Wedding invitation confusion.

I would agree with you, you've been invited to see them get married, then to the evening reception.

I've seen someone turn up to a wedding breakfast uninvited, and all the shuffling and laying of another place was very embarrassing for all involved ?

Yep ceremony and evening do - not the wedding breakfast I would say.

Yup, I reckon ceremony and evening too. A friend invited us to their wedding like that - we had to travel 200 miles to get there. We ended up going to the ceremony, and then not going to the evening, but seeing some other friends in the area instead.

I agree, you've been invited for the service and the evening, not the wedding breakfast. Bit off really since the service is a public event in any case...

I agree with the others. If there's no detail at all of the wedding breakfast then you can't go really can you? Your H is as bad as mine?

The ceremony is at 12pm and the evening reception is 7.30pm. Thankfully we don't live far from the church or reception venue but there will be people we know coming a long way on the same invitation. Party back at ours I guess! ?

me too

Ooh - i think that is so rude

My best friend from uni days did this. We don't live anywhere near where they got married so went to Wetherspoons in town after the church and hung about til the evening do. I was a bit narked if I'm honest.

Some of our friends are getting married this summer and have just invited us to the evening do - I want to go to the church and watch them but H says you can't just turn up at the church uninvited.

I agree with everyone else that you are invited to the ceremony and then the evening do, which personally I think it rude however I have a weird thing against evening only invites anyway.

Doughnut - of course you can just turn up at the church. Part of the deal with a wedding is that it has to be open to the public, therefore the church doors must be left unlocked and it must be conducted during the hours of daylight. If I were you I'd just speak to the bride or groom and say that you'd really like to see the ceremony and is it ok if you pop along.

You can go to the church if you like - two friends and I did this when another friend was getting married and there were about half a dozen other people who hadn't been invited to the ceremony doing the same. It was fine.

To the OP, I agree that it sounds like you've been invited to the ceremony and evening reception, not the wedding breakfast since there are no details of that included. I personally think that's a bit rude but hey ho.

MrLs brother is inviting most people to the church and then to the evening reception and only close family will be going for the meal in between. As they are inviting over 100 people in this way I think there will be lots of confusion, lots of people deciding to pop over to the pub and then turning up drunk to the reception hours later or maybe not bothering turning up at all as it's quite a way from the church to the reception.

Why not just invite people to the evening do and then say 'you're more than welcome to come to the ceremony too if you'd like' rather than sending out confusing invitations.

Def an invite to see the ceremony and attend the evening do.

I don't agree that it's rude to do this, however, as maybe they can't afford for everyone to come to both the wedding brekky and the evening event. They are probably telling you about the ceremony details in case you're able to attend that, not coz they think you should sod off for the middle bit of the day ....

This happened at our wedding. Cue unhappy father, who was forced to fork out an additional £80 for the uninvited guests. Wouldn't have been so bad, but they'd failed to RSVP, and my Dad had left 3 messages on their answer machine to say that they couldn't come to wedding breakfast as they hadn't replied.

Re OP, I'd say it's ceremony & evening reception only.

This is what we done.

We were invited to a wedding with very similar wording in their invitations. My OH eventually had to phone the groom to find out exactly what were invited to. It was the first time I had heard of people actually doing this. I thought it would have been more suitable to invite you to the evening reception, then put a slip of paper saying that we were more than welcome to go along to the ceremony.

That's what I think as well but to look at the invitation it definitely looks like it's an all dayer. It's only the lack of information and the additional card inside that's made me realise it's not . I can see some people (who haven't got married or been on a wedding forum for the last 5 years) getting quite confused for it.

I agree with you. I know that churches are a public place but a lot of people don't necessarily feel that they can just turn up - maybe the people doing the inviting just want to let you know that they'd like you to be at the ceremony even though you aren't invited to the day do.

fair enough - i am not that keen on the day/evening thing anyway so perhaps it seems worse to me

tbh it smacks of - we quite want to see the church filled up but are too tight to feed you all so bugger off and come back for the sarnies later

That's a bit harsh - some people simply can't afford to cater for a large number of people.

I'm not offended by the invitation, I apologise if I've come across that way, I just wanted to clarify that my understanding of it was correct.

DID

i didnt think you were offended

i personally think if you cant afford to cater for a large number of people then have a smaller wedding

clearly lots of people feel differently - but as that is how i feel i think it is a bit rude

Definately ceremony and evening do. We had an invitation like this not long ago and went to the church. Wish we hadn't bothered now though! After the ceremony us and the few other evening guests who had come to the church were excluded from the photographs and didn't know what to do with ourselves. We just left and drove to the hotel we were staying, also were the reception was taking place.

We got changed and then went to the bar for a drink and something to eat. It was a glorious day, but we couldn't go into the garden because they were having welcome drinks out there and we would have felt awkward. We were then forced to sit in a hot conservatory and watch whilst all the "more important" guests enjoyed the drinks and sunshine!

If I got an invitation like that again I would just go to the evening reception. Although I personally don't like separating guests and basically saying I like you more than you! I appreciate if often comes down to necessity and budgets rule all of our lives. This is why we are going to have a later ceremony and just invite everyone to the whole thing.

How odd. Your husband is most definitely wrong, but I'm not surprised he's confused. Why didn't they just say 'you are invited to a reception to celebrate themarriage of.....at 7pm etc etc'. The inclusion of the ceremony on the invitation creates confusion, and from first glance it looks like a 'whole day' invitation. I think I'm going to write a book on wedding etiquette, because some people are a bit clueless. ?

WSS. An invitation to the evening with a note saying when the ceremony is to be held and that you're welcome to attend would be far more appropriate IMO.

I worked in a pub when we got married and loads of the customers and staff turned up for the ceremony, I was really touched that they did.

Ceremony and evening.

We had a couple turn up to see our ceremony, we had room for 80 and had 80 so it was a little embarassing, the hotel managed to shuffle them in the back though. I think a chursh is ok to turn up to watch but not a civil ceremony as your usually limited on numbers. (unless your invited of course)

ATG, any wedding ceremony is a public event - the chapel where we got married only held 80 as well but if uninvited guests had turned up they still would have had to let them in.

Really? I never knew that!