Who to invite to what

Knottie71125182

We are having a small ceremony 50 people max. However, we have no idea how many family members will come that are invited, as both sides of our family live far away. We are having a reception for all of our friends and family, expecting 150 people. However, one of my bridesmaids is throwing me a shower.My question is would it be rude to only invite some of the women to the shower and the reception and not to the ceremony? 

peachy13

Knottie71125182 said:

We are having a small ceremony 50 people max. However, we have no idea how many family members will come that are invited, as both sides of our family live far away. We are having a reception for all of our friends and family, expecting 150 people. However, one of my bridesmaids is throwing me a shower.My question is would it be rude to only invite some of the women to the shower and the reception and not to the ceremony? 

Yes, it would be rude to invite people to the shower and/or reception and not to the ceremony. Furthermore, it would be rude to invite people to the reception but not to the ceremony.

lovegood90

Knottie71125182 said:

We are having a small ceremony 50 people max. However, we have no idea how many family members will come that are invited, as both sides of our family live far away. We are having a reception for all of our friends and family, expecting 150 people. However, one of my bridesmaids is throwing me a shower.My question is would it be rude to only invite some of the women to the shower and the reception and not to the ceremony? 

Unless you are having a private, immediate-family only ceremony, you need to invite everyone to both the ceremony and reception.

KatWAG

What you are doing is rude. Why aren't you inviting everyone to your ceremony?

Its okay to have a small, private ceremony. Meaning just immediate family. 15 people max. And then a large reception afterwards.

Plan for everyone single person to attend.

And anyone invited to the shower needs to be invited to the entire wedding.

Knottie71125182

So if I had a destination wedding where only family and close friends were invited to. Would it be wrong to have a reception so that everyone can celebrate with you at home? I see it as the same thing. Unfortunately, were we live there are limited number of venues to host weddings. The ceremony location can only hold a small number of people where as the reception can hold a larger number of people. 

MyNameIsNot

Your ceremony guest list should be identical to your reception guest list. If you can only fit 50 in one of the venues, you'll need to either change that venue or limit the guest list to 50. Either option is fine.

Your shower guests should be your closest friends and family, and should only include people invited to the wedding. It shouldn't be everyone or every female invited to the wedding. 

lovegood90

Knottie71125182 said:

So if I had a destination wedding where only family and close friends were invited to. Would it be wrong to have a reception so that everyone can celebrate with you at home? I see it as the same thing. Unfortunately, were we live there are limited number of venues to host weddings. The ceremony location can only hold a small number of people where as the reception can hold a larger number of people. 

Yes. You get one wedding day.

If you want to host a "celebration of marriage" party when you get home without the wedding trappings (ie no vows, no dress, no bridal party) and tell everyone that you already got married, you're within etiquette to do so. (However I personally would side-eye it but that's just me).

Why can't you get married at the reception site? No matter the circumstance you are in, you must invite everyone to both events.

ShesSoCold

Knottie71125182 said:

So if I had a destination wedding where only family and close friends were invited to. Would it be wrong to have a reception so that everyone can celebrate with you at home? I see it as the same thing. Unfortunately, were we live there are limited number of venues to host weddings. The ceremony location can only hold a small number of people where as the reception can hold a larger number of people. 

To the bolded - yes. Rude. What you can do have a party - no wedding ceremony, no wedding dress, no first dances, nothing "wedding"-ey. Just a nice party. Some may see this as rude because they're second-tier guests who weren't good enough to be invited to the actual wedding, but I believe it is within good etiquette to invite anyone and everyone to a party. 

Someone will correct me if I am wrong. 

But everyone invited to the actual wedding ceremony will need to be hosted after (a reception) and only those people invited to the actual wedding ceremony can be invited to the shower or any pre-parties. 

EDITed to add that the wedding ceremony and reception would be okay on one day and the party on a totally different day. Squeezing all this in one day would be rude and tiered.

redoryx

Knottie71125182 said:

We are having a small ceremony 50 people max. However, we have no idea how many family members will come that are invited, as both sides of our family live far away. We are having a reception for all of our friends and family, expecting 150 people. However, one of my bridesmaids is throwing me a shower.My question is would it be rude to only invite some of the women to the shower and the reception and not to the ceremony? 

Out of curiosity what is your reasoning for this? I can understand a small intimate wedding of less than, oh, 15 people ore something but I don't understand 50 guests at the ceremony and 150 at the reception. Why not just invite all 150 people to the ceremony? 

mikenberger

redoryx said:

Knottie71125182 said:

We are having a small ceremony 50 people max. However, we have no idea how many family members will come that are invited, as both sides of our family live far away. We are having a reception for all of our friends and family, expecting 150 people. However, one of my bridesmaids is throwing me a shower.My question is would it be rude to only invite some of the women to the shower and the reception and not to the ceremony? 

Out of curiosity what is your reasoning for this? I can understand a small intimate wedding of less than, oh, 15 people ore something but I don't understand 50 guests at the ceremony and 150 at the reception. Why not just invite all 150 people to the ceremony? 

Seems per her response above, the ceremony location cannot fit all the people she wants to invite. And the reception location holds more, so she'd like to invite more people to just the reception.

Which comes across as SUPER gift grabby.

MyNameIsNot

Knottie71125182 said:

So if I had a destination wedding where only family and close friends were invited to. Would it be wrong to have a reception so that everyone can celebrate with you at home? I see it as the same thing. Unfortunately, were we live there are limited number of venues to host weddings. The ceremony location can only hold a small number of people where as the reception can hold a larger number of people. 

Yes, that would also be rude. "At home receptions" following destination weddings are for people who were invited to the destination but didn't attend. They aren't for people who weren't invited to the wedding. 

Why can't you have your ceremony at the reception venue?

redoryx

mikenberger said:

redoryx said:

Knottie71125182 said:

We are having a small ceremony 50 people max. However, we have no idea how many family members will come that are invited, as both sides of our family live far away. We are having a reception for all of our friends and family, expecting 150 people. However, one of my bridesmaids is throwing me a shower.My question is would it be rude to only invite some of the women to the shower and the reception and not to the ceremony? 

Out of curiosity what is your reasoning for this? I can understand a small intimate wedding of less than, oh, 15 people ore something but I don't understand 50 guests at the ceremony and 150 at the reception. Why not just invite all 150 people to the ceremony? 

Seems per her response above, the ceremony location cannot fit all the people she wants to invite. And the reception location holds more, so she'd like to invite more people to just the reception.

Which comes across as SUPER gift grabby.

TOTALLY missed that post above.

Knottie71125182

So then I wont put where I am registered in to the people I would like to attend the reception. I really don't care about gifts. This Whole thing got blown out out proportion....I would rather just run away and forget the whole "show aspect" and just be married. But it is too late for that now. 

novella1186

Knottie71125182 said:

So then I wont put where I am registered in to the people I would like to attend the reception. I really don't care about gifts. This Whole thing got blown out out proportion....I would rather just run away and forget the whole "show aspect" and just be married. But it is too late for that now. 

You shouldn't put where you're registered on the invitation regardless, if that's what you're planning to do. Registry info absolutely should never be in a wedding invite. 

redoryx

Knottie71125182 said:

So then I wont put where I am registered in to the people I would like to attend the reception. I really don't care about gifts. This Whole thing got blown out out proportion....I would rather just run away and forget the whole "show aspect" and just be married. But it is too late for that now. 

Well you shouldn't be putting where you are registered on the invitations anyway, even if you did only have a 50 person wedding and reception. 

mikenberger

Knottie71125182 said:

So then I wont put where I am registered in to the people I would like to attend the reception. I really don't care about gifts. This Whole thing got blown out out proportion....I would rather just run away and forget the whole "show aspect" and just be married. But it is too late for that now. 

There is a point to this thread with the responses and you've sailed right past it.

Knottie71125182

Then when do you ever send out the registry info? The store gave me a ton of cards with our registry info on them..... 

lovegood90

Knottie71125182 said:

Then when do you ever send out the registry info? The store gave me a ton of cards with our registry info on them..... 

You give out registry info if you are asked for it. Or you can put it on your wedding website if you have one. But that info doesn't belong on invites.

redoryx

Knottie71125182 said:Then when do you ever send out the registry info? The store gave me a ton of cards with our registry info on them..... 

You don't. If people ask where you are registered then you can tell them. That info can go on shower invitations because that's a gift giving event (although, again, only people invited to the actual wedding ceremony can be invited to the shower)

Wedding gifts should never be expected.

tojai

We had a VERY small ceremony with only family (7 people in attendance) and then had about 50 guests at our reception, so not everyone was invited to the ceremony.  However I also did not have (nor want) a bridal shower.  In my situation I wouldn't have felt comfortable with that. 

I think it can come off rude if you're not careful.  Our wedding was on a Tuesday afternoon so part of the reason I didn't invite many people was because I didn't expect people to take off work to attend the ceremony (but looking back I think perhaps we should have extended the invites anyway).  But we were traveling from Korea because we wanted to see friends/family on our wedding day.  I felt we had a little bit more leeway due to the circumstances but again I wonder if it wouldn't have been possible to invite more to the ceremony as well.  People will naturally wonder why they're only invited to the reception.

Knottie71125182

I wasn't wanting a shower, a bridesmaid wanted to throw one. I would have been fine without it. I am glad to hear other people have invited more to the reception than to the ceremony as well. I have personlly been invited to receptions only a few times. 

lovegood90

Knottie71125182 said:

I wasn't wanting a shower, a bridesmaid wanted to throw one. I would have been fine without it. I am glad to hear other people have invited more to the reception than to the ceremony as well. I have personlly been invited to receptions only a few times. 

Just because it's common where you are, doesn't make it right. It's still super rude and you should really, really reconsider.

redoryx

Knottie71125182 said:

I wasn't wanting a shower, a bridesmaid wanted to throw one. I would have been fine without it. I am glad to hear other people have invited more to the reception than to the ceremony as well. I have personlly been invited to receptions only a few times. 

The ONE person in this thread who did that invited SEVEN people to her ceremony. That's a lot different than inviting the 50 you are talking about. 

You came here asking for advice. We are trying to help you not make an etiquette blunder and cause your guests to feel slighted because they won't tell you the truth to your face. Please don't ignore that advice just because it's not what you want to hear.

KatWAG

Knottie71125182 said:

Then when do you ever send out the registry info? The store gave me a ton of cards with our registry info on them..... 

The store gave you registry cards because they are trying to make money. They don't give a damn about etiquette. Throw all the cards away!

You can tell people where you are registered if/ when they ask.

KatWAG

Knottie71125182 said:

I wasn't wanting a shower, a bridesmaid wanted to throw one. I would have been fine without it. I am glad to hear other people have invited more to the reception than to the ceremony as well. I have personlly been invited to receptions only a few times. 

So if you didn't want a shower, why didn't you decline the shower?

morewineplease

Knottie71125182 said:

I wasn't wanting a shower, a bridesmaid wanted to throw one. I would have been fine without it. I am glad to hear other people have invited more to the reception than to the ceremony as well. I have personlly been invited to receptions only a few times. 

I don't understand why you came and posted on the etiquette board, then disregard all the information that was given except the one you wanted to hear? People are giving you good advice. You should not invite people to the reception to thank them for coming to your wedding, when their were not intact invited to the wedding. 

tojai

Knottie71125182 said:

I wasn't wanting a shower, a bridesmaid wanted to throw one. I would have been fine without it. I am glad to hear other people have invited more to the reception than to the ceremony as well. I have personlly been invited to receptions only a few times. 

If you don't want a shower, I believe it is within etiquette to politely decline.   

I think guests, in some situations, may understand the idea of an extremely intimate wedding ceremony and a larger reception later.  But the idea of being invited to a bridal shower but not the ceremony seems different to me.  Your close friends are invited to celebrate the upcoming wedding, but not attend the ceremony - I think if that happened to me I think I would be hurt.

What people are saying (if I understand what I've read here correctly) is that in certain circumstances with very VERY intimate ceremonies it is ok to invite more to the reception.  I don't even know if my decision was correct etiquette but there was more going on than picking a small venue.  You just have to think about how your guests will feel.

Knottie71125182

I would rather have much less than 50 actually show, that is just the max it can hold. I would like to only invite family....most of which do not live here nor will they be traveling. However, I do not know that actual number of family that will becoming from either side...that is my issue. 

redoryx

Knottie71125182 said:

I would rather have much less than 50 actually show, that is just the max it can hold. I would like to only invite family....most of which do not live here nor will they be traveling. However, I do not know that actual number of family that will becoming from either side...that is my issue. 

I......don't understand the issue. 

Invite who you want to invite. If you only want to invite 20 people then only invite 20 people. If they can't come, they can't come. 

flantastic

Knottie71125182 said:

I would rather have much less than 50 actually show, that is just the max it can hold. I would like to only invite family....most of which do not live here nor will they be traveling. However, I do not know that actual number of family that will becoming from either side...that is my issue. 

If you are going the route of small ceremony with family and larger reception (I don't understand the point of this and wouldn't bother to attend the reception if I wasn't invited to the wedding, the important part of the day, but it's not technically rude) - YOU DON'T HAVE TO INVITE ALL THE FAMILY THAT WOULD OR WOULD NOT TRAVEL. Just don't.

Invite only your immediate family to the ceremony. Parents, siblings. Possibly grandparents. That would be within etiquette. Add in aunts and uncles and cousins and suddenly you've created "more important" guests and "less important but still good enough to get me a gift" guests - because people will still feel obligated to get you a gift, even if they have to Google your registry.

ETA - you can still invite the extended family to the reception.

Knottie71125182

Thank you! THIS IS ONE THING I have not heard yet....And we both have large extended families, that neither of us really know. But I assumed they just needed to be invited since they were family.