Smaggle

WARNING: RANT AHEAD:

I am a bit of a serial bridesmaider myself. But, have also been to plenty of weddings where I only vaguely knew one or both of the bridal party!

Within the last two months, I have been to two weddings; one was a flash $80,000 job, the other was my sister’s – grand total: $3,000!
In my sister’s case, she explained to everyone (she thought) that the wedding ceremony was a quite affair, but due to costs, the reception was strictly invite only. She threw a bbq the next day for everyone she could think of, in lieu of the reception, and half of our town showed up.
Still, people got the pip for not receiving an invite to the wedding (including all those cousins we haven’t seen in years).
Everyone who went to the hen’s do were sufficiently ‘friends’ to understand about the budget constaints, and they were happy with their facebook invites to A) the hen’s night, and B) the bbq.
I guess though, maybe a hand written invite on nice stationary would be a good idea?

There seems to be a real ‘I invite you to mine, you invite me to yours’ feeling around weddings. And two people openly expressed this to my sister.

I was always of the understanding that a wee note at the bottom of the invite saying “Due to our stretched budget …” was enough to placate people not invited to reception. I guess I was wrong.
Maybe I’m too understanding, as I’ve also been to a wedding where we were asked to contribute financially to the reception, and another was “Bring a plate”! I’m just honoured to be thought of!

P.S: I’m in NZ

P.P.S: I think the first people will know of my wedding is when I show them pics of our elopement! It seems quite tempting of late!

1. Can you invite someone to the hens night and not invite them to the wedding?

No. Anyone in the hens night should be invited to the wedding.

2. Can you invite people to the engagement party and not the wedding?

Yes. Our engagement party was 2 years before our wedding. The people we were keen to party with at the beginning of 2000 was a bit different than at the end of 2001.

3. Should the couple send formal invitations to the ceremony if the guest is not also invited to the reception or should the invitation be less formal?

I think this can vary. I had invitations that had ceremony only and invitations that were for the ceremony + reception. BUT, I wouldn’t mail the ceremony-only invitations. I would give them by hand, and mail the others.

just as a guest – I’ve been invited to Hen’s night and not weddings – this is generally for workmates where there is no expectation of a wedding invite. My brother in law’s wedding -they invited people to the engagement who they didn’t expect to be able to include in the wedding.

it’s tricky with relatives though.

I’ve not had much involvement with weddings but when one of my close friends got married, I was invited to the engagement party and not the wedding. Another friend was invited to the wedding but not the engagement party. It had a weird sort of primary school – ‘you are my best friend today’ kind of vibe to it!

I’d say no to inviting people to the hen’s night and not the wedding generally although one friend did that and rang to explain the wedding was very small and she couldn’t invite everyone she wanted to have along. I think if it’s explained like that, it’s okay. People understand that weddings are super expensive.

All I can vouch for is me personally and my ideas are as follows:
I wouldn’t invite people to my hen night or engagement party that I wouldn’t invite to my wedding. I think that it can set a bad precedent where people just assume that they will be invited to all your wedding events. The only exception I can think of is if you were having a destination wedding and you knew that certain guests would not be able to make it to the wedding… I would still invite them though.
I also wouldn’t do the “ceremony invite” at all. I don’t like the idea of having two tiers of friends at the wedding – “you were important enough to see me married, but not important enough to celebrate that with me”

I think so much of wedding prep is personal preference… and etiquette is changing. You have to do what is comfortable for you.

I think you can do whatever the heck you like, actually. People get so uppity about how weddings ‘should’ be.

Personally, I eloped to the Registry Office with my sister and one of his sisters as witnesses. I wore jeans. We were on our way to meet up at the skifields with a group of friends for the weekend, some of whom knew about it and none of whom were invited.

(NZ, you know that.)

1. No. Unless the hen’s night is in a different city to the wedding. I had some workmates come to my Canberra hen’s night. I was married in Brisbane. All my Brisbane hen’s night gals were invited to the wedding.

2. Yes. Engagement parties are much less formal. We had two (one in Brisbane, one in Canberra) and there were people at both who weren’t invited to the wedding. When the engagement party is anywhere from 6 months to several years before the wedding, there are plenty of things that could happen – changes in jobs, friends growing apart, fallings out, etc. There were a lot of family members who weren’t invited to the engagement party but were invited to the wedding. I didn’t expect them to travel for a mere engagement party, but knew they would for a wedding. You can’t expect people to travel overseas twice for the same couple.

3. I don’t have a problem with ceremony-only invites. I sent some out myself. I had some former students who I thought would like to come and see me get married, so I sent ceremony-only invites out to the school so they’d know when and where it was. They were half the size of the full invites.

I’m loving this feature by the way. Just thought I’d chip in my two cents, my sister’s wedding is two weeks away so it’s a bit appropriate!

Firstly personally I think it’s a no go inviting people to a hens night that aren’t invited to the wedding, I think of the hens night as being the closer friends any way so wouldn’t they be invited to the wedding?

Secondly I think the engagement party is a bit separate from the wedding, and like Aprill said, some people have these years in advance. Also I think that there isn’t an expectation if you’re invited to celebrate an engagement that you’ll be invited to the wedding.

Thirdly I think that I understand people may not have the money to invite everyone they want to the reception but still want them to come to the wedding ceremony (although I still think if you’re a ceremony only friend it makes you feel a little second class haha…sometimes better not to be invited at all I think if you’re not invited to the whole shebang). However, I think if that’s the case you should still have an invitation, I think it shows that you were thought of and wanted there. A verbal invite, which I got once, made me feel like an afterthought, rather than if I had got a paper invite just to the ceremony.

I’ll probably think of more to say later but I remember awhile ago I was invited to a close cousins wedding but only to the ceremony and not the reception, this would have been fine whatever I understand that weddings are expensive and not everyone can come to everything. However, my dad (her uncle) was invited to everything and I saw his invitation and mine (for ceremony only) was obviously just his cut in half and that I have problem with. I think that ceremony invitations need to be full invitations (not full as in invited to everything) but they do need to look like a proper invitation and not one that was just cut in half.

I think nowadays everybody does their own thing.

I think it’s ok to invite people to your hens/engagement. Allot of times people have limited budgets and can’t afford to invite everybody would still love to spread their happiness around.

I wouldn’t personally send a formal invite for ceremony only, I would let them know in personal, it’s more of a personal touch.

My husband had quite a few bachelor parties. He was in the navy at the time and allot of his mates were on different ships and we only invited a small handful to the wedding but they were all happy to celebrate at the bucks night.

I’m from Australia.

I don’t have a huge wealth of experience – I’m 22 so most weddings I’ve been to have been family, with the exception of one friend’s wedding last year that was a HUGE expensive affair. but a few people from my year are married now so I guess I’m reaching ‘friends getting married’ age!
I think engagement parties are kind of a strange thing anyway, it’s like ‘everyone come and look at how in love we are!’ or something. I’d want to celebrate being engaged privately with my fiance and let the wedding be the chance for friends and family to celebrate with us. But I understand people like any excuse for a party, so I think the engagement party thing is acceptable in a number of situations:
1 – if you are getting married overseas. Invite as many people as you like because most of them know they won’t be able to get to the wedding.
2 – if you and your fiance are from different cities – obviously you’ll have to pick one to get married in, but it would be good to have an engagement party in each to celebrate with both sets of friends
3 – if your wedding will be family-only or with very close, old friends. then you can invite your workmates and newer friends to the engagement party and not worry about people comparing who got invites and who didn’t.
Oh also I guess at the engagement party you can have more people’s kids and partners etc. that you might not have invited to the wedding.
I wouldn’t invite any family who didn’t get invited to the wedding to the engagement party – I think that’s kind of like leaving a 50c tip at a restaurant, it’s making a point of them not being invited to the wedding.
As for hen’s nights, I think similar rules apply but it should generally just be your closest friends and any female relatives that are coming to the wedding. don’t invite every woman who will be at the wedding.
Also, the hen’s night could be a good chance to invite people who you invited to the wedding but for some reason won’t be able to go. You could invite workmates too but only just a casual verbal invite.
And the ceremony/reception thing… I have no idea, I’m not religious so the ceremony isn’t really important to me. My cousin had the ceremony at the restaurant right before the reception. People already had food and drinks, then the bride arrived, they did the vows, and it was straight back to the party!
I think if it’s a church wedding and there’s people who you think might like to come to the ceremony but you don’t want at the reception, just tell them where & when it is and say they’re welcome to come along – don’t make a big thing out of only inviting them to the reception.

phew, who knew there were so many things to think about? I’m gonna have a bbq wedding. everyone’s invited, no engagement or hen’s night beforehand. nothing exclusive and my aunties can all make the salads and desserts!

1. Hen night – No. The point of the hen night is for all the girls coming to the wedding to get to know each other, so that people coming from further away or whatever don’t turn up at the wedding not knowing anyone but the bride and groom.

2. Engagement party – yes. We just got engaged and there were people at the engagement party that I don’t think we can afford to invite to the wedding. The party had an open invitation, was held at our flat with two weeks notice, it was just a spontaneous thing for whoever was around. I see it completely separate from the wedding.

3. I’m really confused about this question, every wedding I’ve been to so far, it has been the ceremony and the dinner that have been smaller scale, and the reception had more people. We are only actually having immediate family at our ceremony (i.e. ten people), and will have a big reception/party. Invite wise, I’d be just as happy to receive a verbal invite only, but I think the done thing is to send formal invitations to everyone, regardless of what part of the celebrations they are coming to.

I haven’t been to many weddings and I certainly don’t know any rules, but personally I think if you are inviting someone it should be to everything. Unless its the hen night then it would only be close friends or whatever. But I just can’t imagine only inviting certain people to certain parts of the wedding.

Hehe, wedding etiquette – always a quagmire! Here’s my 2 cents worth:
1 and 2: Yes. Slightly more concerned about the hen’s party – it should technically be for the girls going to the wedding, but these days you can have your hen’s months before the wedding, or work mates might want to shout you a party or whatever. Depends a bit on how it’s handled.
3: Never. As in, never. Traditional etiquette is quite specific about this. It’s ok to have a smaller ceremony and larger reception, but never the other way round. Inviting someone to the ceremony and not the reception is asking for someone to be offended. It’s like saying “we want you to be at our wedding, but we don’t want to pay for your meal so you can celebrate with us” – not a good look. Younger generation guests MIGHT understand (they will still be disappointed) but older guests will think it plain rude. Not receiving a formal invitation doesn’t stop others from coming to the ceremony if they choose – if it’s in a church, for example, anyone can come – neigbours and other friends of the family might like to come. In this case, it’s easy enough to get the word out via the grapevine – mum’s of the bride/groom, other family, bridesmaids etc can let people know. Formal invitations should always be for the reception, regardless of whether it’s for the ceremony as well or not.

Finally, these days people pretty much do whatever they like. I don’t necessarily disagree with that – you just have to put up with the complaints (and believe me, they will complain, openly). But if you are at all concerned about causing offence in the final instance, avoid the problem. If you don’t want someone at the reception, don’t invite them to anything. They’ll be less offended than if you invite them to some things and not others! You can always have a informal party/bbq for everyone else afterwards.

Oh, and have a great time as bridesmaid!!

I’m from the US, Virginia to be precise.

1. Can you invite someone to the hens night and not invite them to the wedding?
NO

2. Can you invite people to the engagement party and not the wedding?
NO

3. Should the couple send formal invitations to the ceremony if the guest is not also invited to the reception or should the invitation be less formal?
NO

I’m a big believer in having a wedding you can afford, even if that means that it won’t be the huge wedding your greedy little heart dreamt of. Also, it’s just tacky to invite someone to a party and not the wedding, or to the wedding and not the reception. It’s saying “Gimme a gift, but you’re not really that important to me.”

In response to your concerns, typically it’s considered gauche to invite people to all of the pre-festivities without inviting them to the wedding itself. People have a sort of innate expectation that if they’re doing the pre-stuff, they’re going to be invited to the wedding itself, and you’re running the risk of offending them majorly. As for the ceremony/reception thing, I’ve never heard of people being invited to the ceremony but not the reception (though I’ve heard of the opposite). Again, I’m pretty sure people would expect to be invited to the whole thing.

If you’re in a tight financial bind, unfortunately, you’re going to risk hurting people’s feelings. No one wants to not be invited to the wedding/reception. They’re going to hear “we don’t like you as much as we like these other people” instead of “we’re sorry, but we just can’t afford it.” Weddings are one of those extremely touchy, delicate areas that you have to be careful about — I’d keep the festivities limited to the people that can enjoy all of it instead of just part.

To all questions – no! I think it’s quite tacky and almost rude to invite someone to one part and not to another. Weddings should be a celebration, of the partnership but also of friendship and love. People should be celebrating their friends as well – so you should invite who you care about and who YOU want to be at the wedding. Don’t rank your friends – “she’s nice enough to come to the ceremony, but not nice enough to come to the reception.”
Sorry – bit of a rant but I think it’s rude and should be a celebration of everybody.
I’m in NZ.

If it’s your wedding – do as you wish.
BUT be very clear as to who is invited to what.
And everyone likes a nice invite to whichever bits they are invited to.

Anyone who feels slighted/ranked – well you cannot account for other people’s feelings (but you could provide a ladder to allow folks to get over themselves). Also ask yourself whether the invitee would WANT to go to whatever you’re inviting them to (ie at a church wedding I would be admiring the architecture and not be immersed in religious significance).
I wouldn’t worry about upsetting anyone if the only reason they’d be miffed is related to some cost-per-wear on their wedding outfit or hat.

I didn’t have a hen night – nor was there a stag night – which kind of meant all wedding ‘rules’ were off and people actually paid attention rather than made assumptions about the day and the way it was going to go.

[...] E:If it’s your wedding – do as you wish. BUT be very clear as to who is invited to what. And everyone… [...]

1. Can you invite someone to the hens night and not invite them to the wedding? Yep. I had just started a new job three months out from my wedding, to soon to invite new workmates, but by the time the hens night came around, I had made some new friendships – they didn’t seem put out, and understood why they weren’t invited to the wedding. that said, the hens day (not night) was very casual and informal.

2. Can you invite people to the engagement party and not the wedding? We didn’t have an engagement party, but a guy I worked for got married and only wanted a small wedding, becuase they had heaps of friends, they decided to have a large fun engagement party, and a formal small wedding – it suited them, and I had a great time at the engagement party and wasn’t offended at all about not being invited (that said, some of us actually came to the wedding ceremony, just not the reception, after he verbally invited us).

3. Should the couple send formal invitations to the ceremony if the guest is not also invited to the reception or should the invitation be less formal? Hmm I think if you are going to be difficult about having them at the ceremony and not the reception, then I personally wouldn’t do up an invite, but just tell them verbally, explain why, and give them the details (maybe this could be on an invite similar to the proper one – I dunno?)

All in all, it wouldn’t bother me with all these situations. I think there are many people that need to grow up and accept that some people might want them to be a bit-part in their lives but not a full-part, and that, that is ok. Weddings or any parties can be hugely expensive and even without the cost, having to many people makes it really difficult for the bride and groom to get around and actually spend some quality time with everyone. I can totally understand the need to minimise numbers.

and I’m a canberra lass. xxoxo

1. Can you invite someone to the hens night and not invite them to the wedding?

Sure, it just depends on the structure of the hens night. If it’s a bunch of women going out for drinks, why not just invite anyone? this is the sort of thing where co-workers, friends of friends that you vaguely know, etc, get invited to celebrate, but not necessarily invited to the wedding (because let’s face it, if you’re out getting shit-faced, you’re probably paying your own way.

Then there’s the hens night that might just be close-friends and older female family members and likely doesn’t involve sitting around with penis-shaped straws and copious amounts of booze. Also the sort of night where females who’ll be at the wedding can bond and get to know each other.

I had a friend who had two hen’s nights; one was the big ‘let’s all get pissed!’ job where she invited everyone; the second was a small intimate thing with the bridesmaids and her mother and sister-in-law. I went to another that started with intimate friends/family and was hosted in her home, and afterwards all the younger women went out to get drunk – and met up with coworkers etc once we were out.

2. Can you invite people to the engagement party and not the wedding?
Again, depends on the nature of it. If it’s a formal event held close to the wedding I think it’s probably better off being the same crowd. But if it’s just a casual and spontaneous event, why not invite everyone?

3. Should the couple send formal invitations to the ceremony if the guest is not also invited to the reception or should the invitation be less formal? Tricky. Probably depends on the nature of the relationship? I’m 28 now and on at least two occasions over the last few years I’ve been invited to the ceremonies of friends-of-the-family, but not the reception (which my parents were invited to), and I understood it was just a matter of budget and me not being the direct-friend of the bride and groom (and it happened all the time when I was a kid). Another time I befriended a girl well into her engagement – after plans had been settled for the reception. She told me quite frankly that they couldn’t make changes to the reception because it’d already been paid for and settled, but she’d love to see me at both the hens and ceremony, and I was quite happy with that (verbal invites only).

I think I should clarify that the ceremony-only invitations I sent out were actually open invitations, not addressed to specific people, eg “To the former students of…”

It was the nicest way I could think of to let them know the date and location, especially since I was living interstate for 6 months before the wedding. They had no connection to any of the other guests, so would never have seen a full invitation.

Incidentally, a couple of them did show up at the ceremony and I was so pleased to see them there.

1. Yep, that’s fine
2. Yep, that’s fine too
3. Usually the other way round here (I’m British) – formal invites to the ceremony, and wider, more casual invite to the reception.

To be honest, it’s always going to be a minefield. Best your mates decide what they want to do, let everyone know and then hold firm when some people start mithering (that’s a cross between whinging and moaning here). There’s no such thing as ‘you have to do’ whatever, as it’s not actually a law. Despite what some relatives may think…
Wish you and your mates all the best, and hope it’s a day filled with laughter and love

You can invite people to the reception but not the ceromony. I think to be invited to the ceramony but not the recption is tacky. Same for hens night and engagement party (unless the wedding is family only or something). Everyone wants to see the vows so if people are invited to something wedding related they also need ot be invited to that. my 2 cents.

If the engagement party is quite far from the wedding. Say a year? I say you can not invite them to wedding but it is kinda tack that they are good enough for a party but not your wedding. Know what I mean?

I don’t think anyone who isn’t invited to wedding should be invited to hen’s night.

You can invite people to the reception and not the wedding because sometimes wedding venues such as churches are small and maybe you want just close family. I do NOT think it is ok to invite to wedding and not reception. That would be quite rude and uber tacky. I say if you are going to do that (though I think it’s weird) I would do a word of mouth thing and not a formal invitation because I think MOST people would assume if they are invited to wedding then they are invited to reception.

oh and I am from Boston MA

$80,000 ???$%##???
I feel slightly ill…

I can’t believe the number of people who are saying don’t worry what others think, they can get over themselves – the whole point of etiquette is to consider the other. In this case, people get hurt and offended probably because they really like the couple and if they’re invited to one, they would feel happy and then when they’re not invited to the actual thing, they’d feel disappointed. It’s not about feeling high & mighty from a status perspective but from , rather it’s about thinking you were close to someone but you weren’t.

And I do agree you can’t please everyone, but you can try and do things sensitively with the least damage!

That said my answers are:

1. NO – hen’s nights are for close friends usually, so why would you not invite them to the wedding.

2. MAYBE – I still feel that if you’re invited to the Engagement party, you would assume you were invited to the wedding unless it was EXPLICIT that the wedding was super small.

This happened to my husband & I – what rubbed it in was we HELPED with the engagement party and my husband never left the kitchen! So when we didn’t get a wedding invite, it really stung. However, we quickly got over it – we really like this couple especially the bride and we gave them the benefit of the doubt.

In the end, we got a last minute invite to the wedding because someone else couldn’t make it!

Weird right??!

3. Over in Malaysia where I’m from it’s common to invite more people to the church ceremony and then an afternoon tea and then have a smaller dinner reception. This might seem weird to some of you in Western societies who value the ceremony more but in Asian culture, it’s all about the dinner.

I have recently had the experience of being invited to an engagement party – for which I bought the couple a really nice, thoughtful gift – and then not being invited to the wedding. I felt really hurt and quite upset that I had been left out of the wedding, and also quite confused as to why I would be invited to the engagement party and not the wedding. Considering some of my close friends were invited to both it’s not like I wasn’t going to find out about the wedding or forget about it. The whole time I was assuming I was invited to the wedding, I was really happy for the couple and looking forward to it. I think if the engagement party is really casual (like a big BBQ for everyone you know) and you specify “no gifts” then it MIGHT be okay to not invite everyone to the wedding as well. But if the engagement party is more formal (with paper invitations sent out in the mail etc) and you are given gifts (unless you tell guests “no gifts”, you will get them), it seems really wrong and rude to then not invite the same people to the wedding. I basically feel like this couple only invited me to the engagement party to get a nice gift and I am really quite hurt by that.

Even ruder and more offensive (in my opinion) is only inviting someone to the ceremony and not the reception. You will come across as a cheapskate and someone who doesn’t care about the feelings of others (not really a good look if you want any friends left after the wedding is over). This has also happened to me (I seem to have bad luck in this area!) and it also left me feeling very hurt and left out as I watched everyone else heading off to the reception without me after the ceremony. Just try and think about how you would feel if it was you as the guest in this situation. You can’t help but feel really left out and hurt. It comes down to planning – if you think you are only going to be able to invite a few friends to the wedding, just don’t invite them to the engagement party. Believe me, they will be far less offended to be invited to nothing than to only one part. If you don’t invite them to anything they will understand it is for financial reasons and won’t be upset later on when they realise they have been left out of the wedding itself.

Sorry about the rant but this has been an extremely sore point for me in the past and has led to friendships being strained (to say the least). It is very hard to remain friends with someone when you feel as if they don’t really care enough to consider your feelings!

P.S. I am from Australia.