j4 | Three questions of etiquette

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Three questions of etiquette

1. Is there any non-offensive way to say to people (who have misinterpreted our probably-confusing invitations-and-website nonsense and RSVPd to say they will be pleased to come to the wedding) "I'm sorry but the invite was only to the reception (because the actual wedding is v small)"? I just feel as though any way of saying it feels really horrible but we honestly can't fit everybody in. :-(

2. Is it even worse to ask this on my LJ where a) inevitably some people reading this will not have been invited to either (all other things being equal, this would still be a world-readable journal and the venue would still be finite) and b) everybody will think "oh noes are they talking about me?".

3. Might it be better to just shoot myself now?

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1) "RTFI, n00b"
2) no. HTH
3) definitely not!

[sorry, these are probably not very helpful replies. Have some *hugs* and *mustelidae*]

Maybe. Maybe. No. Congratulations :-)

We had to do that, as we got married in the registry office, which wasn't really that big. We just bit the bullet and tried to be tactful about it, leaning heavily on the smallness of the hall, and how few people were going to the actual wedding.
Good luck

1. I think most people will not react badly to having that explained to them, unless they are one of the parents of the bride and*/or groom.
2. Oh noes you are talking about me!!!!!1!!!
3. Please wait until after the wedding to shoot yourself, as I wouldn't want to miss the possibility of cake.

*For weddings in some parts of Somerset

1. What you have written there in the question is perfectly polite.
2. No.
3. No.

I tried on a dress today.

Also, I'd assumed you meant reception only. It usually does!

Reminder to self - RSVP.

1. We're not offended! I think most adults can grasp the concept of limited capacity in a wedding venue, and we're just delighted to be invited to join the celebration. I thought what you wrote in our (lovely) invitation was clear and helpful and had no thought of being offended at all.

2. Not at all. (but oh bugger, I fulfill your prediction b)

3. Pls no shooting, we wantz wedding party.

1. It's easier to make it non-offensive than offensive. If some luser takes offense, well, it's out of your hands.

2. If it were, you wouldn't've done it.

3. No, no, no. Look, the wedding is going to be a busy thing, and preparations will be stressful, so don't make it worse on yourself. Relax, trust your friends, trust yourself, and remember to breathe.

I don't think what you're doing is offensive, any more than it would have been offensive, 30 years ago when everything was done on paper, to send out invitations to a dozen people to the wedding and separate invitations to 100 (including those dozen) to a reception. [For those dozen, I believe that it was proper to include both invitations in one envelope.] If someone then heard, say, the bride's sister mention the wedding, that didn't mean they were invited to both.

I gather the reverse was sometimes done: a wedding was considered open to the entire congregation, which could mean most of the residents of a village, without that obliging the people getting married, or their parents, to feed anyone who chose to show up.

From what I've seen here, you are quite capable of saying "I'm sorry to have confused you, but the invitation is to the reception. We're having a very small, low-key ceremony, with only a few people, and couldn't invite everyone we wanted. I do hope you'll come to the reception" in a polite fashion.

Sure, someone might take offense to that. Someone else might take offense to hearing that a person they know casually is getting married thousands of miles away without inviting them. That is their problem.

Definitely not to the third.

1. It's simply not offensive to say that, as the wedding venue is small, you've limited invitations to that to your family and close friends. It's a matter of practicality. I should think that very few people will be offended.

Nah, they should learn to read.

However, labelling the card "wedding" might not have been the smartest move in retrospect.

See you at 7 then.

(In my defence, I didn't actually have the card with me when I replied. I remembered the URL from memory.)

Edited 2008-12-02 07:40 (UTC)

4. How long should one leave before reminding people that 'RSVP' means they have to get off their arse and répond?

(Yes, we would love to come, thankyou for inviting us.)

In reverse order:

Do not not not shoot yourself (unless, perhaps, with a rubber-band-off-the-finger, if it would make you feel merrier, on a "there, I shot myself, job done" kind of way).

No, it's not worse.

First question: If people show up and you can't shoehorn them in IT DOES NOT MATTER. Prime your best man/maid/matron-of-honour/Chief-Wrangler to say "How delightful to see you! Do sit down here where you should be able to hear/in the hotel across the street/in the pub down the road, the room is TINY and we're so sorry it filled up so soon, Janet and Owen will be out as soon as the ceremony is done and I know they're looking forward to seeing you."

See? You have a plan. It isn't important if more people show up to wish you well than you can fit in at the registry office. Everyone will cope admirably. Your friends could start and run a small country from scratch quite well, if need be, FCOL, complete with a working IT system, orchestra, schools, medical care, and agriculture, yanno? :-)

Happy having-a-wedding! Hope it all works out.

...why are so many wedding venues so tiny? It seems to be a very common problem.

The Reg Office in Poxenford has a big-ish room which can handle about 50 people or so, but I gather it gets booked a long, long way in advance.

I've just realised I might have used confusing language in my RSVP, I think my brain was too occupied with j2o jokes.

I suspect some people may have used Wedding as a shorthand to mean reception being fully aware that they'd just been invited to the reception. I can imagine myself doing just that without thinking about it.

Anybody who has organised a wedding will completely understand that you can't invite everyone and how hard that is.

1) There probably isn't a way of saying it which doesn't feel really horrible, but if people are offended it's their own fault for not reading the invitation properly.

2) No. Of course it's easy for me to say this.

3) Definitely not.

I think you really need the insight and perspective that only the 31st comment saying the same thing can bring, so:

Civil weddings are the other way round from church weddings: the reception involves more people and is longer and more important than the ceremony. I also think that this is easy for most people to understand, and that most people wil grasp that being invited to your "wedding" may well be an invite to the reception only.

Where you might have trouble is with older people who are used to church weddings where the world and his wife turn up to the ceremony and it's the reception which is limited in numbers. (We had similar problems at our own wedding, where someone who wasn't even invited to any of it turned up unannounced and sat down in the room where the ceremony was taking place, because she's used to church weddings and she thought she could just slip in at the back like you would in a church.)

I have more advice about how to break it to these older people, but maybe I'll email you instead of making this comment even longer.

I've e-mailed you, w/o anything on What Is Done or Not Done, but I am minded of what i wrote O all that long while ago, which is that anything is better than drinking warm champagne in a dreary marquee on a rainy July afternoon in the country and emerging half-cut to get on a train back to London at 5 p.m. in no shape for one's dinner but equally in no shape for anything else *either*. And that whole rant is A.P. Herbert's, not mine, anyway, and you're avoiding all that by getting married *just* within daylight hours at a very reasonable time indeed for a party afterwards.

The only time I've ever been confused (in wedding invite terms) was by an invite to the church ceremony, which took place *after* the official wedding. I think it was some kind of catholic blessing, but they couldn't have (or didn't want) a catholic wedding as they already had a child together. So it was like a wedding, but with no actual getting-married part, as all the legal stuff had been done in the registry that morning.

*coughs sheepishly* and yes, I didn't actually R to the RSVP did I? I'm sure you knew we were coming but I still should've replied! Sorreeee.... :-)

I'll take it as read that not everyone understands the politely-unstated convention that a wedding invitation invites you one or more parts of the wedding: Ceremony, Breakfast, Reception. But here it is:

One or more parts, and not necessarily all.

It is equally a part of this unstated convention that all who attend any part can subsequently say: "I was at X and Y's wedding" and confer whatever social status upon themselves they think is due.

The recipient of any invitation will accept or refuse it politely, expressing best wishes to the happy couple and gratitude that they, in preference to the teeming millions of humanity and the thousands of friends and acquaintances of the bride and groom, have been invited at all.

That is - or ought to be - sufficient explanation: be grateful for all and any invitations and have the grace to submerge all thoughts that you might wish for more; better to put down all vanity and bask in the glow of knowing that it is the very best of manners to respond with grace and gratitude to all that you are offered.

Obviously the practice of good manners is not enough for some: a few seek cause for offence in all things and there is nothing more to be said of them, except to wonder whether they should've been invited at all; some seek a sense of preference over others and would do well to reflect that a track record of modest grace and gratitude might well have gained them the preferment that they seek; others are unsatisfied with anything you offer, and would find themselves at the very front row of the Church or Registry wondering if there is some opportunity to demand that they officiate, or possibly replace the Bride or Groom or both; and all - invited or not, and to whichever part or parts - would do well to remember that the whole occasion runs against constraints of space and money.

The socially-subtle will phrase a refusal due to inability to attend by saying 'wedding', whereas a fit of pique at not being invited to all parts of it is expressed in a polite refusal that names the specific part to which they were invited. A more heavy-handed refusal will go on to wish you well in named parts of the ceremony that were excluded from the invitation... And that's it. All of it - or at least, all that is polite - and no expression of dissatisfaction whatsoever is permissible if you accept the invitation you were given.

It is ill-mannered to respond to news of any social occasion - no matter how gracious or oblique your wording may be - with a rude and arrogant and intrusive insistence that one should be present at an event or part thereof to which one was not specifically invited. For rude and arrogant it is, and inexcusably so: and neither you nor Owen should feel any guilt or embarrassment or need of apology if you are confronted with such a basic lack of manners.

From the privileged position of having seen both forms of the invite, I don't know how you could've made it any clearer. If the invite doesn't give a ceremony venue, the recepient ought to figure out that they are expected not to turn up. Maybe the solution is to beef up the "Numbers […] are restricted" on the website to make it clear that if someone without a ceremony invite turns up they won't get in.

Anyway, you have my complete sympathies regarding trying to work out how to present all the necessary invite information without requiring large letter postage.

And we really should R.

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Miss Manners Writes...

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