# Not invited to friends wedding at a park. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 22, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217 "2013-07-22T17:55:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/83 "2013-07-23T20:22:10Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > An invited guest to my wedding plotted to have me arrested and then, to kidnap my wife. True story. That sounds intriguing. Care to share the story with us? ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/84 "2013-07-23T20:26:37Z")
> [@Jaymosch](#): > > Compassion for what exactly? Ignoring the same answer over and over and over again? … the social anxiety? ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/85 "2013-07-23T20:42:31Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > … the social anxiety? Why would you assume she has actual social anxiety, any more than she’s an actual Disney fan, or actually interested in Malaysia? She only got two, somewhat perfunctory and mocking replies at the social anxiety support board, almost like they were familiar with her shtick and sick of it. She’s not real, and AT BEST this is all meat for a thesis. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/86 "2013-07-23T20:49:05Z")
I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt since the anxiety account has a 2010 join date whereas the rest have a 2013 join date. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/87 "2013-07-23T20:52:26Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > … the social anxiety? Except there’s nothing to be anxious about, because the OP will not be attending the social event in question. (One hopes, anyway.) Crashing a wedding is irredeemably rude. If you want to send a discreet inquiry via a mutual friend, fine, but honestly nearly all couples are going to be phoning up everyone they invited who didn’t RSVP by the deadline (they’ll have to give a final, concrete headcount to the caterer, after all), so you’ll find out if you were invited by either the invitation showing up in the mail, or the couple phoning you up and asking if you’re planning to attend. Without an invitation, either on paper or verbally by the couple, YOU ARE NOT INVITED. If you are not invited to a private party (which a wedding is, by definition), you DO NOT SHOW UP ANYWAY. Even if, by some completely bizarre confluence of events, it turns out you were invited, but the paper invitation got lost, and no one remembered to confirm your RSVP, it’s a wedding, not the end of the world. If OP wants to work on social anxiety, they can start by not going out of their way to create an awkward, anxiety-inducing social situation. This stuff is _really_ basic: you don’t invite yourself to someone else’s party. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/88 "2013-07-23T20:57:20Z")
> [@Tracijo67](#): > > Oh yeah … and at what point should I interrupt the proceedings to announce myself as the secret godmother? After the other godmothers have already given out their gifts. Obviously. You should bring either a spinning wheel or a puppy. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/89 "2013-07-23T21:06:50Z")
I think we’re taking the wrong approach here. We should be finding out when and where this party is, and all of us should show up. If anyone asks who invited us we’ll just say jashley did. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/90 "2013-07-23T21:33:51Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > That sounds intriguing. Care to share the story with us? Well, briefly, my bride had invited this guy she had known who (unbeknownst to her) was mentally unstable and crushing on her. He lived a thousand miles away in Canada and she didn’t think they were particularly close friends, so the invitation was really just a courtesy and we didn’t expect him to come. But he did. It turns out he was fairly obsessed with her, and when he got the invitation he hired a P.I. to investigate me. The P.I. found an arrest warrant for someone with my name in another state who was charged with some kind of fraud. So this guy calls our priest the day before the wedding and warns him that I am a scam artist and that the wedding needed to be stopped. Meanwhile, he contacted my fiancée’s uncle (who was also from Canada and didn’t know me at all) with the same story, and tried to convince the him that they needed to go to her workplace and pick her up and bring her back to Canada to save her from me. Fortunately, neither my priest nor the uncle are stupid, and they both figured out that this guy was off his rocker. The priest went ahead with the wedding (rushing through the part where he says “If anyone has a reason why these two should not be wed…” for fear of the guy making a scene). The uncle refused to go along with the “rescue.” We were blissfully ignorant of the whole thing until we got back from the honeymoon and the uncle called my wife to make sure she was okay and that he had made the right call. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/91 "2013-07-23T22:41:05Z")
Often the ceremony is at the church and the reception is somewhere else, in which case church members are casually invited to view the ceremony (depending on the size of the sanctuary and the number of accepted invitations). There is no awkward transition because two separate venues are involved. Perhaps the reception is also at the park, and the presence of uninvited guests would make for an awkward transition. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/92 "2013-07-24T02:41:42Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > An invited guest to my wedding plotted to have me arrested and then, to kidnap my wife. True story. And admit it–it was totally worth it for the awesome story, right? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/93 "2013-07-24T05:59:17Z")
I don’t suppose you have a present for the wedding couple, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Longshanks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Longshanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Longshanks)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/94 "2013-07-24T08:55:23Z")
Is Jashley your real name? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/95 "2013-07-24T13:21:00Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > And admit it–it was totally worth it for the awesome story, right? Totally! It’s one of the few things I remember about our wedding. That crazy guy, and the painful rental shoes, that’s about it. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/96 "2013-07-24T13:59:22Z")
> [@Tracijo67](#): > > It’s been so long since I’ve been to church, I had pretty much forgotten about this ritual. Doesn’t the “surprise guest” tell everyone to stand up… and the lucky guest with a number under their chair gets to take a gift from the reception table home? Bonus points if you can find the frequency of the DJ’s wireless mic that transmits to the speaker system for your own special “Toast” to the bride & groom. (Might even be able to add a Rap Track to a special vocal with that one) Oh and, for the win, since you don’t have the exact time, [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=904bXnTb8Fo) shows how to mix laxatives with pringles in mini cans for the birds. Those park pigeons might take all day to empty out. “When in Doubt, Arc Light” ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/97 "2013-07-24T14:50:40Z")
> [@Tabby\_Cat](#): > > Nobody wants Skynet at their wedding. I do. Maybe if more people had thought to include Skynet at thier social events we could have avoided Judgement Day. > [@Skammer](#): > > An invited guest to my wedding plotted to have me arrested and then, to kidnap my wife. True story. So, Emily Post dropped the ball on Wedding Ettique advice _one time_… ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/98 "2013-07-24T22:15:24Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > That crazy guy, and the painful rental shoes, that’s about it. After the plot to kidnap your wife was foiled, did he send a tasteful wedding gift? ---
**Author:** ![LaurenIpsum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@LaurenIpsum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaurenIpsum)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/99 "2013-07-25T14:50:14Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > I actually went and found some online Elizas, and tried putting in the quotes she was responding to, but the answers didn’t match up. Yes! I had the same thought as you. I was remembering playing the Eliza program on my Commodore 64 back in the 80s. Good times. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/100 "2013-07-25T15:06:21Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > After the plot to kidnap your wife was foiled, did he send a tasteful wedding gift? A pepper mill, if I recall correctly; similar to [this one](http://www.crateandbarrel.com/peugeot-paris-pepper-mill/s645102). ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/101 "2013-07-25T15:22:03Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > A pepper mill, if I recall correctly; similar to [this one](http://www.crateandbarrel.com/peugeot-paris-pepper-mill/s645102). That looks like a nice peppermill, so I guess it was worth the trouble. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217/102 "2013-07-25T15:40:21Z")
Sorry, NVM. Asked & answered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-invited-to-friends-wedding-at-a-park/664217.md?page=6)