Wedding Invitation Ettiquette Question

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Denise,

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I guess I should have prefaced this with the fact that we have been good friends with the groom’s parents for 25 plus years. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding 22 years ago, so we’ve “known” the groom since before he was born. The groom and our daughter attending HS together for 2 years…we live in neighboring villages.

My DH kinds took it as a slap in the face…it ws ok for the “kids” to attend the wedding, but not the “adult celebration”, heck…the groom just turned 20 in June, not even old enough to LEGALLY consume alcohol in our state.

Katrina

Katrina,

Why wouldn’t you attend the reception? Certainly at 18 and 15, your children do not need a babysitter?

First, its not uncommon for separate invitations to be issued for the church ceremony and for the reception. I see it a lot in my part of the country.

It is up the host of any event, not just weddings, to decide what type of event it will be, and whether children of any age will be invited. I know that when I was planning my wedding, my parents had to make the decision that children under 18 would not be invited, for financial reasons. Back then, a nice wedding cost about $50 per person, and if just one 18-year-old had been invited, there were about 40 other 18-year-olds that would have had to be invited as well (large, Italian family).

So, the decision was made.

It was simply not possible to have a different kind of reception at that time and in that area of the country -it simply had to be sit down dinner with open bar and live band. Anything else would have put my parents in deep shame, and even though I just wanted cake and champagne, we had the traditional Italian wedding reception for about 200 (which is small in my family).

I guess I just don’t understand what the problem was with your attending the reception without your children.

Denise

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Original message
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From: “Katrina Hartman”

Our entire family was invited to a wedding recently, but just my DH and I were invited to the “adult celebration” later in the evening, and our kids are 18 and 15. Needless to say, we did not attend either event.

Katrina

Quote:

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Original Message
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From: Heather Herber
To: Budget101 ; Michigan Tightwads
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 6:31 PM
Subject: Budget101.com : Wedding Invitation Ettiquette Question

My brother just got engaged last night, to a wonderful woman he’s been with for 6 years now. After finally deciding to get married, they want to rush things, and get married at the end of September.

Here’s my question- they want a kid-free reception (I don’t blame them, our side of the family alone has a LOT of hyper active kids that are young), and he and his bride-to-be are unsure how to phrase it on the invitation in a way that is polite, but firm.

Any idea’s?

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