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Wedding
Invitation Etiquette--Can Requests Be Included?
We
recently received an email from a bride-to-be, asking an important
question, and with her permission, we have reproduced both the
question and our answer here:
Hello,
I was wondering if you
would be kind enough to give me your opinion on an etiquette issue.
My finance and I are planning a small family wedding (less than 25
guests) for a Sunday in June. We would like a simple outdoor
ceremony followed by brunch. We anticipate paying for the ceremony
itself.
We are not registering
for gifts or doing any of the things traditionally associated with
wedding plans. Would it be inappropriate to ask guests to pay $25
per person for the cost of the brunch? If this is not a rude thing
to ask, how would I go about it? Should I include it in the
invitation?
Should I ask my guests
(who are all family) to pay for themselves ahead of time--like when
they RSVP by mail to include a check as well? I want to have my
family and my finance's family there with us on this special day,
but we can't afford to pay for everyone and neither one of our
parents or other family members are willing or able to help us out
with the cost.
Thanks,
Beth
This was our reply to her
question:
Under no circumstances is
it permissible to either request money or to express gift
preferences or alternatively, to discourage gift-giving. The
illusion that should be maintained is that a person is being invited
to celebrate with you your marriage. Gifts, if given, are a
nice surprise to the happy couple.
Obviously money is tight
for you and your fiancé--so how can you achieve your goal without
insulting the very people you wish as your guests?
Your invitation should be
for the ceremony itself--with no mention of a post-ceremony
celebration of any kind. It is then permissible to mention
that "such and such"--which could be a friend, parent, or
relative--has mentioned to you both that after the ceremony they
plan to go to "so and so" restaurant for a brunch, and you and your
fiancé are planning to join them there as well.
This
turns it into a post cerebration gathering of which you two have
very little part--other than as fellow guests with the same status
as everyone else. Make sure, though, that you have someone who
is willing to function in this capacity, and who will be in charge
of collecting when the bill comes--or better yet, go to a
buffet-type restaurant, where guests pay before they are seated.
This
nicely takes care of the issue, saves feelings, and it should be
very clear to all that if they want to celebrate after your wedding,
they will have to pay for it without putting all that on an
invitation which would be incredibly tacky.
The moral
is "There's always more than one way to skin a horse!"
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