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

juliaw

Don't invite people if you don't intend to feed them. I was one of a large group of very embarrassed and hungry guests who had travelled a long way to a recent wedding. We could not even join in the toasts, because we were not given drinks either. Nobody openly complained, but the atmosphere was terrible. I have never been so embarrassed.

belfastgirl23

juliaw wrote: »

Don't invite people if you don't intend to feed them. I was one of a large group of very embarrassed and hungry guests who had travelled a long way to a recent wedding. We could not even join in the toasts, because we were not given drinks either. Nobody openly complained, but the atmosphere was terrible. I have never been so embarrassed.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: sometimes I read things here that astonish me!! I for one would not have been staying, hat off to you for being willing to do so!

Torry_Quine

I don't really think you need formal invitations to people just for the ceremony. To be honest as it's the same place as the receprtion it could be seen as somewhat crass. By all means if someone is interested let them know but I wouldn't make a big deal of it.

alisong_2

I went to a lovely wedding recently where the whole group of people at the ceremony were offered tea and cake afterwards, a much smaller group were then invited to the sit down ceremony. If you could do that you could put on the invitation something like tea and cake to follow, to finish at approx ?pm maybe.

angelil

So tough.

I've been invited to two weddings in the past 2 years that have handled this differently. At my friend's wedding in 2009 they got married in a church in the centre of Guildford and held their reception in the church hall next door. They tried to keep it low-cost so as to be able to invite as many people as possible, but still did not feel able to invite everyone to the reception that they wanted to invite to the ceremony. They felt the ceremony was the more important bit of the wedding and could not understand the mentality of doing things the other way around instead (i.e. inviting more people to the reception than to the wedding itself). They therefore invited everyone to the wedding ceremony that they wanted to, but to those they felt unable to invite to the reception, they enclosed a polite apology with the invite along with a list of restaurants etc in the area (it was central Guildford after all so plenty available within walking distance). From what I saw of photos afterwards people hadn't seemed to mind and there were plenty of photos of people who had taken themselves off to nearby pubs etc. It definitely didn't affect attendance and I think I would agree with my friends that the ceremony was the most important bit - although saying that, I was invited to the wedding reception, so perhaps I would have felt differently if I'd ended up alone at a restaurant in the city due to not knowing any other guests. Fine if you've come as part of a group/know other people at the ceremony I suppose.

This year I was invited to my friend's evening do only. As I was coming from a long way away (France!) I emailed her and said I understood if she wanted me to take off in between as reception meals are expensive etc but as I was coming such a long way would it be OK for me to come to the ceremony as well (imo, as mentioned above, the most important bit). She agreed to this and said to me that as the venue was near Henley she hoped I would be able to find plenty to do in between. As it was, she had a cancellation and was later able to invite me to the reception as well as the ceremony and evening do. This was something I ended up being VERY grateful for as her venue was not in fact that near Henley but in the middle of nowhere and as my mum had dropped me off I would have literally been left with sod all to do for at least 2 hours. While I certainly found the ceremony moving etc being stuck outside for 2 hours would have been most aggravating. Nevertheless I do understand my friend's reasons for trying to keep numbers down and only invite people to the evening do.

I would therefore say that if you do plan to invite some people only to the ceremony (and then perhaps back to the evening do after the reception), make sure you have your ceremony in or very near to a big town so that they have lots of options for afterwards. People will be able to decide for themselves if travelling for the ceremony alone would be too much time or hassle.