This guy did invite both of us to his wedding. (We were invited as a couple, since we were married then.) I remember that there was no RSVP card in the invitation, so I had to look up in a Miss Manners book the proper wording to write on my stationery that we would attend.
I remember when planning our wedding being told by some etiquette maven (my sister in law) that you never properly include the “Dreaded Response Card” with your invitation. And definitely not a stamped self-addressed envelope. The horror! I don’t remember what the reason was.
We just nodded appreciatively and then just included both.
In my opinion and practice, invitations never leave anything to be implied, irrespective of the formality of the event or invitation. It should be clear on the invitation who is being invited. If you want both Bonnie and Clyde, say so. If Clyde is a boor who bathes only on the last day of every month, just invite Bonnie to your Labor Day picnic.
Dear God. In this day and age, when many people don’t even keep stamps in the home any more, you should certainly include a self addressed stamped envelope if you want people to reply by mail.
I get a lot of invitations with the URL of a site where they want me to RSVP these days.
Last time i hosted a wedding, i included RSVP cards and also an email address, and kept a Google doc if who had replied. Most of the replies were via email.
I realize i answered 1 but not 2.
I assume only i was invited unless the invitation is clear that i can bring guests. If my husband or daughter wanted to be included, and the invitation was only to me, i would generally feel comfortable asking the host if i could bring them, but it depends. I would never bring a guest without the explicit permission of the host. (An invitation that says, “please pass this along to your family, s/o, friends that you think we should have invited” counts as explicit permission.)
Absolutely. I think that the etiquette of not including a reply card or a SASE in a wedding invitation is a relic of the time when people of a certain social class would be absolutely expected - by the rules of etiquette - to write a gracious reply note to such an invitation.
Oh yes, but this was back when not everyone was on the internet, and everyone had stamps. But the idea that people were supposed to compose an RSVP on personalized stationery seemed crazy even at that time.
But then my sister in law’s greatest lifetime achievement is getting into some kind of southern legacy organization which is absolutely, positively, not at all devoted to lionizing the antebellum slave owning class.
-
It depends on the type of occasion - if it’s a wedding or some other event that requires an actual invitation ( whether it’s paper or an evite) then only people named on the invitation are invited. I put both names for a couple or “and family” if that’s appropriate. I cannot guarantee that the people I send them to understand it the same way( I invited my aunt, uncle and five kids to my wedding. They showed up with five kids alright, but only two or three were theirs. Learned my lesson with that family) It’s rude to invite only half of an established couple, so I would never knowingly do that but I also want to avoid adding “and guest” to every invitation because that causes other problems. For certain evernts ( like a holiday dinner) even though there aren’t any actual invitations, I am inviting the household. If I invite my niece, I expect her husband and her kids. But not her in-laws, not even if they are visiting her. If I invite my nephew, not his girlfiend and her kids who I’ve never even heard about. If it’s a block party, backyard barbeque ,“bring your own lunch” event at a park, bring anyone you want. Just let me know in advance how many people so I’ll have enough food. If it’s something open to the public , and it’s less an invitation than an announcement ( for example, a free concert in the park) obviously, my friend can bring anyone they want.
-
I do the same when I’m the one receiving the invitation- for more formal events, I assume that whoever is on the invitation. If someone wants to invite us to a couple’s baby shower , they need to put my husband’s name on the invite or he won’t be there. For certain events and people I might clarify- for example, when my daughter was about 16 or 17, I was invited to some sort of shower for one of my cousins. I called the cousin who sent the invitation to see if she was meant to be be invited (not to ask if I could bring her).
Heh.
Oh I have a story from my own wedding: I invited an old friend I hadn’t seen in several years. He had a long term girlfriend so I invited the two of them, by name, as a couple. When I got the RSVP back he had crossed out the name of his girlfriend and wrote another woman’s name there instead!
Turns out unbeknownst to me he had broken up and was dating someone new.
It would be enough to make me decline the invitation.
@Shalmanese : have the responses in this thread been useful for you?
That wasn’t from the host, but from another guest. There are a few different stories in this thread.
Oh, yeah. The guest would be ignored, then. It’s not his affair.
Yes, mainly the people who would never presume to ask. To me, that’s unimaginable, if I am uncertain about something, I’ll always ask. I never considered so many people would find it rude or uncomfortable to ask.
IMO, there should never be uncertainty WRT an invitation. If there is, the invitation is faulty.
People think it’s rude and uncomfortable to ask because it’s difficult to say no under some circumstances. As I said earlier, I asked a cousin if she intended to invite my daughter because I wasn’t sure. But I would never have done what one of my mother’s friends did- she asked if she could bring her granddaughter who was staying with her and her husband (who was also invited). I assumed the granddaughter was too young to be left home alone in a unfamiliar place. Nope she was around 20 and didn’t show up - what 20 year old wants to go to an old lady’s birthday party when she could spend the evening in Manhattan?
Sometimes it can’t be helped - my husband is of Chinese descent and I am not. One of his cousins brough her kids (who were not invited) to our reception, which is apparently typical for Chinese weddings. To the extent we thought about it , we would have assumed the lack of a Chinese invitation, the fact that it was in an American style catering hall and not a Chinese banquet hall, and the lack of a bakery card would have tipped everyone off that Chinese etiquette was not being used. And it did- except for this one person. The other 20 or so cousins didn’t bring their kids.
Not even another guest; just an uninvolved person who knew me and the groom.
For a brief moment I thought you were my cousin-in-law, but then I remembered that when my cousin married Doreen, they didn’t have a reception - they ran off to Vegas, IIRC!
Yeah, those cultural expectations can lead to some bad assumptions.
I have asked. Because i can be rude and pushy. But honestly, if the invitation doesn’t include someone, you haven’t invited them. I think your assumption that people will bring their SO, whom you don’t know well enough to invite, is the outlier opinion.