I'm back again with another question, but this time it has nothing to do with my boss (other than letting y'all know about her mom telling my co-worker, who is also declining, to send in her response card ASAP because they have some other people they'd like to invite in her place)
Saturday night, my SO and I were chatting about various etiquette-related things, mostly about inviting SOs and whether or not it's "in the rules that you have to have an open bar." He expressed some of the same concerns that we hear on here often; why should I pay for someone who I barely know to come to my wedding? Also, open bars are expensive, why do I have to pay for everyone's drinks? I told him that I agree and realize that weddings are expensive, but that's why you have to be very considerate of who you put on the guest list because you have to do the right thing for the guests you DO choose to invite. Then the conversation took this turn:
Him: "I just don't understand why I have to pay for people to come to my wedding."
Me: "What's not to understand...you're hosting an event, you pay for it."
Him: "Well, I mean, if I'm hosting my birthday party at a nightclub, I don't pay for everyone's cover at the door nor do I pay for them to drink all night!" (Keep in mind he's a DJ, this is where his realm of understanding is at)
Me: "It's not THAT kind of 'hosting', I hope you would never charge your wedding guest a cover at the door, and please stop comparing a wedding to a nightclub. Also, it's technically wrong to throw your own party in your own honor, just FYI."
Him: "I just don't see how it makes sense that I have to pay for people to come support me. If they're supposed to be supporting me, shouldn't they be paying for themselves?"
He didn't like the "if you invited people over to your house, would you charge them?" analogy, he said that's totally different. He sorta-kinda got it when I explained why a reception is called such a name, that we as husband and wife are receiving and thanking our guests for coming to witness us get married, but he still pressed the issue of paying for people to support us and how that sounds like backwards logic. I think he's hung up on the word "support." But even after saying that we're paying for people to celebrate with us, honor the union with us, etc. I still don't get an agreement.
Luckily, this isn't a real issue yet. We aren't "officially" engaged because he wants to be traditional and become engaged when he proposes, and I'm cool with that. We did draw up a tentative guest list following this conversation, and it was pared down WAYYY further from when we first started talking marriage because he finally gets how much money goes into it. I still want him to *agree* with the reasoning behind why the bride and groom pay for everything and never make their guests open their wallets. How would you knock this sense into your SO/FI/DH if he were as dense and misguided as mine :P ?
Sidenote: He did eventually have a lightbulb moment about throwing an "at-home" reception in Boston for people who can't make it to an upstate NY wedding that we'd have to have because of my dad's medical issues: "So wait, I gotta pay for the people who CAN make it, and for the people who can't, I gotta pay for ANOTHER party?? No freaking way. I'd rather try to help everyone get to the real wedding. I'm not paying for two parties."
Edited to make paragraphs; apparently TK is boycotting my recents attempts at formatting