I honestly don't get the defensiveness...or the accusation that I'm making an assumption .
You stated that you thought you were good enough friends that you assumed that if she was having a dinner that you would be in invited. I merely pointed out that the bride may have assumed you were good enough friends for you to attend her ceremony. Nowhere did I accuse you of trying to crash, so I'm not at all sure where that came from.
In your original post about not attending the ceremony you said you had a prior commitment, but your latest post makes it sound like you just didn't want to be inconvenienced.
To be blindsided and upset by the fact that you weren't invited to the dinner for someone whose ceremony you didnt feel a close enough friendship with to prioritize seems like a contradiction to me.
The "showing up and expecting dinner" comment is what made it seem as though you were accusing me of trying to crash the meal; that comment certainly paints a picture of entitlement. As I've said several times, I didn't expect the meal. There was nothing about a meal on the invitation so I knew not to expect one. Your words implied that I walked in, acting huffy that there was no food for me. That didn't sit right with me, and yes, I wanted to defend myself against what I felt was an unfair assumption about my manners.
Also, 'blindsided' is perhaps correct when presented with the evidence that the party had already been going on for hours, but 'upset' is a bit too strong. Disappointed and, as I've stated, uncomfortable are the words that come to mind. It's not like I ran to the restroom in tears when I saw the evidence of the dinner; I merely tried to put on a happy face and try to find mutual friends to talk to, along with the bride and groom.
As I also said, there were a lot of factors that factored into my decision to attend the dance instead of the ceremony. Distance and time lapse between events were the biggies, but there was also the chance of talking to the bride more at the dance, conflicting plans for the wedding part but not the dance part, and also a boyfriend who attended church on Saturdays and generally had church activities which lasted into the afternoon. I chose to go to one of the events and support the couple on their special day. That was what I felt was important.
You're not sure why I felt the way I did, and that is certainly your right. It's not part of the original question, though, which was not about my motives or why I chose to only attend the later of the two events to which I was invited. The question was about if two tiers of invitations are appropriate, and if so, how it can be done so that it's not so blatantly obvious to the second-tier people that they are second-tier.