Cruise Wedding Mother Invite

Knottie44741293

To keep it short and to the point.....
I don't have the best relationship with my mother, much less her recent husband (I didn't go to their wedding). I told my mother this weekend that I am engaged and that we were planning on doing a cruise wedding (2 weeks long). For this reason I have been thinking carefully about who and how many I want to invite. My mother made the off-hand remark while my fiancee was away that it will be her first cruise followed belatedly by, if they are invited. I told her at the time that we hadn't figured out all the details yet.

Do I have to invite my mother for the wedding/honeymoon or can I get out of it without causing any possible confrontation? The whole thing is about 500 days away.

db1984

Invite them or not, but unless you're booking the entire ship, anyone can take the same cruise.

artbyallie

Knottie44741293 said:

To keep it short and to the point.....
I don't have the best relationship with my mother, much less her recent husband (I didn't go to their wedding). I told my mother this weekend that I am engaged and that we were planning on doing a cruise wedding (2 weeks long). For this reason I have been thinking carefully about who and how many I want to invite. My mother made the off-hand remark while my fiancee was away that it will be her first cruise followed belatedly by, if they are invited. I told her at the time that we hadn't figured out all the details yet.

Do I have to invite my mother for the wedding/honeymoon or can I get out of it without causing any possible confrontation? The whole thing is about 500 days away.

If attending your wedding requires being on the cruise, you ought to pay for each of your guests' trips. It's not okay to have a wedding with a charge for admission.

Also, IMO, kind of rude to mention wedding details to your mother if you haven't decided to invite her. Not cool to talk about details to anyone who isn't invited.

JediElizabeth

artbyallie said:

Knottie44741293 said:

To keep it short and to the point.....
I don't have the best relationship with my mother, much less her recent husband (I didn't go to their wedding). I told my mother this weekend that I am engaged and that we were planning on doing a cruise wedding (2 weeks long). For this reason I have been thinking carefully about who and how many I want to invite. My mother made the off-hand remark while my fiancee was away that it will be her first cruise followed belatedly by, if they are invited. I told her at the time that we hadn't figured out all the details yet.

Do I have to invite my mother for the wedding/honeymoon or can I get out of it without causing any possible confrontation? The whole thing is about 500 days away.

If attending your wedding requires being on the cruise, you ought to pay for each of your guests' trips. It's not okay to have a wedding with a charge for admission.

Also, IMO, kind of rude to mention wedding details to your mother if you haven't decided to invite her. Not cool to talk about details to anyone who isn't invited.

Agreed. You don't have to invite anyone, but don't tell them the details if you don't plan on inviting them. Particularly people who will expect it (like family).

CMGragain

Get married on land, or on the ship while it is docked in port.  Invite your mother.  Take the cruise as your honeymoon.  Don't invite anyone else on your honeymoon.  Bad idea!
If you get married while at sea, you need to pay the cruise fare for ALL of your guests, including Mom!

climbingsingle

You're inviting people on a two week long cruise to see you get married??? I must be reading that wrong. I'm still half-asleep. 

Maggie0829

Why would you talk wedding details with someone who you aren't even sure you are going to invite?

And you are inviting people on a 2 week long cruise for your wedding?

lembaslover

I don't care how much I love someone I'm not going on a 2 week cruise to see their wedding so please do as PP suggest and get married at land then depart on the cruise with any guests who wish to join. I get really seasick. Yea I know cruise ships are big you shouldn't get sick... I've been on a cruise and I was sick pretty much the entire time or too doped up on dramamine that I just slept. After that I decided land destinations only. Plus a 2 week cruise is expensive and a lot of vacation time. If I'm saving up two weeks of vacation time and paying thousands it's going to be the vacation I pick not that someone else picks.

Also I agree with PP if you didn't want to invite your mom you shouldn't have told her your plans. To me discussing it with her was kind of a verbal invite and while technically you didn't say she was invited you did get her hopes up and then she probably realized you hadn't said she was invited and felt bad...

delujm0

I love my family and friends, but I would not want them following me around on my honeymoon. 

 

Agree with PPs - take the cruise but get married while in port and then have a cake and punch reception, so that people can come to the wedding but not take the cruise.  I wouldn't invite anyone on the cruise.  Of course, anyone who wants to can take it, it's a free country, but most people wouldn't want to impose on your honeymoon unless you specifically asked them to join you (or at the very least they'd probably run it by you before booking it).

 

I've been to plenty of destination weddings, but generally the bride and groom don't specify where or for how long you HAVE to stay in order to attend.  With a cruise you have little choice.  I'd agree that if being on the cruise is a requirement to attend the wedding, you should be paying for people to go with you.  I did go to a DW where it was on a resort with a daily resort fee if you were staying off-site.  One couple stayed elsewhere, and the fee wound up on the bride and groom's hotel tab.  They were super pissed about it because they had warned the couple of the fee when they decided to stay off-site - but that wasn't really cool of them.  The bride and groom wound up paying it, because that was the right thing to do, but they weren't happy about it (to be fair, this particular couple has a penchant for being difficult and sticking other people with their bills in situations where that is actually not appropriate, so I'm not sure why anyone was surprised about this...and the bride and groom were mostly mad because they'd been stuck with this couple's tab so many times before).

 

Also, if you do decide on a cruise ship or DW, do be aware that many people will be unable to attend.  That is the downside to getting married on vacation - not everyone can afford to (or wants to) take the vacation that you have selected for them.

JediElizabeth

I'm going to be honest. When I hear "2 week long cruise wedding" I automatically translate it to "eloping without taking credit for no one else being there." I can only imagine that the OP & her FI already know that most people won't be able to/want to take a cruise for a wedding, and they're planning for something exceptionally small.

[Deleted User]

JediElizabeth said:

I'm going to be honest. When I hear "2 week long cruise wedding" I automatically translate it to "eloping without taking credit for no one else being there." I can only imagine that the OP & her FI already know that most people won't be able to/want to take a cruise for a wedding, and they're planning for something exceptionally small.

Exactly this.  I won't be taking 2 weeks vacation for anybody's wedding, not even my only sister or my BFF.

justsie

scribe95 said:

It's an invite, not a subpoena. Just like destinations she can invite people on a cruise for her wedding. She doesn't have to pay for them. But they will likely say no due to the expense.

I disagree, it would be one thing to have the wedding in port so people that didn't want to participated in the 2 week long cruise could choose so, but that isn't what OP is proposing. Any other DW guests can come when they want and leave when they want, they are not required to stay an X amount of time in order to see the wedding, except for the wedding itself. In this case, if a guest wants to see a wedding they also MUST take a 2 week cruise. 

banana468

scribe95 said:

And if guests want to go to a Mexico destination wedding they MUST buy expensive airfare. It's a choice. Under your logic, the bride and groom should pay for travel expenses.

Not in that case. The guests wouldn't have to use the same plane, resort or amount of time for the trip itself when the DW is on land.

When you get married at sea on a cruise you're forcing the guests to take almost the exact same trip with minor modifications.

banana468

scribe95 said:

The bottom line is either way guests have to spend large amount of money to attend, whether it's a cruise or the same airline or resort. 

Yes. But only with the wedding on the ship while in transit are the guests forced into more restrictive travel options.

That said, I'm with you that either way a DW asks a lot of the guests and it is splitting hairs a bit.

CMGragain

scribe95 said:

And if guests want to go to a Mexico destination wedding they MUST buy expensive airfare. It's a choice. Under your logic, the bride and groom should pay for travel expenses.

The guests are responsible for their own transportation and lodging to attend the wedding.  (Airfare, gasoline, car rental, hotel.)  The guests are NOT responsible for paying admission to the venue (Disney World, Universal, Cruise ship).  They are also not responsible for paying for their food and drink at the reception.
Guests are not required to stay at a specific resort in order to attend a resort wedding.  They can stay at Joe's Motel down the road if they choose, or stay with Cousin Edith.  On an at-sea wedding, the guests have no such choice, and they are paying for their own food and drink.  THAT is the difference.  They are also required to be locked in for a two week cruise that they did not choose.
You cannot invite someone to something and then charge admission for the event!