anniversary dinner

foxxymynx

DH and I have decided that we wanted to ask family and close friends to come to dinner with us for our wedding anniversary. I'll be damned if I'm paying for them all to eat and get drunk though! :rotfl:I've already spoken to a restaurant and they're happy to put banners up and stuff like that for us and corden off an area for us, as well as bill tables seperately. The only thing is, do I do informal invitations and if so how do I word them?
Other family members have done similar in years gone by, for other events and for the life of me, I can't remember what they did!

Pee

I think the etiquette is that you can't "invite" someone if you are paying for your own meals - and there is an issue with this sort of group booking when some people do not come at the last minute and the venue expects you to pay.

One option is to have a set menu and collect the money when you ask people - i.e. phone them and collect the money a fortnight later.

I am sure there is some wording that you could use, and yes, people do do it all the time. I don't know what your finances are like, but maybe arranging a welcome drink or couple of bottles on the tables would be a nice touch?

foxxymynx

there's been a slight change of plan and a talk with our favourite restautant, but we do want to create an illusion.

The restaurant have said that, because of our history with them, they'll give free soft drinks to everyone all night and feed the kids for free. Adults they can do 2 courses for a tenner, from a specific menu. Our plan is we'll pay for the adults, but not tell them til they get there (and if they want from the other menu they can pay the difference). The reason for this (not telling them that we're paying) is, quite frankly, we only want the people to go who want to be there and we know that some family members are likely to turn up "just cause it's free grub". We figure that if they think they're paying and we say "oh, they're giving us a discount, so it won't be expensive" people will come if they want to come, not cause they're getting "free grub".

I know it sounds a bit catty, but to be frank, we only want the people there who want to be there, not those who just want a free night out.

The reason that we're doing it all like this is cause I wasn't well enough to have a wedding reception when we got married and we really want to do something with the people who came to the wedding. (It was always the plan to have a small celebration with those who wanted to go to the wedding, when or if, I was well enough at a later date).

A little complex I know!

Horace

foxy - why not just invite the people whom you want to be there, that way you can avoid hangers on.

foxxymynx

sounds the perfect scenario, but sadly doing it that way means that we avoid family arguments and confrontations of "well, why didn't ***** get invited" we know fine well that some people will decline the invitation, but if we don't invite them in the first place, all hell will break loose. Sad I know. In an ideal world, that's exactly what we'd do, but it's not an ideal world and to be frank, I can't be done with the drama queens in the family making it about them (again!)

Other than that though, I do kinda like the element of surprise, lol.