So my little sister is getting married and I’m curious about this issue for future reference. Our families are constructing the guest list right now and the goal is to keep the numbers down b/c they have to get married in prime wedding season due to my sister’s med school schedule + we live in an extremely expensive area of the country (both families are in the same area) so even an off-season wedding is going to be pretty expensive. Thankfully she’s marrying inside the community, i.e. my parents’ friends’ son so that will cut down on it but there’s a goal for about a 125 people (no small feat when you’re Indian and it seems like you’re related to everyone).
The thing is that my our family has been invited to the weddings of a number of children we grew up with. Frankly, neither my sister nor I get along with many of them, nor do we even like them very much-both of us went outside of the area for college and graduate school and while they’ve all constructed their social group together, we have been left out of it and our only interaction is at these weddings or large social gatherings. Seeing as this is the case, my parents are thinking of only inviting the parents (their friends) of the kids whose weddings we were invited to since they feel that they (our parents) don’t have any real connection to the new couples + my sister, my future brother-in-law and I all detest them. My parents’ position is that they’re going to either address it to just the parents of the kids or write “The Blank Family” but they won’t send separate invitations to the kids who got married but if the parents want to ask if they want to come, they’ll say yes but they’re not going to offer it up front.
Is this terribly rude? Are we required to send these new couples invitations if we have been invited to their weddings and we are planning on inviting their parents? I suspect that they expect an invitation that they will then turn down but my parents aren’t eager to play that game. I’m curious if this violates any rules of etiquette, though.
Your plan sounds totally reasonable to me (but I’m not an etiquette expert!). You’ve included that part of the extended family, without the additional people who you really don’t like being around (and can’t afford). But be prepared – the people you mentioned may complain, but I think your plans are perfectly reasonable and can be explained objectively as being necessitated by expense restraints.
I do consider myself to be something of an etiquette expert and what you are planning isn’t remotely rude (according to standard etiquette in the US). You see, wedding aren’t considered to be social events that are bound by reciprocity in the same way that dinner parties are. Etiquette realizes that there is a huge range of different types and sizes of proper weddings. Some people want to (and can afford to) have gigantic extravaganzas with 500 guests, other people want (or have) to keep it to immediate family and close friends only.
You’re fortunate in that you want to skip all the ‘kids’ in this group, though. While it isn’t exactly rude, you would be risking offense if you wanted to invite only 3 or 4 of the ‘kids’ and leave out the rest. Or, worse, if you disliked only one set of ‘kids’ and wanted to leave them out and invite the rest. That would open you up to cries of, “But Patty and Bob’s kids were invited! Why weren’t we!”" This way, you invite just the older generation, and if any questions are asked, your parents can say, “Oh the kids wanted to keep the guest list way down, so we were only able to invite the older generation.” Notice that there is no mention of money in that explanation – leaving people out so you can have a ‘small, intimate’ wedding sounds better than leaving them out because you want a cheaper one.
I also recommend against your folks inviting the guests ‘& family’ and letting the kids come if they ask. That would be risking offense again – whispers at the reception of, “Why are their kids here? Ours weren’t invited!”
I should clarify-my parents do not want to invite the kids who have married (whose weddings we attended) and moved away. They’ll invite everyone who is still local. There are only about 5-6 of those couples. My parents consider anyone unmarried as still being part of the family. So everyone’s parents will be invited, including the parents of people whose wedding we attended, but my parents aren’t keen to track down the addresses of the kids who moved away. I think this is where the problem comes in-most of us are in our mid to late 20s which means that some of the peers will be invited along with their parents under a “family” invitation while others won’t b/c they’re married and remotely located, i.e. the local bunch will all be sent invites but my parents and my future brother-in-law’s parents aren’t willing to incur the cost for a group of children me, my sis and my FBIL despise. But they don’t really have the heart to say “no” to people who call up and ask.
I think whatever we do we are fucked anyway as smaller weddings are just not de rigeur in our community (the smallest we’ve attended was 200 something odd people) but neither my parents nor our FBIL’s family are willing to spend oodles of money to make a “show,” which means we will end up offending someone or the other. I think my sister and FBIL’s philosophy is that they would rather have a smaller wedding where people get a nice dinner and drinks and we all have a good time rather than stressing our parents’ out over the costs (my parents are partially subsidizing my lawschool tuition which ends this year + my sister’s private medical school tuition which isn’t ending for another three years).
Also passing this off as expense is going to be a bit hard because my parents and my sister’s fiance’s parents are actually pretty wealthy and the tradition in our local community is that the bride + groom’s parents split the cost-this has more to do with the fact that neither of our families are ostentatious and even if they can afford it they don’t feel like spending a ton of money on people they aren’t terribly keen on. This is why I feel like the whole thing is going to be politicized-about 95% of the people in our Indian community are quite rich and they expect our parents to put on the same show but our parents really don’t want to. I was just wondering if we are violating wedding etiquette as we flout cultural tradition.
Nope, not at all. From what you say, I suspect (as you do) that there will be some fallout from the decisions your family is making, but you can all take whatever comfort possible out of the knowlege that nothing you are planning goes against standard wedding etiquette in the US.
No, you are absolutely not required to invite someone’s children, grown or not. The only rules that apply for having to invite someone’s family to any occasion is that you MUST invite both halves of a couple that has made a public commitment and are thus a social unit. Spouses and fiance(e)s, and some people include cohabitating SO’s, though that inclusion’s rather more flexible. The rest of the family can be politely included or excluded at your discretion.
And I wouldn’t make excuses about wanting a small wedding. Your sister and her fiance have every right to have as small or large a wedding as they damn well please. If anyone is so rude as to bitch about the party they were invited to not being nice enough for them, I’d point out that the happy couple could have had an immediate family-only ceremony and reception, or just gone to Vegas. If you really want to have a plausible excuse handy, though, I’d say your sister really didn’t want the hassle and stress of planning a big extravaganza on top of the stress that is the first year of med school, that she preferred to focus her time and energy on her studies.
Thanks for your input! I’m happy to know that my parents aren’t being deliberately rude in the face of all known wedding etiquette conventions. Personally, I liked the approach and want it at my future wedding too but I wasn’t sure if it was callous and mean or not. This is the first wedding in our family that’s going to be in the US so we are just cutting our teeth, so to speak.
Just don’t use middle initials on the invitations (as per the newer Emily Post). My MIL and I went 9 rounds on this, amicably, luckily. But let me just say that when her friends and family brought us wonderful gifts such as a microwave and stoneware mixing bowls when it was well known that we would have to board a plane to travel back to our home after the wedding, I experienced more than a little schadenfreude at her mortification.
CJ
I don’t think we know anyone’s middle initials!!! That’s really a point of contention, though? People brought you gifts they knew you couldn’t transport because you put their middle initials on the invites?