You may or may have not read my other post but we decided a big wedding was just not our cup of tea after all. We canceled the venue (fully refundable deposits on venue and all vendors) and we are still getting married that day with our immediate families, small wedding party & their SO's (23 people).
I'm re-purposing my 'Thank You' cards because I thought I was being proactive when I addressed and stamped all of them already. I cut off the front page that says Thank You and I will send the inside of the card which is blank with a small design. Just not sure what to write on it. Please help- I was thinking:
Regretfully, we (do I use 3rd person here?) have decided to cancel the formal wedding scheduled for September 13th.
We (3rd person?) will still be married (don't want them to think we broke up) in the presence of immediate family and wedding party. (do I even mention that these people get to be there?)
Thank you for your understanding, we love you.
Re: Cancellation wording?
Now for the problem. You are not cancelling the wedding! You are un-inviting the people who were either sent STDs or invitations. This is not acceptable.
You need to reschedule your private ceremony to another date! If you keep your same date, you are being very rude to your former guests. Find a different time that works for your family, and get married quietly. Then you send out wedding announcements to friends and family who were not invited. This does not mean that they should send you a gift.
Brides Full Name
and
Groom's Full Name
announce their marriage
New date
City, State (No other details!)
or
Mr. and Mrs. Bridesparents
announce the marriage of their daughter
Bride's First Middle
to
Mr. FI's Full Name
Date
City, State
I was invited to a wedding that was changed to a family only wedding on the same date. I was mad because I already bought my tickets to fly there I had to cancel and I got a huge penalty I had to pay. Please make sure no one has spent any money for your wedding.
I realize some of you think it's in bad form and it may hurt some feelings but that's up to me and my fiance. We do not have a big, close group of friends or people who care about us. The people who are invited are our parents, grandparents, siblings families, and our 2 best friends who have been there through it all and we speak to daily. Those are the only people we are close to in life. So for someone to say "how come she makes the cut and I don't?" It's because she's my freakin grandmother or she's my #1 best friend that is my rock. I don't think that's unreasonable.
I know this sounds shitty but the people being cut are being cut because they aren't good friends. I have all of these "friends" who used to be my friends in high school. But over the last 5-10 years I try to call them, text them, hang out with them and I get nothing from them. I know some people are just bad at keeping in touch and have oher things going on in their life, but they can't expect the friendship to survive with 100% effort from me and 0% effort from them. I call people and try to get together with people weekly and they blow me off, blow me again off and I never see them until I get invited to their stupid baby shower or something. Like I said, this isn't a new development, these people have been doing it to me for years. When we first started planning, we thought we were obligated to invite them all just based on us knowing them forever and being invited to their stuff.
But now we realize that it's not worth it to us to spend thousands of dollars to have these people that can't be bothered with us the other 364 days a year. I'm sorry if that sounds bad but it's the truth. We're saving for a larger home and that money can go a long way rather than hosting a bunch of people that I'll never hear from again (until they want another shower gift). So they really have no right to get their feelings hurt and if they do, I don't care because mine are hurt weekly when I try to get together and receive no answer.
So thanks for your opinions, I do appreciate the time you take to write but I know what is best for myself and my future family. I agree that I messed up in the beginning, I should have come to this realization earlier and not sent them all save the dates. I f-ed up there. I agree that a different day would have been the preferred choice, and if my parents and photographer friend lived in town, we'd do it tomorrow. But their flights are already booked and vacation time is already scheduled so that's unfortunately the weekend it needs to happen. Not that I need to justify myself, I just wanted to give a further explanation so you could see that these aren't great friends we are doing this to and won't affect the future of our relationships with these people. Thanks.
We don't "think" its bad form it is bad form. Its extremely rude to not send an invite to people who got a save the date. We always say the exception is if you are willing to lose the friendship, which is sounds like you are. So I agree with Lolo- you send a heartfelt note and apologize. It really doesn't matter that these "aren't great friends you are doing it to." We don't give advice that says don't be rude to great friends, but second cousins or whoever is fine to be rude to. We say don't be rude to anyone.