Why ...

I think some people just like to find things to be offended by, quite honestly!

I don't get the not turning up out of being offended thing as I think it's nice to be invited regardless. the only thing is I can understand people not coming to just the evening if it's quite far away as it's a long way to go for a few hours. We're only having close friends/family to the day so I expect some of the evening invites won't come but I've been quite clear from the moment we announced the date so people already generally know if they're evening only and if they can't come because it's too far I'll understand

I have the same gripe with my family although a little different. If that makes sense, my brother recently got married and had a bigger "day" guest list to us. I have a large family and my h2b has very small so we decided on 50 to the day which only covers my aunts, uncles and a few special friends. My brother (obviously) and sil have big families so they went for 80 which covered out aunts, uncles and cousins. I've felt awful telling my cousins that the were only invited to the evening as some I am close with, yet their mums and dads have been invited to the whole day. I had already sent my STD cards out before my brothers wedding. But I now regret this as not 1 of them made a real effort on the day, although they were there it looked more like a hassle than a day to enjoy for them. I have toyed with the idea of retracting the STD card and only inviting them to celebrate later with us. But thought that was too rude so had to go with what is set out.

All in all I'd say just enjoy your day, if they "don't turn up" because it's too much of an inconvenience to them then I don't see they are going to contribute much to your day anyway. Your day us for you and your H so enjoy it and if it needs to be done, worry about who didn't turn up after it.

Xx

I had a lot of my family not respond for ages and had to do some investigating via another family member who is not an idiot. Turns out they were also 'a bit cross' about being invited to just the evening. The problem was that with a very large number of cousins, we just couldn't afford it without going into debt, which I was not prepared to do. We are only having 40 day guests and many of these are the friends that I see every day, not just the cousins we see on occasions like Christmas!

I found their attitudes to be very hurtful and, as you say, it is hard to just think, 'well, it's their loss'. Anyway. Most are coming now and I am just going to pretend I have no idea they were annoyed and be gracious and charm personified on the day. ;-)

Most apart from one couple who messaged my mum on facebook and just said 'Tell her we won't be coming.'. Charming. With that attitude I am glad they are not coming!

This is a great summary of one of them! There is no pleasing her, at a wedding last year her husband moaned non stop and tutted because the bride was 10minutes late, making it very known to all around, rude. Its just so silly to class it as "only" an evening invite - personally i would be happy with an invite at all.

If i was to invite all aunts, uncles, cousins and friend just my side alone would be 60+ people and then its the same for the OH. We haven't got the budget to be doing that and like other have said im not willing to get into debt over it.

It just upsets me that they think that less of me to reject their own nieces wedding invite because they will not be there all day, its a right slap around that face. I always considered my family as tight and the last thing i wanted to cause was a rift!

My poor mum too is very upset as these are her sisters. I cant make them come to something they dont want to but maoning about it on here helps ha.

I know what you mean, my family (and my mother) is the same way. I fortunately have had the fortune of having a few weddings in my family over the pass few years and 3 recent ones in OH's so I had a good gauge of what peoples responses were. I've managed to invite all my ants & uncles and his AND his cousins (i have a bigger family than him). My cousins are evening only ... not sure how that will go (but I've be evening only to a lot of theres so meh)

I will say this, theres 1 set of cousins who aren't. I just don't get on with them AT ALL. Gonna brace for impact on that one.

Thou that said, you cant please everyone. Everyone has they're own opinion on how things SHOULD be. the amount of advice on how to do it the 'done way' is enough to put a bullet between my ears

I think that often people don't know what goes in to planning a wedding including having to limit the amount of people who can come.

When you think about it, if you have a fairly large family or you invite couples then the spaces get used up pretty quickly.

I might be wrong, but it also seems to me that weddings nowadays are different to how they were when my parents, for example, got married. My OHs parents are the worst for this... They keep asking to have more friends come & his mum threw a bit of a strop at the weekend because we have already reached our maximum number of day guests and sent save the dates out to them ages ago. They also had a bit of a moan as we didn't go for a traditional cake, ours is one of those 'naked cakes'. And they're constantly making comments about the cost of things (even though we have shopped around for good deals.

Leave them to it... I think they're just looking for something to be offended by. They should be happy they've been invited at all!

And this is why we are only inviting our parents and my OH's kids to the actual wedding. Everyone else can then be equally as offended!

To be fair, the only person who has raised a complaint is my sister who also thinks her granddaughter should be a bridesmaid.

You just made me remember Ive actually been to 4 wedding not 3 ? but one was just an evening guest

I wouldn't take offense (its nice to be invited at all) to it but to me it does tend to be the more forgettable section of the day, I think some family (especially traditional ones) and close friends would be annoyed but friends, work friend, distant family (cousins etc...) and acquaintances should be fine

Oh God it's such a nightmare isn't it!

When we first got engaged me and my OH made a draft guest list of day do and evening do. We had the day do numbers at 80, and then probably an extra 50 people in the evening. We went round to see my parents and my mum kept adding people on - you can't not invite them, you can't invite them and not them etc etc. She threw us an engagement party and invited lots of old family friends that I haven't seen in years (and my OH has never met - we have been together 6.5 years...) which then made us feel awkward as we would have to invite them.

Now don't get me wrong, my parents are helping us financially with the cost of the venue and food, which I am eternally grateful for and without them our wedding would probably be drastically different. So in that sense, I totally understand that if my mum wants to invite a few people then it's really as much her choice as ours as she will be paying for them. I just still find it so frustrating, that some of these relatives never want to have anything to do with us, don't come to any family events such as birthdays, christenings... even for my brother's wedding they didn't come because they 'were too tired'!!! And what I worry is that they will say they will come and then not turn up, and my parents will still have to pay for their food..

I am also experiencing similar problems within my group of friends. There is a large group, but inevitable, I am closer to some of the girls that others. So I am inviting some to the day and some to the evening. Day do people are generally those friends who we see regularly, who keep in contact, we do stuff together as couple, people who make the time for us etc etc, you know the score. But a couple of the girls from the group of friends assume that they are coming to the day do, simply because it's a wedding and they just assume they are. I have know them for over 10 years as we went to school together, and we used to be quite close, but in the last few years we have grown apart which people do. I never hear from them, no calls or messages, we would never meet up to go out just on our own, we only met up when the whole group is going out for an occasion such as somerone's bday... so I figured that we aren't that close anymore and that an evening only invitation would be ok. But I am getting grief off people!!

My best friend got married a couple of years ago, and she didn't invite everyone from the group, and I don't remember her getting this bother!

ARRRRGHHHHH. Rant over. Ha.

I didn't go to my cousins evening reception, as it was "only an evening invitation", and was too far to drag my kids, all for a couple of hours.

I didn't take offence though, she wasn't invited to my wedding either...

We haven't sent out invites yet (still 18 months to go!) but I'm already pre-emtping the ones who won't be coming; there's my uncle and his wife who rarely come to family events and as we're not having children at the ceremony will use that as an excuse not to come at all and two friends from uni who have said they're excited about it all but are very flaky so imagine they will say they're coming then won't!

We've also been told who to invite; my FMIL suggested we invite her auntie and uncle despite my never having met them (H2B and I have been together 10 years) and H2B only having met them two or three times. We are having a small ceremony (45 including us) and aren't relying on parents contributions to pay for things and she has brought it up three times despite us both saying that we won't be inviting them to the day time; we've explained our reasons and she said that they're "the only family she has left"...we have invited her parents and three siblings plus partners all of whom she is close to. I doubt it's the last we'll hear about it either!

Without taking sides, I think some people simply believe the wedding celebration is the ceremony bit.The afterwards is the party and fluff stuff which can be done at any other time. Birthdays, anniversaries, etc...

I am a bit of Pollyana and always believe the best in people and try to see things from their point of view, sorry if it isn't the support you were looking for

I personally don't mind being invited for the evening only, but if people believe witnessing the wedding is what counts they might take offence they should have been invited for it and refuse to go. Is all about making a point, "if I can't be there to see you get married, why should I be there to eat eve food and dance a little?"

Is just people's perception on what bit of the wedding counts. I have a friend and she only wants to be there for the ceremony and leave! I much rather she stayed the whole day to enjoy it with us, but how could I force to stay if she hates the meal and eve dance bits?

Shame your mum is sad about it now, I can see how it would be upset for her they wouldn't be there at all.

Hope you are feeling better about it though and that by the time of the wedding your mum will also be over it ?

I think a lot of it comes down to how welcome peope are made to feel. We only had 40 people to our ceremony and 100 additional in the evening so we made a point of trying to make the evening guests feel welcomed.

We did a separate STD for evening guests along the lines of "Please keep the evening free to celebrate with us" then I added a little note in the envelope for some of them to say "we're having a small intimate ceremony but would love for you to join us from 5.30 for speeches, cake cutting and champagne".

So we had the "evening" from 5.30 til 1am, we did the speeches, cake cutting and first dance when everyone was there, had a free bar all night and provided 2 lots of food (bowl food at 6ish and then hog roast at 9.30). I think (hope) that these things together did make people feel wanted.

I have to admit that if I turned up for an evening reception at 8, had to buy drinks and then it finished at 11 I would feel like a bit of an afterthought. I know that peoples budgets differ as do people's priorities, this is just my opinion.