Damn wedding weenie!

The BBQ Pit
201

No, Mange, I think there’s one more thing in play here.

There appears (in my experience) to be a large gap between the advice and structure of the ettiquette experts say one should do and that the persons in question ARE doing.

Sort of like (to go back a few pages) speeding or prohibition. Government (or social customs) may say that X is required…but if the population at large finds that requirement sufficiently inconvenient or nonsensical we get sort of a volkerwanderung of manners…where the old rules seem to no longer be applied regardless of their stated ‘correctness’.

202

Except that maybe 7 or 8 of those kids were invited. Sure, you might know that your invitation didn’t mention your child. But that doesn’t mean the other kids weren’t invited. Were all the other kids children of the bridal couple’s friends? Were some of them relatives or otherwise especially close to the bride or groom? Do you know how many of the other couples had children and didn’t bring them? had about ten invited children under 13 and another 5 or so between 13 and 18 at my wedding- but that didn’t mean that I intended to invite every second cousin’s child and friend’s child and co-workers child just because it wasn’t absolutely child free. I had one couple bring an uninvited child but I never said anything to them, and the only other people it was mentioned to were those who were mad that Diana’s kid was invited and theirs weren’t. If everyone who had children under 18 brought them, even though they were not listed on the invitation , I would have had an additional fifty people, minimum.

203

Couple of ways- certain people bring their children everywhere, regardless of whether children are welcome or whether the child is able to behave appropriately. Just like some people receive an invitation for themselves and just assume they can bring a guest. Second, sometimes people use the rules that are appropriate for one situation in another- for example, if my aunt decides to invite my family over for a barbeque on the telephone , she may not specifically mention my kids- but neither does she say “can you and Danny come to a barbeque on your uncle’s birthday”. It’s customary for her (and the rest of my family) to invite the whole family for such things as barbeques and block parties. If she were to mail me such an invitation that didn’t say “and family” I would suspect a mistake and clarify. But if I received an invitation to her son’s wedding that didn’t say “and family” I wouldn’t suspect a mistake. After all, I don’t know the bride’s family at all, or what their custom is. If my sister gets married, I would probably assume that my kids were invited even if they weren’t named. Hell, my sister might not even mail me an invitation. Just because these might be safe assumptions for me to make about my sister or my aunt doesn’t mean I’m safe to make them about other people. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s a wedding or a barbeque- if my husband’s co-worker sends an invitation to “Mr & Mrs” to a barbeque , I wouldn’t assume the kids are also invited. I don’t hav eth history with the co-worker that I do with my aunti

204

was I certain it was audacity? You be the judge - I knew that the person knew the rules of etiquette. When I’d gone to her wedding some 6 years before, she was rather adament that children weren’t going to be invited. and named individuals vs. ‘family’ on the invites.

yet when she received mine, she brought her child. I’ve not held it against her, but I know I didn’t expect to see her son.

205

JC: Government (or social customs) may say that X is required…but if the population at large finds that requirement sufficiently inconvenient or nonsensical we get sort of a volkerwanderung of manners…where the old rules seem to no longer be applied regardless of their stated ‘correctness’.

“Volkerwanderung of manners”! If there isn’t already a technical term that means this, and I don’t believe there is or else we wouldn’t be having so much trouble articulating the concept, this is the perfect candidate for it. Excellent! :slight_smile:

Anyway, there seems to be a strong current of opinion that this phenomenon is happening with respect to the bringing-kids-to-weddings rule. If so, how can we adapt existing etiquette to follow it? My suggestions so far about new conventions to deal with the problem have kind of crumbled.

In fact, I’m beginning to shift towards a more radical interpretation of the problem and a rather shocking proposed solution. If somebody doesn’t jump in soon with a workable compromise and I get my nerve up enough to say what I’m thinking, we might see some real fireworks around here. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. :slight_smile:

206

And here I thought to myself “Self, I can’t beleive I just typed ‘volkerwanderung’ in this thread”. Thanks for the props, Kimstu!

I really can’t see anything more effective than a ‘children under 13 not invited’ (phrased in a more polished manner) in the invititation. I don’t see it as rude but rather as being clear which is, in my mind, far superior to the current hodge-podge of behaviors that we’ve outlined here (and which I continue to insist that I did nothing wrong!).

Those who say that ‘disinviting someone’ would be rude are off base from where I sit because the written form of the invitation is so much less personal that doing it in person that I think it’s acceptable. AND you’re not disinviting a person on the same social standing of the person you’re inviting. I think that establishing the group of people you’re setting up for is perfectly acceptable.

But go ahead with the craziness. I look forward to it.

207

But as has been asked, what about cases, such as doreen mentioned, where children under 13 are invited, just not necessarily your children under 13? It shouldn’t have to be an all-or-nothing situation. When someone has a party, they are allowed to select which people they wish to invite. If they invite one cousin or coworker or child or bowling league member to a backyard BBQ or wedding or orgy, that does not mean that they must therefore invite all cousins, coworkers, children, and bowling league members to said event.

At my wedding next summer, I will be inviting all of my cousins under age 13, as well as the children of some very close friends. There will be about 25 or so children there. I absolutely will not consider my wedding “child-free”. In fact, I agree with many of the people here who have said that they think that a “child-free” wedding would be a sad affair, and I cannot possibly imagine not having kids at my wedding.

However, I am also inviting some friends and coworkers, who, although I am very good friends with them, have children I do not know at all, and they will not be invited. Why in the world would I want people I have never met, who would know nobody except their own parents, attending my wedding? I think I have every right to exclude these people I do not know from the event I am planning.

However, how can I possibly do this? This issue isn’t even remotely a question of manners or etiquette or politeness in my mind, it’s 100% about communication. I see from this thread, and from stories I have heard from others, that many people do not know that only the invited people are invited. But I can’t for the life of me understand it. It’s not subtle, weird, archaic, obscure or in code. My invitations to my cousins will read “Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Family”. and my invitations to said coworkers-with-children will read “Mr. and Mrs. Jones”. It blows my mind that this is not perfectly obvious and clear. But, like I said, I can see that it is not. So what can I do? I can’t put “No children” on the invitation, because that isn’t true. The only thing I can think of is verbally telling them after the invite goes out, which I guess is what I’ll do, but it just seems so strange to me that there is no way to indicate on my invitations who I am inviting. That seems to me the point of invitations, and renders the actual invitation sort of pointless if I have to then verbally invite/disinvite the people I want to come.

208

It’s called speculation. I was putting forth a number of possible explanations that seem plausible based on my personal experiences. You’ll note I did not say “FACT : 90% of weddings are not child-free.” … so, you can shove the offended tone someplace unpleasant.

Stupid people? Now people who don’t treat Miss Manners books as gospel truth are stupid? Oh, dear. So… people ignorant of this peculiar philosophy of invitations or people who choose to use another method and disagree with you are stupid.

Well, that’s certainly a good way to foster debate.

Obviously people consider their own children such a close part of the family that A.) people receive invitations to weddings with the children’s names omitted and where the children are meant to come and B) people go to weddings having received invites with the children’s names omitted and mistakenly take their children. It is apparently a natural tendency of some people. If you wish to prevent such an occurrence, you must give them the instruction in a manner that will make their conscious mind override the natural tendency.

209

Well, I’d say that it is ‘in code’ as it appears not to be as clear as you might think based on the evidence.

Would it be too hard to have two invitations printed up? I print things for a living and know that for us (professionals) making one small change doesn’t even slow down the presses.

Of course, that would lead us into discussing what a racket the wedding industry is…

210

Clarity is putting the exact names of the person(s) you wish to invite on the invitation. Those are the people whose presence is requested. Anyone whose name is not included on that is not invited.

It takes a willfull act of the obtuse to interpret this in some other manner.

211

And I think we’ve demonstrated that a great many people are therefore obtuse. Therefore your rules appear to not be applying any further, at least for some segment of the population.

212

I had a thought as to how best to revise wedding invitations… the idea of inviting some children but not others threw me somewhat, as that seems unfair.

Nevertheless, the following might suffice :

Specify on the invitation or accompanying documentation to the parents that “Two Seats will be reserved for them at the ceremony upon receipt of the RSVP” - this lets them know the exact number of persons expected to attend from their household, and clears up ambiguity…

Note that I am still not suggesting a modification to the code of etiquette, just an idea to clear matters up.

213

So now because some people deliberately choose to ignore the fact that the actual invitees are named on the invitation, it’s incumbent on the person doing the inviting to figure out the individual intepretations of everyone who receives an invitation and clarify it to their specifications?

I see this as a problem, and not a problem with the current protocol. Names are included on an invitation for a reason. Choosing to ignore that and bring uninvited guests then blaming it on the host for not being ‘clear’ enough is not the fault of the host(s).

214

Sure, let’s just print up custom invitations for every guest, that won’t double, triple, quadruple the already considerable cost of invitations. I’ve got nothing better to do with my money than try and head off the assumptions of people who should know better. It is the job of the host to tell you who is invited, not your job to assume unlisted people are invited.

CG, I don’t see what is unfair about Elret’s invitation pattern. He/she wants to invite ALL of the family, including young cousins, but not the random children of friends.

JC, you made a mistake. Your daughter was not listed on the invitation but you assumed she was invited, and did not inquire further. That doesn’t make you a bad person, just someone who made a mistake. People make mistakes. The cost involved in creating a mistake proof invitation is outrageously high, they already cost a buck or two (or more, much more) a piece for non-custom invites, imagine the cost if each invitation has to be worded differently. Sure, you can add other lines, but they are tacky and sometimes insulting, and not really as mistake proof or universal as you would expect. The most logical way to structure it is to just put the invited people on the invite. Trying to do more doesn’t really make it better, there’s always going to be a point at which people fuck up and make mistakes.

215

No, it doesn’t; (although wilful obtuse acts will do the trick too) - all it takes is ignorance or even innocence of the rules of interpretation.

Wilfully perceiving simple failure to understand as deliberate rudeness is something I would describe as obtuse.

216

Custom invitations for each guest? You mean more customized than each having their own name? Well, a little, but not so much as you seem to expect. You have a singleton invite for your “inviting one person only” … you have a doubleton (is that a word?) for the inviting of a pair, and you have a restriction-free model for families where you’re inviting everyone. If you choose to invite some children of a couple and not others, the situation does get more complicated, but apart from that situation, you can break guest groups into categories of 1, 2, or all.

Unless they’re polyamorous, but then I think we’re beyond the capability of standard invitation etiquette anyway.

217

Won’t work. Inevitably there will be a recipient who will think, Only two?? Oh, that’s right – Only Screaming Sadie and myself will be able to attend since my darling spouse is committed to a business trip that weekend. I wonder how they knew?

218

It is a possibility, but I contend that the combination of the names on the invite and the explicit number will result in that occurring far less often than just the names on the invite. In other words, it won’t result in any additional unwanted children showing up, and will in all likelihood result in far fewer unwanted children showing up.

219

CG, the typical way invitations work is that the invitation card, reply card, etc. are standard, exactly the same for each guest. The customization comes in with the envelopes. If you use an outer and inner envelope style (very popular), the inner envelope lists the guests, the outer is just a mailing address. If you just use the outer, you have to put all the names in the mailing address. If you want to put custom messages inside the invitation, you have to get a variety of things printed out for insertion. Either a custom invitation card, custom inserts, that sort of thing.

For the printer, that means instead of 100 of X 100 of Y and 100 of Z, they have to print 55 of A, 23 of B, 15 of C, 12 of D, 75 of E, 25 of F, 100 of Z, etc, and the people assembling the invites have to remember exactly which inserts go into which address and inner envelope/outer envelope, blah blah blah. More complex and more expensive for, IMHO, limited value.

220

Again, it’s really only three types unless you’re doing something unusual.

And if you find heading off the two or three unwanted children that may get filtered by this method to be of limited value, to such a degree that it’s not worth a little envelope-sorting… then I’m forced to conclude you don’t think it’s that big a deal for those two or three kids to show up. Would that be correct?