Wedding Invitation Etiquette Question
 

One of my childhood friends is getting married in July. My parents and I received our invitations in March. My sister, who lives halfway across the country, received an invitation yesterday.

My sister is a little ticked that she received an invitation after the rest of the family did. I think she feels like she was on a "B list". I tried to explain that my friend was limited to 200 guests due to the size of the reception hall and that as the declines had come in, she was sending out more invitations to fill the hall.

I feel bad for my sister. I think my friend sent an invitation as a nice gesture but it was done too late.

What is the etiquette with wedding invitations?

Tell her to quit being a drama queen and either go or don't go. It's not about her, it's about the people getting married.

A lot of people now are having to do a B list. It's not uncommon. If she's upset by it, tell her not to go so someone else can go in her place.

There should not be a "B" list for Wedding invitations. You decide how many people you can invite and send them out, usually about 4-6 weeks before the event. If you have lots of people who need lots of advanced warning, you send out a "save the date" card, then the invitations 4-6 weeks before the date. I think it is a little tacky to send out more invitations as regrets come in.:eek: I would be hurt and offended too if I was your sister.

You said she is getting married in July....that is plenty of time. I don't know why your sister is being a drama queen. At least she was invited, and is she that close to the bride anyhow? She needs to get over being offended and either go or not...and this is coming from someone who is starting wedding planning.

And leesek, lots of people have "b" lists. It's nothing new.

I want to say that your sister should get over it, but if it were me, I'd be pissed, too. Unless it was a friend that I didn't know very well, and then I wouldn't really care that I was on the "B" list...

Well, my sister is a lot older than me and my friend is closer to my age but she is still a family friend. My sister is not upset, just bewildered to receive the invitation after the rest of the family.

I understand that most brides and grooms would have a "B list" in case of regrets but I think that if you are going to invite a family, shouldn't you send invitations to them at the same time?

Is it possible that the bride didn't send your sister an invitation at the same time as the rest of the family because she didn't have the address? Or is it possible that it was an oversite and then the bride realized she didn't send your sister an invite and sent one out late?

Yes, it's a bit of a snub to be "B listed" but could something else have been the cause?

One of my coworkers did a "B list" where she invited people from the office like 2 weeks before the wedding since she got a poor response to her earlier invites. She's a nice person and all, but it was the tackiest thing I have ever seen.

IMO, you're old enough that she is your friend and obviously your parents don't need to take you to the wedding :) - your parents and your sister should have been on the same "tier" if you will. I don't think your sis would be so upset if your parents hadn't been invited in the first round.

I agree with leesek - you invite who you want to come to the wedding WHETHER THEY REALISTICALLY WILL OR NOT. If you don't have room, don't send an invite to cousin Sue in India because you figure she won't come yet you can "include" her - it's trying to have your cake and eat it too. Because if Sue decides to show up and because of her you can't have a friend you REALLY wanted to have, you will be screwed.

I have a "B" list BUT if I am inviting people from a family, I invite them all not just pick & choose which family members are on the "A" list & the "B" list.
My "B" list consists of co-workers & other friends that are not that close. The "B" list is people you would like to have at your wedding but b/c of finances and/or size, you just can't have unless space opens up. Yeah it sucks b/c I know I have been "B" listed once before but I still went & enjoyed myself. The bride was happy to see me regardless & sent the nices Thank You card.
My "A" list is all the families & friends we definitely want there.

EDIT: My wedding coordinator told me that proper etiquette indicates that if I choose to have the "A" & "B" lists, the invitations for "A" listers needs to be sent out 3 months before the wedding & the other invitations sent out a month and a half to 2 months before the wedding. You do NOT send them out a few weeks before. That is tacky.

I think if you're going to have "A" and "B" lists, that all family members should be on the same "tier". It's rude to invite some family members, and then others once you start getting cancellations

Ummm...that's what I said. If I am inviting a family, all of them will receive their invitations at the same time. Families are all on the same list & not separated. I don't know if my post made that clear.

yes I know.. hence the "thumbs up" icon :)

K. Got it. :) My mind isn't working properly b/c I woke up too early today. I hate the fact that my window faces the early morning rising sun.

I know how she feels. My parents' friends, who are so close that we call them aunt and uncle even though they're of no relation, have a daughter that's getting married this July. My mom threw her wedding shower, and the invitations come in the mail and my sister and I aren't invited! This is someone we both grew up with, went on vacations with, our families are best friends, etc. My sister and I were furious.

I have another wedding invitation question. I'll be sending mine out this coming week but have come across this dilemma. My fiance & his mother think it is perfectly acceptable to send the little notes that inform our guests where we are registered along with the wedding invite. My family disagrees and feel that guests are informed if they ask, otherwise, they bring you whatever they want.

Who is right? Do I include the little card that says we're registered at so-and-so stores or should I omit them b/c they are tacky? I honestly don't know.

While many stores are even providing little cards, to show where you are registered, it's still terribly tacky.

If your beloved and his mother are trying to steer people towards the Registry Lists, insist that they either mail out a separate notes ("I thought you might appreciate knowing that BetteDavis is registered at the following stores - I know that I'm always left wondering what to purchase! We would have said so in the invitations, but as you know, it's rather gauche.") and left them send them out only to extremely close friends.

By now, you'd think people would know to ask where the couple has registered! I know that I always do (even if I don't plan to get something on the list!).

I totally agree with you!! I just got married a year ago and refused to do the A and B list, not that I had a choice, my mom and mother-in-law were dead set against it too. In my opinion I would rather not be invited to a wedding (at least you don't have to spend the money on the gift) then to know, by getting the invitation late, that I was on the B list.

Yes, you should never put a note about your registry in with your wedding invitation. What the best solution that I have seen and I did was to put something along the lines of that with your bridal shower invitation. All the people that are going to the bridal shower should be going to the wedding too, so that way they will know. For the guests that are not going to the shower the best way to for them to find out is through word of mouth. At least that what they say in all the bridal planners.

I think it's terribly tacky to include anything telling people where you are registered because gifts are definitely not required and it looks like you are begging for gifts. We set up a website (you can do it at theknot.com, we did ours on geocities) with all your wedding info (directions, hotels, etc.) and included links to our registries. We included the URL on the invite, but you can add a card that has that included, too. People could find out if they wanted to that way.

Your family is right.

When I was planning my sister's wedding shower, I called a relative to get the addresses of many guests. She asked where my sister was registered and spread the word to the rest of the family.

It's definitely tacky to include registry list with the wedding invitation. Your family is right Bette.

You're right. I put those little cards as well as directions cards in the shower invitations. I forgot the point of my post, lol. Instead of putting the registry cards in the wedding invitations, tell a relative or family friend where you are registered. Make sure it's a relative who talks to everyone so she can get the word out.

The wedding guests who weren't invited to the shower just asked the bride, the groom, or their mothers where the couple is registered.

The last few weddings I've been to, I've seen a gift table with things stacked high. I've opted to just sending the gifts directly to the bride and groom through their online registry. That way no one has to worry about what to do with the gifts after the wedding.

But I agree about the tacky-ness of the registry cards in the invites. If people want to get you a gift, they will know who to ask. Otherwise, you make it seem like you only care about the gift and not the person attending the wedding. Spread the word to your close friends and family.

Or put together a website via TheKnot.com. It's not as tacky.

Yeah, I confused myself, too. It was early, lol.

My sister is getting married in one week, and the wedding gifts have been delivered to her home which makes things easier. It's a lot of work to get all those gift boxes home from the ballroom or catering hall, etc. It's really convenient with the internet. You can look at the registry, order a gift online, and have it wrapped and delivered. I ordered my sister's shower gifts and they arrived at my place two days later.

I personally HATE it when people don't include registry cards, especially if you were only invited to the wedding and not the shower (where they are usually enclosed with the invitation.)

The ladies at my church and my mothers friends don't use theknot.com or look up people on Bed Bath & Beyond. It removes some hassel because I would rather give a gift than money. I feel like a card with money or gift certificates is so impersonal.

Do not include the registry information, it's terribly tacky. theknot.com has many articles about it...email them to your fiance and his mom.

I recently got a wedding invite with them in there. TACKY! If you want to know where someone is registered, you ask, or for goodness sakes look online.

This is how my best friend took care of it this summer for her wedding (both her and her husband are very skilled at web design, so they designed their own website and had their own domain name).

I typically go off on my own and find something that I think the two of them would enjoy, and leave the registry things to everyone else (yes, I'm weird :p)

Yes, it is tacky to include registry information with your wedding invitations. It's ok to include them with shower invitations, because gifts are expected - the point is to "shower" the bride with gifts. But any mention of gifts for the wedding itself - even to say "no gifts please" or "in lieu of a gift, please consider a donation to charity X" - is generally considered tacky. A guest who doesn't receive registry info with a shower invitation, should call the bride's or groom's family and ask. It's one of those weird wedding-etiquette things - the bride and groom can't give off the appearance of "we expect a gift", but as a guest, you d@mn well better show up with something.

One of my cousins did this for her wedding and I thought it was a great idea. The URL for their website was included on a little card with their invitation and the website had all of the information about the wedding (directions, places to stay nearby and all that) as well as a link to a registry. It was helpful and definitely not tacky.

That's actually what the etiquette books suggest that one does. I absolutely LOVED the people who did that, as I had their thank you notes written prior to the wedding! It was the only way I could calm down at night!

Also, in each town or circle of friends, there simply has to be at least one blabber mouth who, when told where the couple is registered, will tell everyone else. They live for that stuff!

And those with a computer have no excuse! The minute you receive a wedding invitation, you should immediately check the most likely registries - and if you still can't find them, a quick, "I don't want to keep you but would you mind telling me if Eunice & Heinrich are registered and where?" call would be most welcome! Do you really think that Eunice & Heinrich want to spend their first married days returning 18 toasters or dustbusters?

Almost every wedding invitation I have recieved has had a registry card... maybe in Michigan we are just tacky... I'm Ok with it.

Maybe I just have less than perfect friends... thats OK too because I love them. I think it all comes down to the fact that your witnessing and celebrating a very special day with your friends. This fact is so very lost in the who production of planning and ettiquette of weddings today.

I think it is awfully tacky to send registry information with your invitation. The last two wedding invitations I got had registry information and it just looked tacky compared to the beauty of the invitation itself. For those relatives that are not computer savvy, they're the ones who call anyway, so they can hear that way.

I have another wedding etiquette question. When should you expect a thank you note? I went to one wedding in late May and one in late September and have not gotten notes for each. The may bride sent a TY for her shower gift but the Sept bride hasn't sent anything.

You're supposed to send out thank you's ASAP after you receive ANY gift, particularly a wedding! I went to a shower, and didn't get a thank you until AFTER we received the wedding invitation a few months later. And I didn't even get one personally- one note was sent to my mom, and it had my name on it. No matter that we haven't lived under the same roof in 6 years.

That wedding was in July. I received the thank you just last week. To me, that's just too long.

If you have to have a big wedding and get all these gifts, at least have the courtesy to thank people promptly. Particularly when someone purchases something and has it sent to your house- people want to know that you received it!!! Sometimes sales people aren't too swift, and you don't want your $125 vase never getting sent.

sorry, rant there.

Hear, hear!!

If you don't want to write the thank you's, don't expect any gifts! And if you're mature enough to get married, you should know to get those notes in the mail ASAP. When I got married (on a Friday), all of my thank you notes were in the mail by Monday. I realize that's a tad anal, but I didn't want to put it off until it was too late.

At the LATEST you should have your thank you notes out four months after the wedding. Now I on the other hand had about 350 people at my wedding and I knew if I procrastinated it would take me forever to get them out. My goal was to do 50 a week and I believe I successed because my wedding was October 16 and I got my thank you's out by early November. I also wanted to get them out asap because I had bought a website from my photographer to put wedding photos on and I put an insert in the thank you's about the site. In case anyone wanted to buy some pictures online.

I've read that the latest it's considered polite to get a thank you card out is one month after the honeymoon. I just send them as soon as I get the gifts...or at least that is what I have been doing since I've started receiving them. It just seems rude to me to not send them out right away and thank the people that made the effort to be there and bring you something.

It is rude not to send out a thank-you card within a few weeks.

When my husband and I got married, we wrote our thank-you cards out on the plane on our way to our honeymoon. You're just sitting there anyway, why not make the time productive? We didn't mail them until we returned to the US a week later, but even so, they got out in plenty of time.

We attended a wedding last year and only just received the thank-you card... :rolleyes: This was the same wedding where they ran out of food with fully a quarter of the guests unfed.