Inviting yourself to a wedding rude?

[goin2disneyagain]

It's rude to invite yourself to a wedding.

 

[Mermaid02]

It's rude to invite yourself anywhere.

 

[LoraJ]

And like someone else said, you can't assume they are not wanted to be there. If you invited people to the ceremony only, they would expect to be invited to the reception. So it's not like the person didn't want everyone at her ceremony, she couldn't afford to have everyone at the reception.

Can you see the difference?

 

[LoraJ]

Now that I am remembering it better, it was actually the person who was getting married who asked if I too wanted to go to the ceremony with the other girl since she was going. So I guess I was invited.

 

[Mermaid02]

Originally posted by LoraJ
And like someone else said, you can't assume they are not wanted to be there. If you invited people to the ceremony only, they would expect to be invited to the reception. So it's not like the person didn't want everyone at her ceremony, she couldn't afford to have everyone at the reception.

Can you see the difference?

Sure I guess I see the difference. But I wouldn't have asked or let anyone ask on my behalf- just personally I would have felt uncomfortable.

 

[LoraJ]

Originally posted by Mermaid02
Sure I guess I see the difference. But I wouldn't have asked or let anyone ask on my behalf- just personally I would have felt uncomfortable.

No one asked on my behalf. I had no intentions in going. Now that I had remembered how it all transpired, my friend asked if she could attend the ceremony. Not sure if she mentioned my name or not, but when I saw the bride later that day, she mentioned the friend was going and said I was welcome to come too.

 

[Mermaid02]

Originally posted by LoraJ
No one asked on my behalf. I had no intentions in going. Now that I had remembered how it all transpired, my friend asked if she could attend the ceremony. Not sure if she mentioned my name or not, but when I saw the bride later that day, she mentioned the friend was going and said I was welcome to come too.

I'm sorry I guess I mis-read.

 

[Keli]

Originally posted by Lewski709
Your friend should have been an actress, because she obviously puts on a good show. Glad she got a good gift, I would hope someone would give me a nice gift if they came uninvited. I would have felt so WIERD about it all, I wouldn't have gone.

I'm not really sure you can make that assumption. You don't know whether this friend was putting on a show or not.


Personally, I wouldn't invite myself to someone's wedding.

 

[cgcw]

When DH & I got married, we had a very small wedding. 25 people -- total invited. It was not something we wanted/needed to do to honor the day, it was more of a formality. DH's daughter was 5 at the time and we didn't want to just tell her, oh, by the way, we got married. So, had a very small wedding with just a select few invited.

The day of the wedding, my Mom's cousin decided to show up, uninvited. I was furious when I heard she was including herself in the dinner afterwards. Short of making a scene, there wasn't anything I could to not have her there. Because we had the dinner at a hotel in a private room, we had given them an exact count of the number of guests/dinners we needed to have prepared. As it turned out, my mom's cousin ate a lovely, well cooked dinner, and another of our invited guests had a dinner which was cold and not cooked as it should have been. I found this out later, well after the fact, by accident from another guest. I'm certain what happened was that our head count was off by one and the hotel scrambled to prepare the extra dinner at the last minute.

I would never invite myself to a wedding (or anywhere else for that matter). I think it's incredibly rude.

 

[poohandwendy]

yes, I think it is rude whether it is a wedding ceremony, reception whatever unless you are specifically asked to be there...Sure there is nothing stopping people, but I think it is rude.

 

[Lewski709]

Originally posted by LoraJ
when I saw the bride later that day, she mentioned the friend was going and said I was welcome to come too.

Then you were invited and didn't go uninvited...paper invitation or personal, you were invited.

 

[RoyalCanadian]

The ceremony and the reception are two different things.

The weddingg ceremony is a public event in a Church -- anyone and everyone is welcome to attend that ceremony, regardless of whether the bride has invited them or not. As a minister, I have made the public invitation known to members of the congregation, "You're all invited to come witness the marriage of..." Let's see a bride (or the mother of the bride, for that matter) try and stop me.

The reception is by invitation only -- if you're not invited to the reception, you don't show up. Of course, it's incredibly tacky to invite someone to be a guest at the ceremony and not invite them to be a guest at the reception.

 

[katerkat]

I went to a wedding ceremony, and didn't know either the bride OR the groom! Go ahead, flame me! I wanted to get married in the same chapel, so I wanted to see how a couple really worked out the logistics. (And learned there's no real way to do it and ended up choosing another place.) The bride and groom never even knew I was there. (Obviously, I didn't go to the reception!)

I honestly didn't care who was attended my ceremony. I'm pretty sure I recall seeing members from our church there (we got married in a chapel ten miles from the town we went to college in) who had not been "invited." Personally, I'm always a little more miffed at the people who attend receptions and not the ceremony - they can come for the party but not the actual important part??

 

[Mouse Man]

When DW and I were married, one of her uninvited distant "friends" showed up to the ceremony. It was really awkward for DW. As we were greeting guests after the ceremony, the friend kept hinting that she wanted to be at the reception. I finally had to thank her for coming to the ceremony and explain that our budget didn't allow for more at the reception. I'll tell ya, if we weren't so happy, that would have put a downer on our day.

 

[WilmaBud]

I see nothing wrong with attending a wedding ceremony without an invitation. It's a public ceremony in a public place. I have never done it, but I wouldn't have had a problem with someone coming in to see me and my DH getting married at the church. I don't get the big deal.

The reception on the other hand, is a private event, and it would be rude to invite yourself to that. It's also rude to ask, "Can I bring a date (or my kids, etc.)?" when you, alone, are invited.

 

[powellrj]

I have never attended a wedding that I was invited to, but we had many people come to our wedding that were not invited and I never thought anything about it. Maybe its a regional thing, but we were married in a church in a small town in Indiana, and many of the people of the church and community attended our wedding and to be honest, I was flattered that they wanted to attend. They were friends of our parents that I would never have wanted to feel obligated to buy a gift for us so I didn't invite them, but they were more than welcome to attend the wedding. Maybe where these people live its common for people to attend weddings so they were not aware that anyone would mind. I agree a reception is by invation only and I would think most people would realize this.

 

[Amberle3]

I say if I'm paying to rent the space, then it's not a public wedding and I get to choose who's going to be there.

Now we're not getting married in Las Vegas. The hall holds 100 people, max. We have about 100 people that we're expecting to show up. Anyone who hasn't RSVP'd at all will be called to make sure it hasn't just been lost in the mail . Anyone who has RSVP'd for more people than invited (although that will be difficult for them to do, we're not leaving a blank line to fill in) will be called with the "I'm so sorry, but we have a limited amount of space and just can't accommodate additional people". Anyone who's not invited is being turned away. Sorry.

Yes, I'm mean, controlling and nasty. Live with it

 

[swilphil]

Originally posted by LoraJ
....And you are also making it sound like we crashed the wedding, when we did not.

I think your situation is a little different. You were invited verbally, so you didn't crash. Asking before hand if you can go (though awkward for most of us) is a lot better than just showing up without any warning. Every situation is a little different. I know with my wedding there were some acquaintances that I didn't invite because I didn't feel like they would want to come. I didn't want them to feel obligated to buy me a present. I can't believe how many people have the philosophy "Invite lots of people so you get tons of presents." How rude is that???

 

[Kallison]

Anyone may attend a wedding in a church, whether invited to the reception or not. Period end of story.

 

[Blueberry]

My late MIL always thought an invite for her and FIL was an invite for all her family...She has 6 kids with spouses and would just show up with them at family weddings up north where she was from (only an hour drive from where she lived). I only got caught in that trap ONCE...DH was in the military and not with me and could not WARN me of what she used to do...(Her relatives must have loved her for this).

Anyway, we showed up at this Church for her nephews wedding and the Father of The Bride simply told her, Mildred we did not expect you to bring so many along with you (Mind you there were 12 people when only 2 were invited). She just kinda shrugged at him and said she figured the bride would want her cousins all there....

We got to the reception and they must have been watching for us, it was just in a firehouse but limited seating of course...One of her nephews told her, Aunt Mildred you and Uncle Frank are welcome to come in but the others will have to wait outside!!! I have never been so embarrassed in my life, we had to go and stand outside by the cars till it was over (I secretly applauded them but to have those people think I was trying to crash embarrassed the heck out of me, would never have gone if I knew I was not invited). Of course MIL went in and ate, but the rest of us just waited as it was a small town with no restaurants in it. On the way home we stopped at Dairy Queen as it was the only restaurant around and she opposed that as she was NOT HUNGRY!!!.....

I would go to a Church to see a friend married, but would NEVER invite myself to a reception without a formal invite or verbal invite from the bride or groom....just my two cents on it.