Money Moral Dilemma: Can we uninvite people to our postponed wedding to save money?

MSE_Kelvin

This week's MoneySaver who wants advice asks...

We're now replanning our postponed wedding and we're looking again at the guest list. Some people had accepted our initial invitation, but aren't on our 'A-list' of guests, and as we would now like to spend less, is it OK to uninvite some of those guests who had already said 'yes'?

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Brie

Certainly you can uninvite people to any event.  And certainly some of them won't be happy about it no matter how good your explanation is.  Some may have booked travel, hotels, bought outfits and so lost money.  Or bought you a gift that they now feel they don't need to give you.  Others will be fine even if they were A listers.  

As this is a rescheduled event they are less likely to have already spent anything much.  A nice polite note to each being un invited to explain will go a long way to ensuring you're not burning too many bridges.  "due to the length of time from the initial invite and how much we, you and the world has changed we've decided to cut back a lot of what was initially planned for our wedding including the number of guests.  I hope you won't be too disappointed to not attend and that it won't ruin our friendship."   I certainly wouldn't say "you're on the B list and didn't make the cut."

Torry_Quine

If you are scaling back the guest list then it's not going to be possible to have everyone you'd planned originally. When you send out new invitations you could contact those who can no longer invite and explain. Personally I'd have no problem 

Mark_d

Of course you can uninvite people.  When notifying everyone maybe state that you're keeping things small because you financial situation has changed.  Hopefully your B list guests won't be overly bothered

stuhse

i would look at how many people it actually boils down to.  ie how many guests fall in the group - have accepted- now not A list.  Chances are its not that many---calculate actual cost of inviting all those involved...then consider whether its worth the upset of uninviting.  Chances are some wont be able to make the new date even if invited, and some on your new A list wont be able to come so their places will pay for this select group of people you have identified...overall you potential wont be that much out of pocket..but will have kept your friends.  

Pollycat

Of course you can decide not to invite people who accepted your first invitation.
Be prepared to deal with any strops.

I'd say it depends how long ago the first wedding was scheduled for.
If it was during COVID, maybe people not so close to you would have forgotten all about the invitation.

Spendless

This has sort of happened to me. A the end of 2018 as our workplace closed down for good my colleague finished work and went and booked her wedding for Oct 2020, messaged me about it  and told me I would be invited. Early in 2020 she told me she was pregnant and had postponed the wedding by a year even before the 1st lockdown happened. In 2021 during the 3rd lockdown she told me she was unexpectedly pregnant again (baby 1 had required fertility treatment) and then said with all the restrictions she was just going to get married when they could with however many people allowed at that time. I took this as (an understandable) uninvite.

I'm still in touch with her vis SM so know she hasn't married, but we are both in different life stages to what we were when we worked together, my teens are now young adults with 1 married. She has young children instead of being childless, and haven't met up since before the pandemic so sort of assumed the uninvite still stood. It was to my surprise that a few weeks ago she sent me an invite via SM to her evening reception this summer. I'm quite touched she has invited me but I didn't expect it at all.

I can see if it was an official invite rather than the word of mouth I'd had people being more disappointed that they're no longer on the list. 

  

prettyandfluffy

This has happened to us and I found it rude.  To give a bit a context, we are quite closely related and also geographically nearby.  The couple decided they only wanted "immediate family" but then made a number of exceptions.  Their day, their prerogative; but they got a rather less generous wedding present than we had planned before we were uninvited.

Pollycat

prettyandfluffy said:

This has happened to us and I found it rude.  To give a bit a context, we are quite closely related and also geographically nearby.  The couple decided they only wanted "immediate family" but then made a number of exceptions.  Their day, their prerogative; but they got a rather less generous wedding present than we had planned before we were uninvited.

And that's why these MMDs just generate disparate opinions.
In all MMDs you need context.
And you never get that context.

DullGreyGuy

As always... it depends.

Ultimately it is your event and you can invite and uninvite whoever you want whenever you want. That doesnt mean people will be happy about it and it can burn relationships. Only you can answer the balance between finance and family. 

How much notice are you giving? Clearly the less notice the more likely you will cause people issues

Where was the original invite and anything unorthodox? This somewhat compounds with the above... if you invited people to Dubai for a black tie event and cancel it with a few days notice then clearly some will have invested monies in travel and outfits. Doesn't stop you cancelling it/ uninviting them but you should recognise the costs you are making others swallow. 

If you explain the situation in plenty of time and are flexible then most people will probably understand. Cannot say I've ever been uninvited to an event but have had a cousin brag endlessly about his upcoming wedding and how much he and his future husband were spending on it when not inviting us. He caught him in bed with one of the brides mades on the night before so it never happened... karma?

CapeTown

Your wedding,  your choice. To be honest, I would probably be grateful if this happened to me. Got a wedding to go to in October and really don't want to go. Any hoo, just say because of the length of time passed, you are having a small ceremony but you are having a party..... sometime after the ceremony .... say six months after and would they like to join you. That way everyone gets to celebrate