How to invite guests to wedding ceremony, but not the reception?

Janezhang

My fiance and I would love to invite all of our friends to our wedding and reception, however, financially we just can't do it. The ceremony is free and we want to make it public, however our reception will be for family and close friends only. What is the proper way to invite guests to ceremony and not the reception? (Did I mention both the ceremony and the reception is in the same venue.)

Toothsmith

Will the friends be travelling a long way to get to the ceremony? It would be a bit much to ask them to come to that and then not feed them!

I only put this because recently a friend of mine got married, and his wife was responsible for the invites. Myself & Mrs T.S and another university friend and his wife and kid were invited to the ceremony. Which was miles away. We only realised it was the 'evening do' and not the reception we were invited to just after the ceremony.

All 'her' friends were invited to the reception. The 5 of us had to head off to a Pizza Hut! then back later! Most dischuffed with the new Mrs X, we were!

Fortunately, with them being older, they didn't want wedding presents, but we wouldn't have given such a big donation to their nominated charity had we known we would be feeding ourselves!

iamana1ias

Janezhang wrote: »

My fiance and I would love to invite all of our friends to our wedding and reception, however, financially we just can't do it. The ceremony is free and we want to make it public, however our reception will be for family and close friends only. What is the proper way to invite guests to ceremony and not the reception? (Did I mention both the ceremony and the reception is in the same venue.)

I'd put what you've written on the invitations. Your numbers will be cut in no time.

iamana1ias

By the way, your ceremony will be public anyway. By law anyone that wants to attend can (even people who don't know you).

ebayqueen_2

I agree with all above. I think it would be ill-mannered to do so. Why not just have a small number of close friends and family to both. Then you won't be offending anyone.

Enjoy your day

Janezhang

ebayqueen wrote: »

I agree with all above. I think it would be ill-mannered to do so. Why not just have a small number of close friends and family to both. Then you won't be offending anyone.

Enjoy your day

You're right. I'd better have close friends and family to both.

Nicki

One of my friends got married on a shoestring recently, and invited people to the ceremony with a note enclosed saying that afterwards people would be going along to a restaurant on a self pay basis and anyone who would like to come was welcome. I wasn't able to go for other reasons but I think her meal was reasonably well attended and didn't impact on her wedding presents. Maybe this would be an option rather than having the reception in the wedding venue?

liney

In order to cut costs, we had a later wedding at 3pm and reception for 38, then a night 'do' with buffet which ended up as 100 people.

The night 'do' cost around 7.00 per head, instead of the £40 per head sit down meal.

I suppose it depends on how tight your budget is, whether you really want a wedding breakfast, and what time you plan to be married. Our friends were married at 4pm, and we all went straight to the venue and were provided with an earlier buffet around 6pm instead of a sit down meal; this meant they could invite everyone they wanted there.

belfastgirl23

I kind of think people either are welcome at everything or just at the evening reception, you can't send them off for a few hours whilst you feed the really important guests. As toothsmith says this will cause a huge amount of bad feeling. Unless what you're hoping for is that they'll decline altogether??

ONly way you could get away with it is only v close family for reception - eg parents, grandparents, siblings. And even then it would be tricky!

Kay_Peel

It's a difficult one.

Two work colleagues got married at the local registry office (which was within walking distance of our workplace). The reception was in the same building (a town hall with a banqueting suite). Some colleagues were going to the ceremony and reception, some were going to the evening do. By word of mouth the rest of us learnt that the bride and groom would be arriving and leaving the Registery Office at certain times. Because it was so close and no bother, we arranged things so that everyone who wanted to stand outside and cheer them could do so. There was a good turn out and they were delighted.

I'm not sure it would have worked if we had been 'invited' to go along or if we had to go to any expense or inconvenience.

belfastgirl23

Kay_Peel wrote: »

It's a difficult one.

Two work colleagues got married at the local registry office (which was within walking distance of our workplace). The reception was in the same building (a town hall with a banqueting suite). Some colleagues were going to the ceremony and reception, some were going to the evening do. By word of mouth the rest of us learnt that the bride and groom would be arriving and leaving the Registery Office at certain times. Because it was so close and no bother, we arranged things so that everyone who wanted to stand outside and cheer them could do so. There was a good turn out and they were delighted.

I'm not sure it would have worked if we had been 'invited' to go along or if we had to go to any expense or inconvenience.

That's a different thing though, and a lovely thing to do, just to cheer them on. We always had this in my neighbourhood, if someone was getting married most of the neighbours weren't going to the wedding but came along to see the bride/groom off from home. I think being invited for one bit but not another is different