Invitation dilema- Ceremony/reception wording

Re: Invitation dilema- Ceremony/reception wording

• Abbyjensen member

  

  August 2013

  I don't understand. Are you intending to do 2 ceremonies? Because that's silly. Yes, it's tacky to only invite people staying at the resort to the religious ceremony. I also would not look forward to the $1100 charge, but you can either suck it up and pay it, or go back to your original plan. I would probably go back to your initial plan and forget about having a ceremony at the resort.

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• HisGirlFriday13 member

  

  August 2013

  Veritoparra said:
  

  We are having a destination wedding this December and I am having trouble wording our invitations. We had initially planned on doing our ceremony/reception at a beach club but since we and the majority of our guests are staying in the same resort and this resort has a small chapel we decided to do our religious ceremony there instead ( We are Catholic so we can only be married religiously in a church/chapel). We would still have a very short ceremony at the beach club. This seemed like a great idea because everyone was staying at the resort but now some of our guests took forever to book and there is no rooms available at the resort (some others decided not to stay there by choice). They are staying elsewhere but in order for them to attend the religious ceremony at the resort we would need to pay $55 USD per person. I have already asked the resort if they can waive that charge since they are only attending a 30 minute ceremony but they wont. Right now I have 6 confirmed guests not staying at our resort and potentially 15 more. That means we would have to pay about $1100 for our guests just to attend the ceremony. Is there a way I can only invite the people staying at the resort to the religious ceremony? Would this look too tacky? Would it be ok if we only mentioned the beach club on the invitations?   Thanks!
  

  The short answers to the bolded questions are: No, yes, and no. 

  
  

  (I assume that the information about booking the resort was in the STDate cards you sent, since you have not yet sent formal invitations.)

  
  

  Was the information about the beach ceremony on the STDates? If you are changing your plans after the information has been presented to your guests, it's not really fair to them. 

  
  

  You obviously cannot, as you know, require your guests to stay anywhere -- whether it's for a DW or not. 

  
  

  I think your choices are:

  1. Have the religious ceremony at the resort and pay the $1,100 for the guests to attend; chalk this up to being the cost of having a DW.

  2. Forego having a religious ceremony (and as a practicing Catholic, who firmly believes in the sacrament of marriage, I don't advise this one).

  
  

  You cannot have two ceremonies (OK, you can, but you have to invite everyone to both of them). You can't have a religious one in the chapel for some guests and then another one on the beach for all the guests -- that's a tiered ceremony. Tiered receptions are rude enough; tiered ceremonies are beyond the pale. 

  
  

  This is one of those hindsight is 20/20 things, but if you were even considering having the ceremony in the chapel, you should have asked the resort about its policy on non-guests attending events at the resort before you booked that resort.

  

  
  

  
  

  I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'

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• STARMOON44 member

  

  August 2013

  Nope- you have to pay that and invite everyone, or find a different venue. I find it hard to believe a resort has a catholic church on campus anyway- is this just a generic chapel space? Does it meet tge priest's requirements? Does the place it's in have a church? Extremely rude to have people fly in and then not even get to see you get married.

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• Bubbles2014 member

  

  August 2013

  STARMOON44 said:

  Nope- you have to pay that and invite everyone, or find a different venue. I find it hard to believe a resort has a catholic church on campus anyway- is this just a generic chapel space? Does it meet tge priest's requirements? Does the place it's in have a church? Extremely rude to have people fly in and then not even get to see you get married.

  This bit. If I paid hundreds, or potentially thousands, of dollars to go to your wedding then I want to go to your wedding. Not the reception, not the redo.
  

  
  

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• crunchymamaof2 member

  

  August 2013

  What I don't understand is if having a Catholic wedding was so important why you didn't plan that in the first place? Either pay the fee or stick with your original plan.

  After 6 years and 2 boys, finally tying the knot on October 27th, 2013!

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• Viczaesar member

  

  August 2013

  You need to both invite everyone and pay for everyone to attend the religious ceremony.  Inviting only the people staying at the resort to the actual ceremony would be horrendously rude.  Having a second ceremony is ridiculous and unnecessary. 
  
  You should also double check whether the on-site chapel is actually okay according to Catholic canon.  That really should be your first concern if you're a practicing Catholic; getting married in an unsanctioned location means that your marriage is not recognized by the Catholic church and you cannot receive the sacraments.
  

  
  
  
  

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• southernbelle0915 mod

  

  August 2013

  Yep - gotta invite everyone to your ceremony. I'd be ticked off if I spent a ton of money to go to a DW and then couldn't even attend the ceremony. All
  because the bride didnt realize there were additional costs for non-resort guests and didnt want to pay the fee. Um, no.
  
  On the other hand, how does the resort know if a non-guest comes onto the property? Can't they just say they're staying with other resort guests?

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• WinstonsGirl member

  

  August 2013

  southernbelle0915 said:

  Yep - gotta invite everyone to your ceremony. I'd be ticked off if I spent a ton of money to go to a DW and then couldn't even attend the ceremony. All because the bride didnt realize there were additional costs for non-resort guests and didnt want to pay the fee. Um, no. On the other hand, how does the resort know if a non-guest comes onto the property? Can't they just say they're staying with other resort guests?

  If I remember from the time I stayed at an AI, all guests are given either a wristband or a swipe card that they must swipe at each restaurant.  You weren't allowed to order if you didn't have it

  
  

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