvite people. The other ladies have given you good advice. Be sure about what is the best thing to do before you act. Best wishes for your Mom.

I'm really glad you chimed in, @CMGr

You are exactly right. This is clearly a trying time for the family, but life goes on. If they JUST got the diagnosis (as in, this week) the OP should give it some time and let her mom come to her with decisions and concerns.

RebeccaB88 · July 2013

I am with the others and suggest you scale back plans to something more affordable and still host everyone. You could cancel the band and use that money to put towards your parents portion of the reception. Scale back the bar, DIY centerpieces and other things you can, serve chicken and pasta instead of steak, go with smaller bouquets and less expensive flowers. ask your vendors for ideas to save money, they will surely have ideas.

As someone who has has been through major medical stuff, there were plenty of times I needed something good to look forward to. What does she want to do?

MandyMost · July 2013

Also, keep in mind that if you're going to un-invite a hundred-plus people, and then proceed with a very large and full-on wedding, these un-invited guests are going to end up seeing pictures and/or hearing stories about the big fancy wedding that went on AS PLANNED that they were just un-invited to.

It would be one thing if you were cutting it down to 20 people, and cutting out practically everything else...but to proceed with a full-on wedding? There's no possible way that it's anything except extremely rude and tacky. Those words don't even cut it.

My advice (and this is from someone who's mother had cancer TWICE...and I mean not a remission and recurrence...she had 2 totally separate cancers 10 years apart, once in her early 40's and once in her early 50's...for the record she's 55 now and healthy and looking forward to my wedding):

Talk to your mother. But don't just go in blind. Seriously think about what all the issues that could come up are---the money and the stress are two things you names.

Have a serious talk with your fiance, and call vendors as needed, and figure out how to drastically reduce the cost of your wedding. Ideas such as no flowers, a cocktail reception only instead of a meal, no hair and makeup done professionally, reducing the photographer to only an hour or two, etc. And talk about canceling entirely, and re-scheduling a small, intimate, immediate-family-only wedding at another time (or the same time).

And talk about what may be causing the stress, aside from the money, and think about what you could do about it. Figure out which friends/relatives of yours can do all the work pre-wedding she was planning on doing (and talk to them to make sure they agree!). Have relatives agree to step up their hosting duties to help cover for your mother. Maybe have a much smaller processional, without including family, so all eyes aren't on your mother. Maybe not have anyone other than the couple announced coming into the reception, again so eyes aren't on her.

That way, you can deal with the money and the stress without turning yourself into a ragingly rude, tacky bitch by un-inviting your guests.

Dreamergirl8812 · July 2013

My only contribution is that OP is not uninviting people, she is disinviting people. Continue.

kinsey0628 · July 2013

Dreamergirl8812 said:

My only contribution is that OP is not uninviting people, she is disinviting people. Continue.

i don't get it, what is the difference?

also - i love your dancing dog sig.

BMoreBride6 · July 2013

kinsey0628 said:

Dreamergirl8812 said:

My only contribution is that OP is not uninviting people, she is disinviting people. Continue.

i don't get it, what is the difference?

also - i love your dancing dog sig.

Uninvited is typically used as an adjective to describe something that was never truly "invited" to begin with...as in "I am going to ignore my FMIL's uninvited advice on my wedding" whereas disinvite is more correctly used for an invitation that WAS given in the first place but is taken back.

ETA: Unvite is not a word...there is no verb form (standardly)

[Deleted User] · July 2013

I think the best thing to do is to send out cards to everyone who won't be invited with simple details. The hard part is to find wording that won't imply you guys called off that wedding but without getting to personal with reasons why either. I'm sure if you google the subject, you can find some good wording options.

Sorry to hear about your mom, but it's nice that you are planning to downsize your wedding to help her out.

KDM323 · July 2013

Erikan73 said:

I think the best thing to do is to send out cards to everyone who won't be invited with simple details. The hard part is to find wording that won't imply you guys called off that wedding but without getting to personal with reasons why either. I'm sure if you google the subject, you can find some good wording options.

Sorry to hear about your mom, but it's nice that you are planning to downsize your wedding to help her out.

I'm sorry but this is really not good advice at all.

You can't simply cut 150 people from a guest list AFTER you've invited them and continue on with a party/wedding for 150-200 people. It is rude.

In order to NOT be rude to her guests, the OP can:
1. Cancel the wedding in its entirety and move it to a different date.
2. Cancel the wedding EXCEPT for the absolute most IMMEDIATE family (mother/father/siblings) and have a very low key, private affair.
3. Cut costs in another manner.

Yes...of course she can send a cute card to 150 people dis-inviting them. Nothing will stop her from doing this. But if she does do that...there will be people who find out that she had a LARGE wedding still (because 150-200 people is still a large wedding) and those people will think negatively about it. Some may be hurt. It may cause life long rifts in family/friend relationships.

That's why people (myself included) are saying that this is not a good idea or a good plan.

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