Two levels of wedding hosting...proper or not? Just curious...

[Miss Unleaded]

This would generally be considered rude in my neck of the woods (Australia). I'd feel insulted if I was only invited to the "dancing" part too.

...

I'm from Australia too and have never heard of this being etiquette approved.  I can't imagine anyone thinking this would be polite.   

[Nibsey]

Another factor that strikes me is that you don't "mix and match" different groups. (UK eHellions, correct me if I'm wrong on this).

What I mean is, the dinner part might include family and close friends, with co-workers and neighbours being "added" to the dancing part. Thus, the groups are kept separate. But you don't say "Oh, I'm close to Uncle Bob, so I'll invite him to the dinner. But I'm not as close to Uncle Jim, so I'll only invite him to the dancing. And I get on well with Mary from work, so she can come to the dinner. But I don't chat as much to Susie and Jenny at work, so they'll only be getting an invite for the dancing." etc.

yep that is certainly the case in Ireland. SO and I were discussing who we would invited to our hypothetical wedding. We agreed we could prob afford a guestlist of 100 but between us we have about 50 cousins. So even though there's about 10 of those cousins we know and like, I can't invite them without starting WW3. My SO solution was to start a war and then move abroad, I'm leaning on having a afters and inviting them to that.

[jedikaiti]

I think this is rude.

Could you elaborate?  I'm curious because anyone who's been a bridesmaid in the UK would find the US tradition of paying for your own outfit rude.  Some things are just different in different cultures.

[/b]

Couldn't agree more.  its something that often causes disagreements but the different cultures must be taken into consideration.  I could never understand how the bride and groom could afford 10 bridesmaids in the party at US weddings, until I realised that those bridesmaids were expected to pay for their own dresses, shoes, hair, and pay for a party for the bride.  Its would be considered rude over here, but different strokes for different folks.   

The average UK wedding can last 13-14 hours (wedding at 1pm, arrive at the venue 3pm, then dinner, then evening reception and a buffet or bbq, closing at 1am).   The evening guests are catered for.   

Thats why UK weddings will tend to have a cash bar, but provide their wedding breakfast with around 5 free drinks (drink on arrival, two to three glasses of wine over the meal, champagne toast).  Otherwise paying for 150 peoples drinks for 10 hours tends to cost five times as much as the whole wedding church cars rings and food put together.

I don't know many people who could have ANY attendants - or more than 1 - if they had to pay for all the clothes, given the insane prices of bridal party clothes. Trying to outfit just the bride can be expensive enough - especially once you factor in alterations - I can't imagine having to pay for the whole party.

[White Lotus]

As far as I know, US etiquette allows for a reception quite separate from the ceremony, which can occur for a variety of reasons.  After consultation with all concerned and several etiquette books, mostly on the frantic part of my mother, who didn't want to seen ignorant of US customs, the Prof and I flew (yes, they had planes back then) to Elsewhere and had a Temple wedding for the elders and extended members of my family, with accompanying celebrations.  In Elsewhere, a marriage is not legal until you sign up at the local Registry Office.  We didn't.  My mother had hoped we could do a second Temple ceremony, in My Home Town, to make it legal and precede the festivities planned there, but the Temple said we could not have a second religious ceremony.  But we had already checked the etiquette books and knew it was OK to just throw a reception separate from the ceremony, so we went with festivities only.  We stopped off in Place Where This is Possible to have a quickly legal thing, and went on to HugeU City, where his family lives, and where we lived and live, for the reception we had already discovered was perfectly correct, in terms of etiquette, that they threw.  Just because it happens over one day rather than three weeks doesn't make it any less proper as far as I know.  Small ceremony, huge party or parties -- what's not to like?  I am afraid,if the ceremony is small for some reason (our legal ceremony was us and a few random strangers), I can't find fault with a big do, of whatever level of elaboration the HC prefers or can afford later on in the day.  Certainly, regionalism comes into play, but, hey, we were in widely separated parts the the US plus Elsewhere.  It was all fun except I had to haul my official Elsewherian dress around and keep putting it on, and nobody was offended at all.  Have things changed that much?

[peaches]

In general, I'm in the "treat everyone invited the same" category.

But I believe there can be exceptions. One member of DH's family had a wedding in a small chapel with close family only. Immediately after, there was a big reception at the local country club, and it seemed everyone in town was invited. The parents were well-known in their town and had a wide network of friends. The reception was a lavish one, and there wasn't any intermediate event.

The bride and groom had wanted a small and personal ceremony, and the parents wanted a celebration that included their many friends.

This seemed fine to me, and I would have felt it was fine if I had been in the reception-only crowd.

[gramma dishes]

...   This seemed fine to me, and I would have felt it was fine if I had been in the reception-only crowd.

In this case though, MOST of the guests had not attended the very tiny private wedding and I think that's quite different from arriving at a reception for "dancing" and discovering that you are basically the only one there who was not invited for the dinner.

[peaches]

...   This seemed fine to me, and I would have felt it was fine if I had been in the reception-only crowd.

In this case though, MOST of the guests had not attended the very tiny private wedding and I think that's quite different from arriving at a reception for "dancing" and discovering that you are basically the only one there who was not invited for the dinner.

Absolutely! What happened to the OP was very rude.

I still think the easiest and best approach is to scale your wedding to a size you can afford and invite everyone to everything that day.

I do think there can be situations where a different plan will work, but you need to be careful not to give offense. One sure way to offend people is to invite them only to the cheapest parts of the wedding! I also don't care for long waits between ceremony and reception or dance. That can be a hardship to guests. At the least, if guests are going to give over an entire day to your wedding, you ought to feed them, IMO.

[marcel]

For all those saying that what was done to the OP was rude, do consider that the OP could not inform us about the cultural background of the couple.

It is very likely that they were Americans of several generations, and therefor should be familiar enough with US etiquette, but if they were not, it is hard to call them rude, since there are many places where this is not rude. It is even possible that in some areas of the US, where there are big groups from one coubntry living close together, this is also still common etiquette.

[GrammarNerd]

For all those saying that what was done to the OP was rude, do consider that the OP could not inform us about the cultural background of the couple.

It is very likely that they were Americans of several generations, and therefor should be familiar enough with US etiquette, but if they were not, it is hard to call them rude, since there are many places where this is not rude. It is even possible that in some areas of the US, where there are big groups from one coubntry living close together, this is also still common etiquette.

OP here: To answer the bolded question, the bride (my friend at the time) was of the same culture/race as me.  I believe we were even the same religion.  We were of (I believe)relatively the same economic class.  We'd both belonged to the same youth group thing (4-H).  We'd gone to the same state college.  We'd worked together, where I was technically her supervisor, but it was pretty informal.

With all of those similarities, that's probably why I felt somewhat blindsided when I walked into the reception and it became apparent that I wasn't a close enough friend to warrant an invitation to the dinner.

I appreciate all of the comments about other countries and how things are vastly different elsewhere.  I didn't know that, and it's really very interesting to learn that.  (I just may clean up in a future trivia game with all of the knowledge that I've gained there!) However, while interesting, I don't think that discussion is really germane to this topic anymore, since UK or Australian customs obviously weren't in play here.

Thank you again for all of your responses.

[StoutGirl]

I am actually pulled 2 different ways on this issue.  I think that it is less than polite, but if it was in the town of my residence, it would not bother me too much as I could easily hang out at home or places in between.  I actually received an invitation from some friends of mine this past summer inviting me to the ceremony and dance (and the registry information was included  ).  The wedding was in a town over 5 hours away.  I would have had to get a hotel room, pay for gas, and I would have had to find a way to keep myself fed and entertained alone for 5 hours in between the ceremony and dance.  So I decided to just send a gift as it was much cheaper that way.  Still waiting on that thank you note though.

[baglady]

This seems to be the sort of tradition that's left over from an earlier time when people didn't travel/scatter as much and couples married younger -- so were less likely to have been out in the world and made friends from all over the place. If everyone is local, then those not invited to the post-wedding family meal can go home, eat, rest, and maybe change from church clothes to party clothes before the reception.

These days a couple are likely to have friends and relations all over the country, and a big gap between ceremony and reception (even without a meal just for the nearest and dearest) is going to leave a bunch of people in a strange town, with nothing to do, for hours.

Maybe the custom is ingrained more in the U.K. because it's so much smaller geographically than the U.S., and there's a sharper divide between the close relatives/friends who have to travel and the more casual friends who don't (or vice versa)?

[lowspark]

I think if you throw out the wedding part of this and just look at it as a party - for whatever reason, this is the part that does make it seem rude to me:

The uncomfortable part was arriving there and finding that the party was in full swing....that is, the reception/dinner part of the party.  They hadn't started the dance yet, which meant that yes, the lights were on, the tables were still set up, and people were still milling around after eating.  Since the dance hadn't started, I felt like we were crashing the party, because it was obvious that even though we arrived at about the time we were invited, the celebration had already been going on for a while.

Arriving at a party, any party, to find that it's been going on for a while before your invited time, to find that everyone already there had been served dinner, and to feel like a party crasher, points to the hosts being rude because a host's job includes making their guests feel welcome and comfortable. They failed here.  No question about it.

[sparksals]

I am actually pulled 2 different ways on this issue.  I think that it is less than polite, but if it was in the town of my residence, it would not bother me too much as I could easily hang out at home or places in between.  I actually received an invitation from some friends of mine this past summer inviting me to the ceremony and dance (and the registry information was included  ).  The wedding was in a town over 5 hours away.  I would have had to get a hotel room, pay for gas, and I would have had to find a way to keep myself fed and entertained alone for 5 hours in between the ceremony and dance.  So I decided to just send a gift as it was much cheaper that way.  Still waiting on that thank you note though.

Now, that is rude.  It is typically locals invited to the dance and bad taste to invite out of towners only to the dance.

[AustenFan]

OP here: To answer the bolded question, the bride (my friend at the time) was of the same culture/race as me.  I believe we were even the same religion.  We were of (I believe)relatively the same economic class.  We'd both belonged to the same youth group thing (4-H).  We'd gone to the same state college.  We'd worked together, where I was technically her supervisor, but it was pretty informal.

With all of those similarities, that's probably why I felt somewhat blindsided when I walked into the reception and it became apparent that I wasn't a close enough friend to warrant an invitation to the dinner.

Thank you again for all of your responses.

I can't help but wonder how the bride felt about you skipping the ceremony and showing up expecting dinner & a dance with your boyfriend. Maybe she was equally "blindsided". This seems like a pot/kettle situation to me, so I have a hard time understanding your feelings of upset over not being invited to the dinner.

[Shoo]

OP here: To answer the bolded question, the bride (my friend at the time) was of the same culture/race as me.  I believe we were even the same religion.  We were of (I believe)relatively the same economic class.  We'd both belonged to the same youth group thing (4-H).  We'd gone to the same state college.  We'd worked together, where I was technically her supervisor, but it was pretty informal.

With all of those similarities, that's probably why I felt somewhat blindsided when I walked into the reception and it became apparent that I wasn't a close enough friend to warrant an invitation to the dinner.

Thank you again for all of your responses.

I can't help but wonder how the bride felt about you skipping the ceremony and showing up expecting dinner & a dance with your boyfriend. Maybe she was equally "blindsided". This seems like a pot/kettle situation to me, so I have a hard time understanding your feelings of upset over not being invited to the dinner.

What?  Where does it say the OP skipped the wedding ceremony?  In the OP, she specifically states that she attended the wedding, but was not invited to the dinner afterward, just the reception that followed the dinner.