Second reception etiquette

Portland09102011

I'm having a wedding in the town my FI and I live in, which is a few hour drive from where my FI's family is from. We booked a venue with enough room for 175 guests, which is plenty for family and friends. My future MIL wants to invite about 50 of her friends, which I'm assuming are actually acquaintances since no person could possibly have that many friends. Right now the guest list is about 50-50 between our sides and neither or my parents wanted to invite their friends.

We compromised early on that her close friends would be invited to the wedding and we would then do a second reception in her home town for her acquaintances to come to. We thought briefly about inviting everyone and hopping that only some of them would come, but I wouldn't want to risk everyone RSVPing.

I've been reading that second receptions aren't thought of well here, especially since this will be for people not invited to the wedding. Is there a way to do this that won't make people feel B - listed? My MIL has talked about rolling it into a house warming party they wanted to through anyway.

My feeling is that most of these people could care less about going to a wedding where they haven't met the bride or groom (or at best these are people who would have last seen my FI when he was a teenager). My MIL feels that not inviting everyone in her circle to at least something wedding related would be rude and I guess she would know these people better than me.

sister2groom

My feeling is that her aquaintances probably wouldn't care if they were invited to the wedding or not, but inviting them to a reception after-the-fact would sort of be unnecessarily reminding them how they weren't invited. How about your mom just have the housewarming she was planning on? You give her like a Shutterfly mini-album of non-pro pics so if anyone asks to see pics at the party, they can.

Beachy730

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_second-reception-etiquette?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a708729e-7d28-4e00-b100-b17c931a2f6fPost:e1d87018-6c27-4dd0-8634-2fcbb4653efd">Second reception etiquette</a>:
[QUOTE]I'm having a wedding in the town my FI and I live in, which is a few hour drive from where my FI's family is from. We booked a venue with enough room for 175 guests, which is plenty for family and friends. My future MIL wants to invite about 50 of her friends, which I'm assuming are actually acquaintances since no person could possibly have that many friends. Right now the guest list is about 50-50 between our sides and neither or my parents wanted to invite their friends. We compromised early on that her close friends would be invited to the wedding and we would then do a second reception in her home town for her acquaintances to come to. We thought briefly about inviting everyone and hopping that only some of them would come, but I wouldn't want to risk everyone RSVPing. I've been reading that second receptions aren't thought of well here, especially since this will be for people not invited to the wedding. Is there a way to do this that won't make people feel B - listed? My MIL has talked about rolling it into a house warming party they wanted to through anyway. <strong>My feeling is that most of these people could care less about going to a wedding where they haven't met the bride or groom (or at best these are people who would have last seen my FI when he was a teenager).</strong> My MIL feels that not inviting everyone in her circle to at least something wedding related would be rude and I guess she would know these people better than me.
Posted by Portland09102011[/QUOTE]

If you feel this way about them being invited to the wedding, then how do you think they would feel about being invited to a second reception and not the wedding?  It totally seems gift grabby to me.  If your FMIL wants to host a house warming party for herself and her son and his new wife happen to be there, great.  But there should be no mention of a wedding, reception, or anything else. 

Can't you make a compromise with her and give her a set number that she can invite to the wedding?  If they aren't close to your FI then they shouldn't be expecting to be invited.  But just because your parents aren't inviting any friends doesn't mean that you need to tell your FMIL that she can't. 

brilibby4

Is she paying for the wedding?  If not then she really has no say.  It is common for the bride and groom to give each set of parents a set number of invites and leaving it at that.  In your situation, thats what I recommend you and fiance do.  If you have room for 175 then decide how many invites you want for yourselves and how many should go to your families.  If her many friends do not fit, just apologize and say you want an intimate wedding. 

I do NOT think you should have a second reception for people you and your fiance have never met...I think it would come across as very gift grabby.

SparrowSong

I think MIL should just throw her own party. It's highly weird to me to be thinking all these people who have never even met you need some sort of event to attend in your honor. Really weird. I suspect these people really don't care even half as much about this wedding as MIL thinks they do.

Portland09102011

Right now she has about 20 friends invited to the actual wedding.

I like the idea of us being at a non-wedding themed party to meet all their friends and having pictures available if people ask to see them, but definitely waiting until people ask.

Thanks!

Summer2011Bride

You know your FMIL better than me, obviously, but my mom has quite a few good work friends who know me and have known me since I was little and they are not even invited to ours. My mom said she didn't think it was necessary to invite her friends that don't know me personally that well. Of course your FMIL knows her friends best, but I would bet my bottom dollar they don't really care one way or the other if they are invited. They may come if invited to be nice, but I would personally not care if I wasn't invited to a friend's son's wedding I had never met.

I think if she is paying, you can't do much. If she isn't, you can; give her a set number and leave it at that. You can meet them after at a non-wedding-related function if they are an important part of her life.

DramaGeek

Our rule was that no one would be invited that one of us didn't know by name and sight.  So if H knew them and I didn't, that was fine, but if neither of us knew them then they didn't get an invite.  The people in your situation would have been out under that rule.

In your case, either give your MIL a set number of people she can invite and let her decide which ones get invited, or just be there at her housewarming party so she can show you guys off to her friends.

hlq2011

I know I'm late responding on this, but I kinda went through this guest list issue with my mom.  She'd given a long list of friends she wanted invited, and I ended up going back to her and saying, hey, there are more here than we can accommodate.  Who do you feel REALLY needs to be invited.  We slashed a good fifteen or twenty of them because she was totally reasonable.

Go with the housewarming; ditch the second "reception"