Wedding Etiquette question

[Otto]

Green Bean

You don’t invite strangers to your wedding…If you have to invite someone that you don’t know (a spouse of a co-worker for example) you are permitted to pretend that this person is not a stranger.

To invoke Miss Manners again, “a roof constitutes an introduction.” No need to pretend to know someone, strong need to put the person’s name on the invitation.
ASPA

I know someone who planned to ask that children not be brought to the reception—so the reception would be free of the need to supervise.

The way to avoid children at wedding receptions is to leave their names off the invitation. If someone calls to ask if the children can come (the height of gaucherie) you politely but firmly state that the reception is adults-only. If they refuse to come as a result, say “I’m sorry you won’t be joining us.”
I’m curious if anyone’s been to (or had) a reception to which uninvited guests arrived. There’s no place for them to sit and no food. What did you do? Miss Manners doesn’t seem to address what to do in this situation. My feeling would be that the hosts (the bride’s parents usually) would take the person who brought the uninvited date aside and explain the situation, “Oh dear, when you RSVPed you didn’t indicate you were bringing someone and we just don’t have anyplace to seat him/her and we don’t have a meal for them…” and look perplexed in the hope that the person twigs to the idea that they should deposit their date back home. Anyone tried this or another solution?
SINs Apple

My question: Is it polite to ask why I was overlooked? If not, would it be rude to express some disappointment and hurt?

No; and yes, very.

[MandaJo]

The thing I like about registries is that it allows people who may not even know each other to work together to buy a nice gift that no one could of afforded by themselves–things like bedsets. Mom buys the comforter, I buy the sheets, his cousin buys the pillow cases, etc. Furthermore, since wedding presents are usually the type of thing that stays around for a while, I like the satisfaction of knowing I am not wasting my money (I’m on a college budget) on something the happy couple will cringe slightly whenever they see it for the next ten years.

[Rilchiam]

Originally posted by Otto:
To invoke Miss Manners again, "a roof constitutes an introduction"

Say again?

The way to avoid children at wedding receptions is to leave their names off the invitation. If someone calls to ask if the children can come (the height of gaucherie) you politely but firmly state that the reception is adults-only. If they refuse to come as a result, say "I’m sorry you won’t be joining us."

From bitter experience, I can tell you that children don’t want to be at a reception any more than adults want them there. My mom was once grossly insulted when an invitation specified “no kids”, but I was overjoyed to get to spend the day and evening baking with Aunt Rosaline, instead of being miserable at the Knights of Columbus. Of course, some people at that reception did bring their precious angels, and that wasn’t right. If someone petitions to bring their kids anyway, maybe you could phrase it like, “Well, we don’t think Melissa would really enjoy the reception…seven year olds don’t flip for poached salmon, and there won’t be any other kids.”

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“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”

[Otto]

Generally speaking, one does not speak to strangers unless one has been properly introduced. Under some circumstances, being under the same roof constitutes an introduction. A ship’s “roof,” for example, or a school’s roof. So strangers seated together at a wedding reception may consider themselves properly introduced to each other (although it’s charming if one of the hosts is able to make the introduction).

My mom was once grossly insulted when an invitation specified “no kids”

Quite right, so she should have been. It is very rude to specifically exclude people from an invitation. Your mother, being the paragon of manners she obviously is, knew that your name not being on the invitation meant you weren’t invited so she didn’t need to be told “no kids.” Unfortunately not every parent is as swift as your mother but being rude to head of the potential rudeness of guests bringing uninvited guests is not acceptable either.

[Rilchiam]

Originally posted by Otto:
Under some circumstances, being under the same roof constitutes an introduction. A ship’s “roof,” for example, or a school’s roof.

I see.

Quite right, so she should have been. It is very rude to specifically exclude people from an invitation. Your mother, being the paragon of manners she obviously is, knew that your name not being on the invitation meant you weren’t invited so she didn’t need to be told “no kids.” Unfortunately not every parent is as swift as your mother but being rude to head of the potential rudeness of guests bringing uninvited guests is not acceptable either.

Well, when you put it that way. But I stand by my assertion that children do not want to be at a reception.

“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”

[zuma]

[quote]
Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried:

[ul][li]Is it permissible to indicate that single friends with no long-term “significant other” should not bring a date? If so, what’s the polite way of phrasing that?[/ul]Our answers were[ul]Fiancée says “we do not put ‘and Guest’ on the envelopes, and they will know not to bring someone. If they ask I’ll tell them we’re trying to keep the numbers down.” I think that’s not polite and that every guest should be allowed to bring a date.[/ul]What do the Teeming Millions say?**[/li][/quote]

gift registry is fine. not allowing people to bring a guest just because you believe they have no significant other is VERY TACKY.

I assume you will include an rsvp with your invitations. this should include the number of the party (1 or 2).

At the risk of sounding offensive, i’ll include my honest reaction to this. Either your fiancee is cheap, in which case i’d re-consider marrying her, or she’s rude, in which case i’d re-consider marrying her as well, or she’s not cheap and rude, and her family is paying for this affair, in which case i’d find her family cheap and rude, and put off the wedding until you two can afford to pay for the affair, guests and all, alone.

there could be a reason for this which i have not thought of. i’d get to the bottom of this before i booked a hall, though. it’s just weird.

[Atrael]

Arnold Winkelried–

First off, Congradulations. As someone going through this same proccess, I can sympathize. I agree with everyone that has said that putting the registration on the invitation is not the way to go. We finnally decided that we were not going to register at all. I dislike the entire process, and the idea. That being said, be prepared for every single person asking about it…endlessly…over and over. sigh I’ve attempted to explain that we only want them there to share in our happiness, and joy, and that a present wasn’t neccessary, no luck. So I think the web-page may be a good idea, keeping in mind that not everyone is on the net.

As to the second question, well we chose to only invite those people that were close to us…immediate family, very good friends, and such like. This allowed us to a) Know everyone there, I’ve met all her family, and she’s met all of mine…no strangers for us and b) Spend more on the food, open bar, invitations, cake, decorations stuff like that. After everyone was counted, we’re at I think, 70 people…and they are 70 people that I love, that I want to share our happiness, and that I won’t mind being around for 3 hours

[Gilligan]

By coincidence, my wife and I attended a wedding and reception this weekend of an old family friend. I noticed two women guests wearing all-white dresses and at least five wearing all black. I can understand that black has come to be considered a standard fashion color now permitted for weddings, but, wearing a white dress to a wedding when you’re not the bride? Big faux pas, I always thought.

Then there’s the tradition where the garter-catcher puts the garter on the bouquet-catcher, to appropriate music from the DJ. No problem with that, but I do remember being at a reception several years ago where the ten-year-old flower girl caught the bouquet, and the twenty-ish bachelor still had to put the garter up her leg. Creeped me out.

[Otto]

Rilchiam

But I stand by my assertion that children do not want to be at a reception.

I tend to agree, as do those people who don’t list the children’s names on the invitations.

zuma

not allowing people to bring a guest just because you believe they have no significant other is VERY TACKY.

No, what’s tacky is party-crashing. A wedding reception is a party and it is by invitation only. Would you crash a dinner party because you were dating one of the guests?

I assume you will include an rsvp with your invitations. this should include the number of the party (1 or 2).

It’s the guest’s responsibility to RSVP. The RSVP card came into being because guests became too rude to reply properly, by handwritten note accepting or declining. If only one person is invited, then an RSVP from that person is by definition for one. As someone noted earlier, if the invited guest is unmarried or otherwise not known to be socially attached, the host should contact the invited guest to find out if there is a social attachment and if so the name of the other person so that the other person’s name may also be put on the invitation.

At the risk of sounding offensive, i’ll include my honest reaction to this. Either your fiancee is cheap, in which case i’d re-consider marrying her, or she’s rude, in which case i’d re-consider marrying her as well, or she’s not cheap and rude, and her family is paying for this affair, in which case i’d find her family cheap and rude, and put off the wedding until you two can afford to pay for the affair, guests and all, alone.

Wow! Way to broadside the fiancee and her entire family! Including the phrase “at the risk of sounding offensive” does not excuse being offensive.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

Thanks to all of you for your comments. I won’t have time to respond to everyone personally, so I’ll respond to people in general.

First of all, my fiancée reminded me with some asperity, after I told her to check out this thread to see what people thought, that she never specifically said it was a good idea to put the registry information in with the invitation. She just said “do you think we should do that? Why don’t you ask your friends at the SDMB?” Also some of the invitees live out-of-state, and some live out of the USA (in Europe.) In any event, we are going with the general consensus, no registry information with the invitation. By the way, just last week I received a wedding invitation that had the registry information included on a small card, which is what prompted my fiancée’s question.

As far as the registry idea itself, I personally am in favour of it. When I go to a wedding, I like to bring a gift to the couple, and I feel better if I know I can bring something they actually want. When my brother and sister-in-law got married, they didn’t register anywhere, and they received around six or seven sets of drinking glasses, of course all different styles. What do you do with 70 drinking glasses?

As far as the “no guest” hint: everyone that is coming to our wedding is a close friend. We want to have a small wedding, and in the “wedding workshop” book we have, it says “pick a number of guests, and stick to it! Don’t keep on throwing in more people.” We chose the number 60. All the guests are people we know well. In the case of the people who don’t have a significant other, I checked on the list and these are all people that we see at least once a week (people from the dance studio where we take lessons.) So a new boyfriend/girlfriend is unlikely to pop out of the woodwork without us knowing about it. So the question is, do we invite only half of those friends, because we give them the option of bringing a date, or do we invite all of them and tell them they have to come by themselves? That was the basis of the question. Right now, our decision is to invite all of them, and just bite the bullet if some (or all) decide to bring a date to the wedding. Many people see it as the “social kiss of death” to show up at an event unaccompanied, and will make an effort to find someone to bring with them. The RSVP card has a line saying “number of people attending.” Of course, if someone puts in the number “10” and brings 10 drunken louts with them, we will get the other wedding guests to tar and feather them.

As far as children are concerned, they are invited to the wedding. We plan on having a couple of “children’s tables” with drawing books and games. Teen-agers will just have to suffer with us adults.

Oh, and by the way, zuma, maybe I’m cheap and rude myself, in which case my fiancée and I would make a perfect match. Never assume!