Offended my parents with our wedding invite

Are they paying for/contributing heavily to your wedding?

They are contributing around 25%

Having the invites from the bride's parents is the traditional way, but only makes sense these days if they are paying for the wedding. Mine are paying for most of ours so we discussed it with them and decided to do the invitations the old-fashioned way. But these days its very common for the invites to come from the bride and groom, or the B&G 'and their families'. I'm sure they will get over it - perhaps find something to involve them in to make them feel included.

I think that for an invite for them it should be from you anyway. Are they paying for your wedding?

I had a situation where my dad was offended by an invite. My best friend threw me a party when I left school. I wasn't involved in the planning at all and it was mostly a surprise. She sent an invite to my dad with his full name and partner. He phoned me and went ballistic that it said his full name and not dad. It was so pathetic that someone would be offended by something like this, sometimes the smallest thing sets someone off. Personally I wouldn't worry, it is becoming much more common for the bride ad groom to host, unless maybe the parents are paying every penny for it?

S x

To be fair it's not really them who are hosting your wedding - it is you and your future H, which is the modern way of doing things now. We put 'Together with her parents' on our invitations, but as you rightly say it's too late to change your invites now. All you can do is say that you didn't mean to cause offence and make amendments with a big thank you and a gift presentation during your speeches instead. I'm sure they'll get over it.

Did they expect to be the hosts on the invite when they arent paying for all/majority of it?

Maybe they thought it would say 'Bride & groom, along with their families invite you....'. Did they say what they thought the wording would be? DId they contribute 25% & yourselves 75%?

I too talked to my family about the wording BEFORE doing the invites. Its too late to change them now, but maybe talking to your family about it might ease things.

The wedding invitation should come from those who are HOSTING the event - as in all invitations - so if they are only contributing 25% then they are not really hosting it - presuming you mean that you are contributing the other 75%? Or even if not, such as if your partner's family are contributing too then perhaps you could have said that 'together with their families' but it really is not a big deal - at least not to the extent they are making it - if they wanted to be listed as the host they should have offered to pay for it all!

My parents will be paying I'd say about 75% of our wedding (the reception and venue, which is very pricey) so I will have the traditional way of 'Mr & Mrs X request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their daughter.... to...'

My parents are paying for the majority of the reception costs with me and OH contributing and then we are also paying for the remainder of the costs (flowers/tog/dresses etc) all bar my dress which my nan has paid towards. After some initial guidance from Hitched a few months back we went with the invitation from us "together with their families", OH parents are not contributing but I thought rather than risk offending them and leaving them out of it me and OH agreed to put "together with" as ultimately on the day it's about two families coming together.

If it's come as a surprise to them when they recieved it then they clearly haven't been involved in actually designing/making/ordering the invites which implies to me they are a bit far off the mark in their claim to be hosting!!!

WSS.

It's normal for Mum and Dad's name to be on the invite if they are hosting it as others have said. Setting apart the who's paying or what percentage parents are contributing, I personally feel that if the Bride and Groom no longer live with parents and you have had your own place and lives completely separate from your home life with parents, then it sounds better coming from the couple. In our case, our daughter had lived in her own place from the age of 17 and married at 24. We have only a very small family so the vast majority of guests were friends of theirs who didn't know us so it just felt right that they should have their names on the invite.

As your parents are only contributing 25% of the budget, I think it's a little unfair of them to expect to be named as the hosts of the wedding. My parents lost their business many years ago and don't have much money, but amazingly they have offered to pay for my dress. OH's parents are very well off and are contributing a lot more than this but we have already agreed with both sets of parents that the invitations are from us as a couple.

Wow, thank you all so much for your help and opinions. It has really helped us both.

After a very bad night's sleep and a lot of discussion, we both feel bad and sick about whats happened. Part of me is also angry they just assumed that's what we would do and have told us when its too late to do anything about it.

At the moment it has taken a bit of a shine off the wedding but I'm hoping this feeling will pass with time.

I wish they had said what they wanted/assumed, as we did give them the opportunity or before we had handed the bulk of the invites. Families eh?

I think it's more normal these days to come from the couple unless as everyone says the parents are paying the lot, in which case I would have also expected them to have had a big part in helping to choose the invtations and the wording. I am a little suprise that your mum hadn't seen the invites already as although mine didn't pay I showed her everything. Not a criticism just an observation which may prevent this for others.

As a guest I wouldn't really notice who it was from unless I was a dyed in the wool stickler for tradition, don't think there are may of those left.

They saw a mock up of the invite but weren't that interested. I believe my mum's exact words (about the design) were 'well they're different'.

I wish she had mentioned then they would like it to say Mr & Mrs ..... invite you.... and not just assume that's what we were doing.

I hope this helps someone else!

If they saw the invitations and didn't say anything then it's their own fault anyway! Although as everyone else you're not obliged to put them as the hosts when they are not contributing more than you are. My parents are paying about 2/3 so I will put them as the hosts. A colleague received a wedding invitation from France recently and the hosts were all named: all four parents and eight grandparents! I thought that was a bit much.

She saw a mock up and didn't mention it?

Don't lose any more sleep.

I have done the same - my parents saw the invite and didn't say anything but I think were a little surprised. For me its not on whose paying or hosting, I wanted the invite to be from us (seems I am having a bit of rebellion from traditions)

As you said nothing you can do, they did see a proof, and I am sure will get over it soon.

hope you happy with your hunsband.

?

I don't see their problem to be honest.

They are not hosting the wedding, you are.

They had their chance to speak when you showed them the draft... they chose to say nothing.

Don't lose any more sleep over it, it is their issue not yours.

We had our invites with my parents as the hosts and they aren't contributing anything towards our wedding.

I know this is not entirely related, as my parents were fine with us 'hosting', but just thought I'd mention that I was a bit surprised when, after addressing our invitations from us, all my relatives proceeded to run what passes for them as RSVPs, through my parents anyway, instead of directly to us. I was a bit 'whatever' about it, just a bit miffed that they paid attention to nothing on the invite apart from the wedding details- RSVP date and named invitees all went out the window too, but it wasn't worth getting in a tizz about.

I don't think we even got any back from OH's closest family, as their presence was mutually assumed and he refused to confirm.. They all turned up anyway.

I did think about this when we sent our invites out, as because me and OH are paying for our wedding ourselves, although both sets of parents have helped out and my parents are divorced, we put our invites from ourselves, together with parents, so that way we included everyone.

I do think my dad was a little upset we hadnt gone the tradional way, but this way was best for us, but everyone is fine about it.

I wouldnt worry to much, they will get over it and afterall it's only the invites, you have the day itself to look forward to! x

My mum was a bit miffed that we didn't have her name on the invite and people were invited by us. She was a bit funny for a day or so but she got over it.

Our invitations say from us and not our parents too. I showed my mum the design and the invitation as i had a mock up while we were waiting for my BM to print the rest. She said that traditionally wedding invitations come from the Brides parents. Well i told her traditionally brides parents pay for the wedding! My mum laughed and said fair point and told me they looked lovely.

H and I spoke with my parents about our invites, and they said that given that we were paying for the majority of the day, then the invites should come from us. So we sent ours out from us.

As with dlees81 - We had most people going to my parents anyway and asking questions about the wedding, even though we put on the RSVP cards our numbers and email address. And not everyone got back to us either, but told my parents or H's parents if they were going or not.

My mum gave me £250 for our wedding (so not much) and his parents have given us nothing but I still wanted to include them on out invite so ours looked like this....

Yes Aurora, thats the kind of thing I will put, i think my parents will want to be the hosts though as they are giving the same as OH's parents I think this is much more suitable.