I’ve been catching up on the entertaining tales at EtiquetteHell.com and I’ve come across a couple of statements to the effect that if you’re invited to a wedding, you’re required to attend, barring death or some such thing. I was always under the impression that an invitation was not a command and if you didn’t want to attend, you sent your regrets.
Do you feel like you have to go to a wedding just because you’ve been invited? If you sent out wedding invitations, did you expect everyone to accept and attend?
No, that’s a line of bullshit. You can always send your regrets. I’ll bet the people feeding you that line are the ones who send out gobs of invites because lots of guests = lots of gifts.
Many people send invitations assuming they’re not going to be accepted. They want to acknowledge that you’re important to them, but you’re not close enough that they expect you to drive 8 hours to their wedding or anything. Some people even have B-lists of people that they send invitations to after they get there first round of declining responses. Obvously, if that’s the case, not everyone who’s invited is expected to come.
Etiquettehell.com is jus a bizarre site for neurotic weeding freaks with n sense of proportion.
Bah. This is more spoiled brides living out their royalty fantasies. Only real queens can “command” people to attend their parties. And nowadays I’m sure even they get snubbed from time to time.
Mind you, be sure to send regrets if you can’t go. It opens a slot for the B list if there is one; if you’re invited to the reception, they need an accurate head count for the caterer; and it’s good manners anyway.
Then they need to learn the difference between a wedding invitation and a wedding announcement. Sending someone an invitation under the assumption that the person will not attend is, if nothing else, stupid. What does one do if all the people one invited with the expectation that they wouldn’t attend decided to attend?
You’re obligated to respond to the invitation by either accepting or declining it whether the host requests it or not.
I have a wedding invite sitting on my counter. For people I don’t even know. Hub knows guy thru work. I in no way feel an obligation to go. Yes, it was nice that they thought to include my husband in their party, and BTW, if the invites are any indication, it’s gonna be a heck of a party. Anyway, I most certainly RSVP’d (only a Daft Dolt wouldn’t RSVP, and yes, there’s lots of DDs) and noted on the card that I’d like to know where they’re registered. Nobody has gotten back to me. They just might end up with a WalMart gift card, bwaa-haa-haa!
I’m not planning on attending the actual ceremony though. We’re just gonna show at the reception. Not big on Catholic weddings. Now, is THIS rude? They won’t even notice we’re not there unless we tell, which I intend on telling hub implicitely not to do.
I think it’s rude to just go to the reception and not to the wedding. I suspect you think so too on some level, or you wouldn’t instruct your husband not to let on about your plans. I mean, chances are they might not actually care and would be glad to have you at the reception, but I can’t imagine enjoying the party if I couldn’t be bothered to sit through the ceremony.
Follow-up question: if you decline a wedding invitation, do you send a gift?
Do you send one if you just get an “announcement”?
I kind of say yes and no, respectively.
Anecdote: When I was in graduate school in Baltimore, I got an invitation to “Joe”'s wedding in California. I didn’t go and didn’t send a gift (what I said earlier notwithstanding).
Several years later, I’m getting married. I’ve fallen out of touch with Joe. Probably haven’t heard from him since his wedding. He and I know some of the same people. He calls me and says, “I’m going to be in town that weekend of your wedding and we’d like to come.”
Well. . .yeah, that was tacky but I had been good friends with him. So, we invited him and his wife.
They came to the wedding. Never gave us a gift. I wasn’t upset at the lack of a gift or anything, but to call up, invite yourself, for maybe the sake of a revenge-snubbing, even though he was a professional at this point. Yee.
Weddings can really bring out the bullshit in people.
Follow-up question: if you decline a wedding invitation, do you send a gift?
Do you send one if you just get an “announcement”?
I kind of say yes and no, respectively.
Anecdote: When I was in graduate school in Baltimore, I got an invitation to “Joe”'s wedding in California. I didn’t go and didn’t send a gift (what I said earlier notwithstanding).
Several years later, I’m getting married. I’ve fallen out of touch with Joe. Probably haven’t heard from him since his wedding. He and I know some of the same people. He calls me and says, “I’m going to be in town that weekend of your wedding and we’d like to come.”
Well. . .yeah, that was tacky but I had been good friends with him. So, we invited him and his wife.
They came to the wedding. Never gave us a gift. I wasn’t upset at the lack of a gift or anything, but to call up, invite yourself, for maybe the sake of a revenge-snubbing, even though he was a professional at this point. Yee.
Weddings can really bring out the bullshit in people.
(oh, and to the OP – no, you are not obligated to accept. But if you live nearby and are good friends, I hope you have a good reason)
My daughter and I joke that we’re going to get the club or theme park arm bands and give them out at the wedding. No armband to show - no entrance to the reception. I think it’s very rude.
I think it’s horrible to plan to miss the point of the day and to go for the food and booze - either decline the whole thing or give the couple your respect by attending the ceremony.
You are under no obligation to go to any event for which you receive an invitation. One may politely accept or politely decline. Invitations (and announcements) also do not obligate you to buy a gift.
Also, count me in with those who say it’s the height of tacky and IMO rude to not attend the ceremony as well as the reception if you have been invited to the ceremony.
An invitation is not an obligation – or, not an obligation to attend. It does impose an obligation to respond to the invitation. I have made a rule never to give a specific reason when declining an invitation – just “It was so nice of you to think of us. I’m sorry we have to decline.” Otherwise, I know I would eventually make up a lie and be caught in it.
Gifts: I always send a gift when we accept an invitation. Note I said “send”. I have seen people arriving at wedding receptions with gifts in hand and it always seems so odd to me. If I really am sorry we have to decline an invitation and feel close enough to the happy couple to wish we could attend, I send a gift. Sometimes, I send a gift even if we are not invited to the wedding. (If they are going to or already have run off to Mexico or if it’s a small family wedding.) If I had to crack open one or more volumes of genealogy, an office directory, and/or my Mom or Grandma’s address book to figure out who the hell is getting married and which of my distant relatives their parents lived down the street from in 1967, I don’t send a gift.
I think there’s something really messed up about making gift-giving and invitations reciprocal. Gifts are given if you feel close enough that it ought to be a natural extension of your relationship to the happy couple. It’s somewhat coincidental, but important, that one does not attend the wedding of someone about whom you feel (or, I admit, ought to feel) less. Gift giving can happen entirely separately from the invitation question.
If you are going to attend on element of the wedding, I say choose the ceremony. That’s the event. The reception is held in consideration of the guests. ‘Wow. You drove eight hours and sat through Mass (or pagan handfasting or something else that took a bite out of your day and wasn’t about you); bet you could use a drink and some fun.’ Some couples have very private ceremonies followed by larger receptions. This seems strange but not wrong to me, and would be the only circumstance in which it would be acceptable to skip the ceremony and attend the reception.
Hmmm. I agree in theory with the attend both camp.
BUT.
Once kids enter the picture, all bets are off. Especially if kids are little and the wedding is “no kids”. Then we will only go to the reception. Also, if SAT’s, soccer tournaments, French exams, clinic appts conflict–we get the family stuff done. Now, if the wedding is IN the family(and I count close friends as family)–of course all that stuff gets put on hold (but then we should have had some advance notice!).
Whatever you do–RSVP. It’s just plain rude not to.
gifts are iffy. I used to be quite meticulous about this, but now-not so much. If I don’t recognize the name etc (see above post)–I usually dont’ send a gift. I feel like they are trolling for people who they know won’t attend, but want some lolly from.
same thing with babies. If I go to your shower–you get a nice gift. If you send me an announcement-thank you–you get a card. Unless this is someone close.
I may sound like a bitch, but I have to say: between weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, kids’ birthday parties–it becomes a budgetary issue. Hate to say, but it’s true.
Meant to explain in my other post. We choose the reception because that is usually at noc when all the kid stuff has finished. I actually like the ceremony better than the reception.
I think some bridezillas are confused. If you receive an invitation, you’re obligated to reply. And it’s the height of bad manners to bring more people than you indicated on the RSVP.
If you accept, you’re obligated (barring death) to attend.
Miss Manners sez that presents should be freely given. But if you care enough about someone to attend their wedding, you probably care enough to send a present.
Personally, I think sending invitations to people you know will not be able to attend is just trolling for presents. (My sister-in-law sent us an invitation to an engagement party, 3000 miles away, and was incensed that we didn’t send a present).
More than a few of the letter writers at e-hell are also wrong (though usually not as wrong as the people they’re complaining about).
No, an invite is an invite. If you want to go, accept and that’s great; if you don’t, decline and that’s great, too. What is wrong is failing to respond or accepting and then not showing up.
You send a gift if you feel moved to send a gift - generally, if you feel moved enough to show up at the wedding, you should probably feel moved enough to send a gift. If you get an announcement and you want to send a gift, that’s nice - the same if you decline to attend. But gifts are never required.
As far as the invitations for people who will probably not come - when I graduated high school, my mother got out her huge book of addresses for her millions of relatives and I addressed graduation announcements for all of them. We lived several states away from most of her family, and I hadn’t seen most of them for a decade or so, and the extent of my conversations with them was “Yes, Mom is here, I’ll go get her” or “No, she’s out - would you like me to leave a message for her?” but still, they knew they got addressed cards with formal titles and inside envelopes. Fast forward a few years, and I finish college. I’m speaking to the family even less than before, because I don’t live at home so I’m not even taking messages for them - haven’t seen them for a decade and a half. This time, I don’t buy grad announcements, because I didn’t even think about it. Plus, my immediate family knew I was graduating, who else cared? Years later, I hear from my mother how they’re still upset that I slighted them by not sending out college graduation announcements. I know that should I ever get married, all 8 million will need to be invited, not announced, but invited.
To elaborate, the point of being invited to a wedding is the tradition that it be publicly witnessed. Your friends/relatives choose you to be witnesses; for some, that has more meaning than for others, but that’s technically what it’s all about.
This goes back to the way things used to be in which everyone in a community (be it a church congregation, neighborhood, or even a small village, etc.) was understood to be “invited” (without needing to have a formal invitation involved) to the religious ceremony (again, as witnesses of the wedding), but the formal invitation was meant to specify who could attend the reception.
Of course, I’m only talking about American culture & etiquette, here - derived from American etiquette books from the last century or prior. That doesn’t mean it was applied universally, or even 100% in America, for that matter. But it is a good representation of what was understood by educated and mannered people at one time.
There are still a number of U.S. Christian churches where all weddings that take place are announced with an “open” invitation in the church’s bulletin or at the pulpit prior to the event. But the reception information is not included, as that is understood to be “by invitation only,” due to the expense & planning involved.