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Can you invite people not asked to wedding to post wedding bash?

18 years ago

We have a very close friend getting married we want to throw a party for. The wedding is private & very small---family & scant handful of friends.

I know it is not proper to invite guests to a prenuptial party, or shower, if they are not invited to the wedding. How about to a post wedding party???

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Comments (7)

sweet_pea10
18 years ago
You can certainly invite guests to a post-wedding party. Just don't put an emphasis on gifts. Instead, make it an informal time to relax and enjoy being together.
talley_sue_nyc
18 years ago
Just don't put an emphasis on gifts.

Don't worry about this--NO invitation emphasizes gifts. No party does, either, except a kid's bday party and a shower. Just invite people, at WHATEVER level of formality you want.

A formal party has nothing to do w/ "emphasizing gifts." It emphasizes formalwear, but not gifts.

It is quite common for after-wedding receptions, whether thrown by the couple themselves or close friends or family, to INTENTIONALLY invite those that were not invited to the wedding.

It's a way to include people that the bride and groom (& their families) couldn't bcs of money constraints, a desire for intimacy, logistics, whatever.

How nice for your friends that they have people like you willing to honor them! We place so much emphasis nowadays on the bride and groom hosting their own wedding, and sometimes that comes across weird: "come to my wedding and shower ME with rice and attention."

It's so much more gracious when it's, "come to our friend's celebration and join me in showering THEM with attention."

I bet you'll have a really nice time, and everyone you invite will be glad to be there. (Get the bride & groom to bring some pics of the actual event, in case people ask to see them.)
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Talley Sue has it exactly right, as always. Send invitations, not announcements, to those whom you want to invite. Don't send some "casual" invitations and some "formal" -- all the same, whether or not you think they will attend. Don't overdo it in an attempt to be helpful; it very quickly becomes pushy. I understand that you want to give people plenty of time to plan (and save up). But unless you run with a very wealthy crowd, please understand that very few people will be able to accept your invitation, and don't feel hurt that most cannot. (If they don't, it won't be because you didn't send them enough brochures and stuff early.) I think you can even pretty much figure on only your closest family and friends, and probably relatively few of them. That being the case, it should be easy just to let them know (if they don't already) that the wedding will be in Jamaica and what the date is. I would do this by phone call, a handwritten note, or e-mail, not a printed "pre-invitation" (you save a little money that way, too). You can either ask them if they'd like you to send the info about the resort, or just included it with a letter or as an e-mail attachment. I'm happy for you that some of your friends or relatives (you just said "couples") say they are planning to attend. Expect some drop-off, though. My cousin had his wedding in Kenya (where his fiance's family lived, not just because it was cool), and they sent us all info that did make it seem like the trip of a lifetime. Although several of us said we'd try to come, and we meant it (at least before learning the cost!), in the none of us did. Yes, it would have been amazing. But if I am going to save up that kind of dough, I want it to be for MY trip of a lifetime, not someone else's. Jamaica would be a lot less than Kenya, but it is still an expensive trip for just a weekend (except maybe for Floridians) so you may be contemplating everyone making it a whole week or something. But please understand that few people will be able to arrange their vacation schedules around your wedding plans, and even those who could might prefer to choose their own destinations and arrangements for what will be rather an expensive trip and possibly their only vacation of the year. There is another string going on about destination weddings right now; you might want to check it out. Is there some reason that the ceremony itself, not just the honeymoon, has to be in Jamaica?
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Congratulations! I'm not sure what you mean by "unique verbiage." If what you mean is something clever and creative, you may want to consider that it might be counterproductive. After all, the real purpose of any invitation is to convey information that the guests really need about the event. In your case, you need to be especially clear, because you are having the reception a month after the wedding, and you don't want anyone to be confused. It's hard enough to word such an invitation for clarity without compounding it with attempts at clever or original language. You want your guests to be charmed, not annoyed by having to read the thing three times and then make a phone call to find out to what they are being invited. It's like a personal letter vs. a pre-printed greeting card, no matter how nice. They are going to be charmed by the fact that it is YOUR marriage, not by "unique verbiage." Miss Manners warns that people really get themselves into trouble trying to be too original or personal with invitation wording, and that it's best to let your happiness shine through the traditional forms. (In one response, she refers to her "fervent rejection of the 'originally' worded pseudo-formal announcement. It is vulgar, in its assumption that this wedding is somehow more joyous than others, and it is open to severe misunderstanding." Another time, I remember her writing something about an invitation that said something like, "Please join us as we celebrate our love." She said that it sounds like at best the couple are bragging that somehow their love is more important or unusual than anyone else's, and at worst that perhaps there is something wrong there, if they feel a need to make such a point of it. I think that may be a bit harsh, but at the same time I see her point about using traditional, or at least very simple, wording. I found a few samples on this site: http://www.invitationconsultants.com/sww-private_ceremony.asp. As you can guess, I prefer the ones that aren't poems. I like "verse 3" the best. You will need to put in the date of your reception, though. I would put the date, time, and location of your reception on separate lines, so they will pop out and no one will get confused by the first date (of the actual wedding). You may even want to avoid the word "reception," if you think that will confuse people. For the welcome baskets, of course it really doesn't matter. Personally, I don't usually like little poems and such -- they usually seem cutesy to me, and again, I wouldn't want to let an effort to make a cute poem get in the way of giving the guests the real information they need. Around here, friends often make up welcome bags with snacks for out of town guests, and the hosts include a letter welcoming everyone, thanking them for coming, and including all the information they will need for the trip: times and locations of all events, directions if needed, cell phone numbers of helpful people, etc. If it is only a few people (or really I guess the relevant number is baskets, not individuals), I think it would be really nice to put the info on a separate page and hand write a short, personal note for each basket. Wouldn't you feel special if you found that waiting for you? This is all just my opinion, of course. There is nothing "wrong" with cleverness or originality. But I think often people worry needlessly that if they stick to simplicity, clarity, and convention, their invitations, etc., will seem impersonal and "blah." They really don't -- YOUR NAMES on that invitation make it absolutely unique and wonderful to your guests. Nothing else you could write will accomplish that as much.
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Since I am looking at this subject as a mother who has just recently completed a guest list with my daughter and her fiancÃÂ© for their wedding, I would like to give your nephew the benefit of the doubt. Tough job. Who knows what was going through his mind when he invited your mother but it was probably meant to be kind. We are more worried that we will be offending people that feel they should have been invited. But you can't invite everyone you know. DD and fiance said from the beginning that the bride and groom's Aunts and Uncles and their spouses would be invited. And their kids and spouses/guests. Otherwise you are gonna pi** somebody off. Well the groom has 14 paternal Aunts and Uncles. And 8 maternal Aunts and Uncles. Big family. And my DH and I also have lots of sibs. Cuts down on the number of invites and you find yourself crossing people off the list. Anyway, I guess my point is...I think that most of the time there aren't that many invitations to go around and if all of you...and your mom got one, it' probably sincere. Call me naive too :-)
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gellchom
18 years ago
As usually, I completely agree with Talley Sue. You are planning to give your friends a lovely party in their honor. It is of no moment that the guests were not invited to the wedding (as you correctly sensed would be wrong with a shower, although frankly I think you could get away with even that for someone who eloped or something, but anyway, that's not your issue). Don't worry about the gifts issue. Anyone who wants to give them a gift can do so, but that's not your problem or concern (obviously, don't make any mention of gifts, and certainly no registry info). Your party can be as casual or fancy as you feel like doing -- YOU are the hosts. I think your friends are very lucky!
sep2897
Original Author
18 years ago
you guys are great! thank you!!!

just some more info, to make sure I'm still in the clear here...double checking! hee hee

there is a reception, also private, immediately following the wedding. This potential post wedding party would be held in the same town as the wedding. So, this is not a elopment, or destination wedding, with this being a congrats party afterwards, as I know is commonly done. I've just never personally run up on this situation, although I know it must happen. I have searched etiquette/wedding forums to no avail.

I just don't want a bunch of insulted guests. It's the groom's hometown, & mine, & none of us wants to commit a etiquette faux pas--would be really poorly regarded in this very manner concious small southern town!

thanks so much! can't tell you how much you're all helping...is this still thumbs up???
gellchom
18 years ago
Yep yep yep. You are lovely friends, giving a party in honor of your friends who got married. You are being careful not to make the slightest suggestion that anyone expects guests to buy gifts, or even any acknowledgement that they might.

Also, don't worry about whether to call it a post-wedding reception or something like that. In fact, if I were doing this, I would just word the invitation something like, "Please come to/You are invited to to/Mary Smith requests the pleasure of your company at [or whatever the formality of the occasion dictates] a party in honor of Cuthbert and Petunia Jones [or Cuthbert Miller and Petunia Jones, if they have different last names, or I guess also if the invitations go out before she changes her name]/date/time/place" You don't even have to mention anything about the wedding on the invitation. I wouldn't. Anyone close enough to invite to the part presumably knows that they are getting married, and that's obviously why you are honoring them. The less you refer to it on the invitation, the less likely anyone will think that the idea is to rustle up some gifts. But it seems to me that anyone as nice as you probably travels in a circle that doesn't assume nastiness, and the invitees' response will be more like, "Oh, isn't that nice of Mary to do that. I'm glad we'll all get to celebrate, even though it's going to be a small wedding. I wish I'd thought of it myself."

I don't see anything wrong with this even if they had had a big wedding. So there! :-)
kwajerica
12 years ago
If a couple has a really small family only wedding, do you think it is ok for the bride's parents to throw a home party for the bride and groom after the honeymoon?
gellchom
12 years ago
Yes, it's fine. But as they are the parents of the bride, it is even more important that there not be any hint about gifts. Not even a reference to a website that his information about a registry.

Some people will still give the couple gifts. But those are the people who are close enough that they would probably give a wedding gift even if they weren't invited to anything.

You didn't say it was a possibility, but I would be sure to avoid calling it a "reception" or anything else that might be confusing. Just "a party in honor of Petunia and Cuthbert."

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