I’ll try not to write too much up front. What would you think if you were not invited to a relative’s wedding, but were invited to a family luncheon the next day?
The daughter of one of my wife’s cousins is getting married this summer. The marriage is a 2 hr plane ride from us, in a city where one of my kids lives. The cousin lives that far again away from us.
We were not invited to the wedding. But the cousin did extend an invite to attend a luncheon the following day, for all the family that was in town for the wedding. I don’t think either of my wife’s 2 siblings were invited to the wedding. Each of them has a child in that town. I don’t know if they intend to travel for the luncheon. The sisters are no terribly close.
I don’t feel too strongly either way about the relatives involved, but would have been happy to travel for the wedding, especially as we could have combined it with a visit to my kid. But I am not thrilled with the prospect of traveling for a luncheon the day after the wedding.
My wife says the cousin likely had limited control over who her daughter invited to the wedding, and was doing a nice thing by inviting us to a luncheon. I am willing to admit I am being petty, but I imagine it would piss me off being at the luncheon, knowing I (and anyone else who was not invited to the wedding) had been treated as second-best, hearing folk talk about wedding activities.
I told my wife she could go herself - either for the entire visit, or I’d go on the trip and she could go to the luncheon alone (or with my kid.) I’d like to think I could just put a smile on my face and go if that is what would make my wife happy, but I generally find I’m best if I avoid putting myself into positions that I anticipate will likely piss me off. Even if I kept a smile on my face when someone said, “So glad you came,” I know that inside I’d be saying, “Fuck you!”
Final detail, we are not a big happy extended family of in-laws on both sides - way too much history to go into in this post. We generally are pleasant to each other, but not much more than that.
For my wedding, we invited our cousins. We never considered our parents’ cousins except those needed to bring their parents we were close too. I’d go and enjoy the time with your family. One afternoon I’d go out for the free luncheon provided by your cousin.
Wow, way to rub it in that you’re on the B-List. :mad: Dinsdale, I agree with you. If it were me, I wouldn’t go to the lunch and I’d discourage my spouse from attending. How much do you want to bet that they’ll be serving leftover cake from the wedding you weren’t worthy of being invited to?
I guess it kind of depends on why people were not invited to the ceremony itself. Perhaps the size of the venue? If they are still paying for a luncheon for extended family the next day, it seems like it wasn’t that you guys weren’t worth spending the money on.
My brother and his wife were married in a very small, very beautiful chapel. Only immediate family were invited. They had a larger reception a couple months later where friends and extended family were invited. Nobody seemed upset about it, but possibly they were and we didn’t know.
In my own family, and spanning many years, I have witnessed a few weddings where the guest list was rather restricted and someone had to make some hard decisions. The scenario postulated wouldn’t bother me a bit, but I also probably would not attend the luncheon. From the OP:
“…I generally find I’m best if I avoid putting myself into positions that I anticipate will likely piss me off.”
Yeah, I’ve got no issue with small destination weddings followed by larger parties/receptions. And I’ve got no problems not being invited to the wedding - the bride means nothing to me, and I have no reason to believe she cares about me or my wife. Her parents are pleasant enough, but you know the type, cousins who live across the country. Pleasant enough when you see them every few years, but no urge to see any more often.
Also, parents are rather wealthy, so money ought not have been an object. Of course, I have no idea (and it is none of my business) who is paying for the wedding, how big it is, etc. I think both bride and groom have had pretty well-paying jobs for at least the past 3-4 years.
My wife and her 2 sibs each have kids living in the city where the wedding would be hosted. So it would have been appealing to combine the wedding with visits to our kids, and extended family reunion sort of stuff. Wife tells me one of my wife’s sibs was really insulted by the invite, and their kid is going to be out of town, tho, so the sib isn’t going. Don’t know about the other sib.
On the one hand, I can almost accept the luncheon invite as a nice gesture. But on the other, it strikes me as a tone deaf gesture. Like someone said, if you can’t invite someone to the meal, don’t expect them to do somersaults over being offered leftovers…
I know lots of people with HUGE families and large numbers of friends, who married people with the same situation. Unless you’re very wealthy or not paying for it, accommodating that many people is simply economically impossible. You don’t know, or haven’t shared with us, the reason why they chose to do it this way. Perhaps this was the only feasible way to include everyone they wanted to include.
Seems to me jumping right to “insulted” is flying WAY off the handle. This isn’t your own child who didn’t invite you; this is the “daughter of one of my wife’s cousins,” I’m not even sure what that makes them to you. Be thankful they thought to include you at all.
Go and have a good time with your family, or sit at home and pout about nothing.
One final point - my wife’s family is really quite small. Probably one reason my wife and the cousin are closer than they otherwise would have been. Related through the one parent, I bet there are fewer than 10 folk as closely related as my sister and her siblings are to the cousin in question. The cousin is an only child, and between my wife, her sibs, and SOs that would be 6. So it isn’t a situation where inviting my wife and her 2 sibs would enlarge the circle necessitating inviting 50-100 more people.
As usual, glad to hear the diverse opins. Let me restate, this family has PLENTY of money, and the family size is small. But I have no idea if they are getting married and having a reception in some small location. Yeah, the bride might be paying for it herself, and might be strictly limiting the invite list for whatever reason. I don’t know.
I wouldn’t be staying home to pout - my worry is that if I WENT I would pout! :rolleyes:
As far as encouraging bitterness into the next generation, AFAIK, there is no bitterness (or connection or emotion of any kind) between my kids and the cousin’s kids.
And, as far as a free lunch, let me see what a couple of roundtrip air tickets cost… :dubious:
Maybe phrased another way, let’s say you were in the position of the parent of the bride. If your kid were getting married, and for whatever reason it was decided not to invite certain out-of-town relatives. Would you extend an invite to those folk to travel to join the folk who were in town for the wedding for a luncheon the next day?
My first reaction is that this is simply a way of extracting wedding presents from people who, for one reason or another, the celebrants didn’t care to invite to the wedding itself.
Judging by your responses and tone throughout this thread, I’d say she’s spot-on.
I think you’ve already decided not to go, and you want us to validate your pettiness for resenting not being invited to the wedding but rather some secondary event you consider them to be “throwing you a bone.” You admit you don’t actually know the bride and are not close with the cousins. I’m puzzled why they bothered to include you at all, which makes your feeling about it even more perplexing.
I can’t tell if you were specifically invited to the luncheon, or not. If the luncheon was for family who were invited to the wedding, and you were not invited to the wedding, then you were not invited to the luncheon. If the invitation was extended specifically to you, that is another matter.
Channeling my mother -
If you were not invited to either the wedding or the reception, you can attend the wedding (if it is in a public venue like a church) but may not attend the reception (obviously). Anyone can attend a wedding ceremony in a public venue. If it was in private, no one can attend if not invited.
It is entirely proper to host a luncheon for wedding guests and/or anyone else you care to invite. It is especially proper to invite those who could not be invited to the wedding and reception, because it is assumed that the luncheon guests could not be invited to the reception for good and sufficient reasons. (There are almost no reasons for not inviting someone to a reception that are not good and sufficient by default. This includes “we don’t like you” or “we aren’t that close”, but everybody on the bride’s side is supposed to assume “it’s because the groom’s family is too large” and everybody on the groom’s side is supposed to assume “it’s because the bride’s family is too large”. )
It is also entirely proper to refuse an invitation, to a wedding and reception, or to a luncheon, for any reason, including “we aren’t that close” or “I can’t stand Uncle Henry” or “I’ll be darned if I am going to book a two hour flight just to go to lunch with people I hardly know”. If you were specifically invited, you decline graciously. If it was a blanket invitation to anyone who is in town, then you decline graciously.
But really - your wife’s cousin’s daughter invites you to a luncheon that is a two hour plane ride away? No one is going to notice, or care, if you show up or not.
I don’t get why this should bother anyone. A wedding is a special ceremony–one that someone may not want to invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry to. And this would include cousins sprawled out over the country, who you don’t see very often. I have cousins like this. Nice enough folks, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with them gawking at me in my wedding dress, stammering out my marriage vows. Parents and siblings and close aunts, yes. But not the peanut gallery, whose values may be very different from mine.
I really do think the wedding itself shoud be what the bride and groom want. Maybe the wedding was a long, solemn affair and the couple didn’t want to burden anyone but their immediate family with such a ceremony. Maybe they were adamant about the no-kids thing but they knew there was going to be mess if they trusted cousins to actually follow this request, so they only invited individuals they could trust. Maybe the couple wanted an unorthodox ceremony that reflected their values and personalities, and they didn’t want to deal with the judgment of more traditional-minded distant relatives. Maybe there is one cousin that the bride despises, but rather than being obvious with her hatred by not inviting him or her, she decided not to include any of them.
The family luncheon is a great compromise, IMHO. It’s basically a way for the bride and groom to make their union a family affair while also getting whatever they want out of their own wedding. It’s also a great way to find out who really cares about the bride and groom. If someone is the type of person who’d only come to the luncheon if they’d been invited to the wedding, perhaps the hosts would prefer they stay home.
We’re having a luncheon,
Isn’t that pleasant?
But don’t forget
To bring a present.
More seriously, are the In-Laws LDS? I understand the LDS wedding ceremony itself is a small private thing between the couple and the church elder. Maybe parents too. No non-essential people are welcome at the wedding ceremony, but many are invited and welcome to attend the reception afterwards.
None of this is relevant. People decide on the size of their weddings for any number of reasons. They don’t owe people an explanation nor are they obligated to spend a lot of money simply because they have it. Try to separate this from the rest of the issue.