Addressing ettiquette and wedding stress

[andrewducker]

I'm sending out wedding invites at the moment, which is making me aware of all sorts of in-built biases in the conventions surrounding how we address people. I'm skipping over a lot of it by using first names for everyone, but even then there's a question of order. For older people I'm largely going with Male Partner, Female Partner, Children in order of age, but reversing the male/female order when the email address is for the woman of the house. For people nearer my own age I'm going with "Partner I know best->Partner I know less well, Children in order of age". Lesbians go in the order that I'm used to people putting them.

The whole invitation thing has been more stressful than I thought, largely because the venue has space for 80, and it turns out that Julie and I have 57 family members between us, so there are only 23 spaces for friends. This means that we've had to cut some cousins I haven't seen in 20 years, and restrict a few people to not having +1s if we're going to fit in even the people that we see/chat to on a regular basis, and a couple of really old friends. And the reception can take 30 more, but that still left us with 57 people that we don't have space for. I just hope people understand.

Comments

[dalglir]

It's your party, your day: anyone who doesn't get an invite and takes offence probably isn't the sort of person you want to invite anyway :)

[nickys]

Ah the joys of ettiquette.
Hope you get it all sorted out with the minimum of angst.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Blinking heck - I wouldn't even *consider* order of names. I have no idea what I'd *do* (nor, in fact, can I remember what I *did* do). But I would NOT have any worry, stress or anything about it - how could it possibly matter? (well so I thnkm i guess other people coudl think differently but if they did it'd still be not worth bothering about)

In another amusement, your number of family members tickles me. I have all of 6. Mum, Dad, Sister, Gran and 2 cousins [one of whom fell terminally out with my dad years and years ago - that side of the family are like that].

[andrewducker]

I have:
Two parents
Two brothers, both with partners, one with a kid
Three uncles on one side, all with partners.
On that side there are eleven cousins, two of which aren't invited for space reasons, and two of which have children (three between them). Oh, and they all (bar two who are too young) have partners (or plus ones).
On the other side there are numerous more, but only my mother's brother and his wife are invited, again due to space reasons (and not having seen them in an age).
So that's 2+5+6+12+3+1 = 34. Plus 4 old friends of the family that I basically grew up with as pseudo uncles/aunts.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Andy does have the lion's share of family!

[andrewducker]

35 to your 22, by my count!

[celiaka.livejournal.com]

I'm sure anyone who isn't coming to the main party would happily gather in a pub to toast the happy couple. Don't you worry about it.

[andrewducker]

Well, I'm soothed by knowing I have a 40th coming up after that. I must book the venue!

[guybles.livejournal.com]

Draw names from a hat?

Don't put down any names atall?

Stick with the maritime convention of 'women and children first'?

I'm assuming this all comes before the other wedding trope of organising the seating so that family feuds and people with conflicting interests aren't put together; I've heard others declare this to be almost as stressful as any other component of the planning.

[andrewducker]

I like the idea of women and children first.

My family doesn't have much stress of that kind. Julie has a grandfather, father and mother's boyfriend who can't be placed next to each other.

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

I think we (well, I, as I did the addressing) went with Male partner, female partner, children in age order as you suggested. TBH, as long as everyone's name is on there (and correctly spelled), I wouldn't worry about. I also went with X & Y Surname for the envelopes rather than bothering about titles (apart from for the 60+ age group), as I was pretty sure there were a few people on our list with PhDs that I didn't know about.

Most wedding guides/anecdotes will tell you that 25-30% of people you invite won't be able to come. This was certainly our experience. Probably better not to count on it, though. Numbers are a headache, really. Ours were still changing up until a few days before as people suddenly weren't in the country/got ill etc. This is probably why the table plans were only done the night before. Not at all because I under-estimated how much stuff needing doing in the last weeks, oh no! :)

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

We had a day after party.
And also: not all the family we invited came (shocker), in town friends were happy to have the late invite.

Family and first cousins alone, and we discouraged children, were 80 people.

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

Oh, and one of the envelopes I gave to John's mom (she's a calligrapher) to be addressed was labeled, "Evil Mom and Evil Stepmother."
I got a phone call, "Ummm these Evil people? Am I supposed to write that?"
"Well. Julie divorced her husband about 3 years ago and I don't know if she still has his last name and then Julie and Ann got married 6 months ago and that made matters more confusing.... I call them Evil Mom and Evil Stepmom in person, that's their nicknames."
"Ahhhh.... Okay then."

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I think so long as people know the reason they might not get an invite, for example, there is only space for 23 friends. I think pretty much everybody will understand.

Everybody that matters anybody.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

It's fairly standard to leave people off. It's your wedding; doesn't belong to older relatives who want to tie together disparate strands of the family. Have a party in Edinburgh to celebrate later in the year.

One tip: (Reception length - 30min)/(Guests) = time you must spend talking to each guest.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

You will invariably get people who decline. We did. That's when we managed to get onto our backup list! In the end there were 7 people we didn't manage to invite that we would have liked to - we left the edinburgers on the reserve list till last! I still feel bad about the fact we didn't get everyone.I do feel your distress though - we had a 120 capacity venue!

[cybik.livejournal.com]

We've done the cutting of friends' partners if we don't really know them or haven't seen them for a long time. It's difficult to draw the line and we've both had to miss out friends we'd love to be there because we just don't gave space. We're pushing the venue limit as it is....

[andrewducker]

Troublesome, innit?

Good luck with yours - I've already had Nick telling me awesome snippets :->

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Not giving people a +1 is the In Thing these days, it said so in The Guardian.

That said, I don't quite understand the organisation of weddings. Were I to get married, then unless my family were the ones paying for it all, I certainly wouldn't invite relatives who I last saw over a decade ago (two decades, in some cases). That said, the impression I get is that a traditional wedding is more an event (as far as the audience goes, rather than the happy couple) aimed at family than friends.

Luckily I am unlikely to ever marry!

[andrewducker]

Seems to be a tradition with my family - having been invited to all of the weddings of the cousins on one side of the family it would be rude not to invite them back.

And yes, parents on both sdies are contributing a fair chunk to this. Otherwise it would be being held in a cheap hall somewhere.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I confess that although I would aim for "ask them what they want" I would mostly default to "Mr and Mrs Smith" for all my older relatives. For people in my social peer group I think I'm much more likely to simply invite individuals individually for the sort of event that requires more individual invites than "hey entire LJ flist, come to mah house for teh noms and boozes".

I saw one etiquette guide once that attempted to explain that "Mr John and Ms Jane Smith" was just WRONG and you should, nay MUST, put "Mr and Mrs John Smith" because, LOL, addressing people how they like is bad or something now? (I know two married couples who would prefer that style of address, but it's not really a sensible default-assume these days). Amusingly though they had a whole list for the correct ordering to use for partners with more unusual/interesting titles (can't remember it all though; and anyway how many couples do you know who are "Ambassador and General"?).

(I also have oodles of relatives... however I don't actually like many of them. Lucky for them I'm not getting hitched, so they don't have to be snubbed.)

[naath.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, I was invited to a cousin's wedding via my parents - which I found extremely USELESS because I DON'T LIVE WITH THEM and therefore found out rather later than ideal! Send grown-up-children their own invite, to their own address...

(My friends are quite good at getting my style-of-address correct; although I don't care about minor deviations to the extent that I don't even recall them and wouldn't throw a hissy fit for anything that wasn't clearly just trying to piss me off because it's really hard to remember how all of a large number of people like it)

[nmg.livejournal.com]

At the time of our wedding, I had three uncles, four aunts, one ex-aunt, one aunt's twin, ten cousins (plus nine partners), and six or so first cousins once removed (I lose count). My cousins are all at least a decade or so older than me, and some I hadn't seen in twenty years.

ias had one uncle, two aunts, three cousins (plus one partner) and one surviving grandparent.

We invited ias's uncle, aunts and grandfather (only one uncle and aunt came), and concentrated on friends.

[thaxor.livejournal.com]

"Lesbians go in the order that I'm used to people putting them..."

Er, by height?

[andrewducker]

More that lizzie_and_ari tend to go in that order. And marrog and erindubitably tend to be referred to as "Erin and Morag" (or The Errag).

Although I think that _might_ actually be in height order for both couples...

[susiemutha.livejournal.com]

This may sound really cheesy...but, invite those who are closer to your heart...friends, family, whatever...that's all that matters. After the fact, send everyone else an e-mail with a video of the wonderful event attached.

It is sad that there has to be a set limit though. My brother's wedding was that way because it was at a place specially made for weddings and his wife and her family were all about proper etiquette. All the other weddings I have attended were wide open venues...my favorite was in a park where there was room for hundreds of people, no seating arrangement, etc.

Whatever the case..it will be you and Julie's special day..enjoy, be happy, and make a wonderful life together!

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Don't think I've ever spotted you at the monthly lesbian stacking meetings!

(There's a lead in for another joke there should someone wish to take it.)

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

argh I can't spot the lead in, can I have a clue?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. R and I have just been through a similar process, and I think we did it quite well, but I was definitely surprised to see that even when we started with an intention of "don't worry about 'correct' etiquette, just invite people you want in whatever form of address they would prefer or you would usually use", there were all sorts of little and less little things that weren't trivial to decide.

[http://users.livejournal.com/puzzle_/]

Those who care for you both will understand. Of course everyone I'm sure would want to share in your day, but sadly that isn't always feasible. If they don't understand, well...... :)

[lalajia.livejournal.com]

Nothing useful to say, except my cat dropped dead the night I wrote out the wedding invites. I think you're already catless, so you should be safe! ;)

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I have this to look forward to but my usual convention is to address people as person I know best, partner, children in age order. I flatly refuse to address anyone as Mr & Mrs Hisfirstname Surname but hopefully that won't be an issue.

I have precisely 4 family members coming so most of the Boy's Irish relatives are not getting an invite because otherwise it would be my four plus hordes of Irish folk, the vast majority of whom I've never met, and no friends at all! We have been able to put our foot down about this because we are paying for everything ourselves, and by agreeing to have a party in Belfast for his Dad's side at some point...

Several local friends are currently on the evening only list but may get bumped up to full invites if some of my old uni friends can't make it.

[d-c-m.livejournal.com]

Although this has probably been stated, 40% of your people won't show and that does not include those who don't show on the day. Also this is your wedding and Julie's wedding and it is fine to let people know you have a budget and must stick to it.

[andrewducker]

Of the 27 people to respond so far 26 have said yes. I suspect the attendance rate is going to be pretty high.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

The day MLW and I got engaged we had been to a party thrown to celebrate a recent wedding where there hadn’t been enough room at the ceremony for everyone to come.

MLW and I (more MLW) have family who we felt ought to invite but were pretty sure wouldn’t come we we sent out their invites early and asked them to RSVP in good time to add additional friends to the main invite list.