Evening invite and ceremony

It depends on how far your venue is from the church and also how far from where a lot of people are travelling. Where I live, it's quite the norm for people to turn up to the church/chapel in their day clothes and just sit at the back and then go home and get dressed up for the evening. At my sister's wedding, she wasn't able to invite all of her colleagues to the day, so gave them all an evening invitation, but mentioned in conversation that they were all welcome to come to the church. The issue was that the venue was about 40 minutes from the church. Her colleagues got all dressed up for the day and hired a minibus to take them to the venue, stopping at a couple of pubs for food and drink along the way.

My venue is about 15-20 mins away from the church. There's is a nice pub across the road from the church and also one across the road from the venue so a couple of places for people to go any way. But I guess that there will be a long wait around if they do come to the church. I guess if I just add it to the invite is their choice If they want to or not. They will know the times so if it's an issue they don't have to come to the church. My Fmil went to a wedding recently and went to the church and the evening. They just went home till the reception.

I've been to a couple of weddings where I was invited to the ceremony and the evening only. Both times I went home in between but they were both very local so this was easy to do. If it was further from home I probably wouldn't go to the ceremony, just the reception.

We are hoping to add an insert on another piece of card on some evening invitations to invite them to the ceremony. Not sure on the wording just yet though.

A friend of mine recently went to an evening reception for a mutual friend. He was a bit annoyed he wasn't invited ot the ceremony, in his eyes the actually getting married bit is the most important part and he wasn't bothered about evening (and wasn't expecting to go to meal). So for people like his what you want to do would be popular! He is a bit eccentric and odd as a person though so I don't know if many people feel that way haha. I think it is worth including some people will come. I think most people know how expensive the meal part is and would understand. I think your wording is fine.

As others have said depends on where the church/venues are. I've been to 2 weddings where I have gone to the ceremony and the evening reception. Both of the churches were local (within 10min drive). It wasn't much of and issue- For one of the them I had work in between, and the other we just went home and had dinner etc.

Heres the wording from one of the invites:

...request the pleasure of the company of... at an evening reception to celebrate their wedding on .... Evening guests are also welcome at the wedding ceremony. Ceremony at ..... followed by tea & cakes at... .Evening reception from .... at .....

We are inviting our eve guests to the church ceremony, but all our eve guests are local and our church and eve venue are both in the city centre, so they can either go home in between or have a nice lunch, mooch around town then come to the eve. apparently its quite common for church weddings, and i think the church is the important bit, so want people to be able to come if they want to.

I've been to a wedding before where this happened - we were the evening guests but the church ceremony was open to all. We travelled up to Scarborough from the Midlands and there was a few of us so we went to the ceremony - then went to wetherspoons for some lunch and then went and hit a few pubs and slot machines then went and partied at the wedding!!

They were good friends so we didn't really mind doing this and they day was really fun!

How far apart are the ceremony and evening venue? At my first wedding, the two venues were about 15mins apart. A lot of the evening guests attended the ceremony, then went for drinks in town before coming to the reception venue for the evening.

Our evening guests are all local- I thought it was unfair to ask people to travel, get a hotel etc for just the evening. Our evening invitations are almost exactly the same as the day ones:

Blah and blah invite you to celebrate their marriage at 2pm at blah church and then from 7.30pm at blah venue. the day invites say the same except that where the 'from 7.30pm' is it says 'and then afterwards at...' No one has been confused at this.

I think I would be a little annoyed to be honest. Plus it could add confusion. I know you'll make it clear in the invite but there may be some people that don't see it so clearly and end up at your venue ready for the wedding breakfast but they're not actually meant to be there.

Plus people might not bother as they'll have to get ready for the ceremony, then go back home or wherever and then have to get ready again for the evening.

I know it would be nice to fill up a big church but if I was in this situation I'd just keep both parties separate.

This looks good, i may borrow it! I'm only sending the option of coming to the ceremony (to evening guests) when they're local to the church so they can go home again after. Anyone further afield i don't want to make them feel like they have to be there only to have 4 hours in an unknown place waiting for the evening to start.

For my first wedding, I simply put "all are welcome at the church" at the bottom of the invite. And we thought this was sufficient. Until a school friend of mine turned up at the reception after the church and had interpreted it as her being invited to the whole thing. My mother had to go and tell her that there was no space for her, but that she was welcome to the evening do from 7.30.

Needless to say, she "couldn't make the evening".....and I didn't hear from her after that. A real shame, as she was a very close friend at school, and now I can't even locate her via facebook.

So, definitely take care with the wording and make it uber clear rather than confusing. I personally don't see anything with inviting all and sundry to the Church - it was the norm in the old days, and is rather nice, but others will expect more or jump to conclusions if you're not careful, and from bitter experience, I would want you to avoid that one!!!

I definitely wouldn't be insulted. having said that I know how anguishing it is trying to balance having as many family/ friends there as possible with keeping the budget reasonable :-/ If it were me i think I'd probably make it clear that i'd love everyone to be at the church on our special day, and to party with us in the evening, but due to financial constraints only immediate family will be at the meal. If you spell it out they can't very well be upset can they x

Hi, I was just wondering whether you have had any more luck with your wording for this?

Hi, we have decided against this now. We have just added the people we really wanted and have decided to just spend the extra money on day invites. Sorry I'm not much help for you.

Ive been invited to a wedding this way. i certainly wasnt offended, it was lovely to be able to see the ceremony. as others have said though, just be really clear on the invite.