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Tacky
Invitations
Jan-Jun 2000
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About a year ago my fiancé’s cousin
"Tom" and his girlfriend "Nichole" got engaged and set
their date for some time in June. They told us the news and even announced
that they wanted us to be in the wedding party. Many months go by and
still no more mention of my fiancé or I being in the wedding. We weren't
to hurt though, or shocked, since we knew what kind of people they are.
Come May, and Nichole asks if she can come to our house to look at wedding
dresses on the Internet. Fine. I stayed home with her for 5 hours while
she searched for a dress. She finally found it and right as she was
leaving told me that the wedding was going to be held in Chicago (we live
in Florida mind you) and that tickets would ONLY (!) be around $300 each,
also stating that we should get them soon if we wanted to go. My fiancé
and I are just barely making it, and she wants us to spend $600 ONE WAY to
go to her wedding? I don't think so. I figured we would just wait for the
invitation (which, one month prior to the wedding, they hadn't sent out
yet) and then politely decline.
Well, mid-May comes and my fiancé goes to
visit his aunt (Tom's mother).
When he got home he told me how pretty Tom
and Nichole's wedding invitations were, and that everyone that was invited
had just gotten them the week before. He also said that as he was leaving
his aunt's house, Tom stopped him and asked if we would be able to make it
to their wedding. We didn't even get an invitation!
Because of how expensive the plane tickets
were, none of Tom's family was able to attend the wedding, which I'm sure
is exactly how Nichole wanted it. Come to find out also that Nichole
didn't even invite her only brother and his wife.
It's going to take all the willpower I can
muster to actually send them an invitation to our wedding.
Invitations 0811/03
I consider this a MAJOR wedding faux pas.
My brother "Chad" was 29 years
old when he married for the second time. His first marriage had been at
age 19 to his high school sweetheart, and they divorced after 4 years due
to personality differences. When Chad met his second fiancée,
"Carol" she was a bit older and already had a 9 year old
daughter, "Megan". I really liked Carol and Megan upon meeting
them. Chad & Carol dated for only about 5 months before they married,
so most of our extended family (other than my parents, sister, and I) had
never even met Carol or Megan when the wedding invitations came out. Well,
enclosed w/ each tasteful engraved ecru invitation was a bright
fluorescent pink (!) slip of paper w/ the Chad & Carols' many
registries on there...pretty much every dot.com registry and every local
department store included. At the top of the bright pink scrap of paper it
was printed "GOODIES FOR THE COUPLE!" - no I am not kidding.
That's not even the full faux pas here, though... On these registries were
SO many items, literally hundreds of items, including a $12,000 king size
specialty mattress, and at least $10,000 worth of items expressly for
Megan, Carol's daughter. If that wasn't bad enough, about four days after
the wedding Carol decided to call at least HALF of Chad's side of the
family (myself included) and berate us for failing to buy any of the items
she "needed" to redo Megan's bedroom. True story. Crazy but
true. Chad & Carol divorced 2 years later.
Invitations 0810/03
My husband and I have been together since
high school, we shared many of the same friends. As we got older my
husband kept in contact with many of the guys, while I lost contact with
most of the girls. This past summer a couple, who also went to school with
us was getting married, I hadn't seen her in about 3 years but my husband
and the groom-to- be were still pretty close friends. We were so excited
for them.
Many of my husband’s friends were ask to
be groomsmen, and everytime we would see them they would talk about this
great bachelor party they were planning. Well about a month before the
wedding we realized we had yet to get an invitation, but we waited
expecting it to come. It never showed up.
Well the week before the wedding we
realized we probably weren't invited, we were a little hurt, but oh well
it was there day, and we were still happy for them. That weekend my
husband gets a call from the groomsmen asking him how much he wanted to
give towards the bachelor party, my husband was stunned. He stated he
wasn't even invited to the wedding and felt a little uncomfortable
attending the bachelor party. The bm insisted he was invited and asks him
if he would throw in a $300 towards the night so they could get a limo and
a hotel room for the evening. My husband explained he would have to check
but he thought he already had plans for the evening.
The next day we come home from work and
there is a message on the machine from the groom-to-be explaining that
he's really sorry that we didn't get an invitation, and of course we are
invited, the reason they didn't send us one was b/c they knew one of my
friends were getting married the same day so they assumed we couldn't
come. At the end of the message he told my husband that he really wanted
him to come to the bachelor party and "how cool it would be if he
could throw done on the evening".
The next day when I get home from work,
guess what was in the mailbox, an invitation, 4 days before the wedding.
Of course we did not attend and haven't spoken to them since. The funny
thing is we did have another wedding to go to, but if they just would have
sent us an invitation, we would have sent them a gift and thoughtfully
declined.
Invitations 0816/03
My SIL gave my husband and me a wonderful
wedding gift - our wedding invitation framed.
We then received the invitation for her
wedding. The invitation had three parts; an invitation, details and a map.
The map showed where the wedding and
reception would take place.
The details explained how parking would be
managed, children were welcome, casual dress.
The invitation had a sweet verse, dates,
times and location, as well as the comment that money would be appreciated
for the honeymoon.
My SIL has gotten the wedding invitation
framed - now their request for cash is proudly hanging on the wall.
Aside from the obvious faux pas of
requesting cash, I wonder why they didn't include the request with the
details. They aren't hanging the details on the wall!
Invitations 0912/03
A girl I went to high school with got
married after graduation. My best guy friend was invited, with me as a
guest. The invitation had an insert that said, "Bring kids and your
swimsuits!" (There was a pool at the reception site, so I guess
everyone could take a dip after the wedding-I left too early, so I'm
assuming this is what they did!) The tackiest thing I've ever seen on a
wedding invitation!!!!!!
Invitations 0917/03
A few years ago my cousin (Lena) who has 3
children, came to a birthday party for another friend and her grand gift
was 3 wilted carnations tied with paper ribbon. She is that type of
person, despite her great wealth. At the end of the party she announced
that the invitations to her son's engagement were printed and will be in
the mail the next week. I had the distinct impression that a wedding was
the last thing on the young couple's mind. Since I was weary of her type
of invitations that usually involved my getting clothing, buying a gift
and cooking a dish that she specified. I just came out and asked who did
they get to cater the affair. Her response was,
"If you want to eat it, you better
bring it".
I do not care to be taken for a fool
anymore. When the invitation arrived, it went into the trash after noting
the high-end registries. Invitations 0917/03
My ex-business partner sent me an
invitation to her reception…The invitation said that they wanted to
celebrate with the guests in costume…it is on Halloween, so there you
go. Enclosed, there are two cards.
Card number one:
Mary and John are registered at Wiggy’s
(This is a local liquor store.)
Card number two:
Mary and John would like to fill their home
with the work of local artists…there will be a donation box at the
reception. Or you may send check directly to Blah, blah, blah…
(their home address.)
Invitations 1016/03
I don’t know if there is some kind of
etiquette rule of reciprocating invitations, but this seemed tacky to me.
The back story is a bit long, so I apologize in advance.
My mother has a friend, "Patty"
whom she met when I was a teenager as they both worked in the same office.
Although they worked in the same level position, my mother was a
struggling single mother, while Patty was married to a well-to-do lawyer
and lived in high style in a big NYC brownstone. Patty and I got along
well enough. She was always nice and polite to me, but she never took much
interest in me as a person. It seemed that I was someone she had to deal
with when visiting or calling. She and my mother became fairly close and
Patty often invited my mother to elaborate dinner parties at her home and
my mother would entertain Patty and her husband as well, although in a
much simpler fashion. Once she invited my mother and me to Thanksgiving
dinner (but not my older brother), although we declined as we always spent
that day with my grandparents. I pretty much considered her my mother’s
friend, rather than a family friend.
A few years ago Patty held a Bar Mitzvah
for her son and invited my mother. My mother said it was one of the most
elaborate parties she had ever seen - more elaborate than most weddings
she had been to. There were separate buffets for the children and the
adults and included things like sushi bars and caviar. The entertainment
consisted of a DJ, an emcee, and several party motivators. My mother
enjoyed herself, but she had never been terribly close to Patty’s son
any more than I had been close to Patty.
A few years later I became engaged. My
father made a generous contribution (but it was a set amount, so we had to
budget) toward our catering bill and my now-husband and I paid for just
about everything else. Although my mother didn’t have much money, she
wanted to contribute something and paid for the invitations (the irony of
this will become obvious in a moment). None of our parents made any
demands on us about the guest list. They assumed that we were adults and
were entitled to invite whomever we liked. We were very sensitive to
family matters and made sure that our close and important family members
and friends were invited. Even with our attempts to keep the list to our
nearest and dearest, we were up to 150 people.
My mother’s office downsized and their
branch closed and she and Patty were both transferred to branches in
different locations. They still kept in touch and occasionally had dinner
together. During one inter-office gathering my mother informed Patty of my
engagement. Was Patty’s response joy at my new happiness? No. Her
response to my mother was a demand for an invitation to my wedding.
Her reasoning was that my mother had been invited to her son’s fancy bar
mitzvah, that my mother now owed her an invitation to my wedding,
never mind that it was not my mother planning or paying for the wedding
(other than the invitations) or that Patty and I have never been close. In
Patty’s mind it was strictly a tit-for-tat deal. Patty was such a
hard-liner with her request that my mother begged me to invite her to keep
the peace between them. I had never been close to Patty. Patty didn’t
seem to even care about my marriage other than the wedding invitation. I
wasn’t the one invited to her son’s Bar Mitzvah. I didn’t feel like
I owed her anything. My mother reminded me about the Thanksgiving dinner
invitation, which I pointed out was the only thing Patty had ever included
me in during the whole time I have known her. The most important fact was
that I simply couldn’t afford to invite Patty. My catering budget was
stretched to the limit with the 150 guests already on the list. Patty and
her husband would have added an extra $150 that I couldn’t spare. I don’t
even know what Patty would have been expecting from my wedding. It was a
fairly simple affair with a served dinner (no sushi bars or carving
stations) and a single DJ for entertainment, unlike the party she had held
for her son. I don’t know why she wanted to go so badly other than the
fact that she felt my mother owed her the invitation.
My wedding came and went without Patty.
Since then Patty has never called or otherwise contacted my mother again.
There were no more invitations to fancy dinner parties. Whenever their
company holds inter-office gatherings, Patty ignores my mother. A decade
of friendship was ruined over a wedding invitation. Is this as wrong as I
think it is?
Invitations 1105/03
This is one my father received a few years
ago. Maybe my family and I are reading too much into it, but it definitely
felt like a gift grab to us. It was a beautiful invitation on high-quality
pink paper with a gauzy overlay and a photograph, all the corners done
with one of those decorative corner punches and laced with ribbon. The
couple in the picture was beautiful, smiling, happy...and totally
unfamiliar to all of us. My dad checked the location, and it was a church
that he used to belong to (and probably still technically does). He has
not only not set foot in that church (or any other) for years, he's
currently living in another city a significant distance away. These people
apparently plucked him, a total stranger, out of the church registry (and
I doubt it was an honest mistake; our name is extremely unusual and not
easily confused with many others) at random to receive an invitation. I
wonder what would have happened if he had actually opted to attend!
Invitations 1112/03
This is a really sad story to me. My
boyfriend of now 7 months has known for a long time that his best friend's
father is getting re-married in October. I have met the friend’s father
on more than a few occasions and have even discussed their wedding with
them (we have gone to dinners and such with these people). That being
said, my boyfriend got an invitation for the wedding which is being held
at a hotel. First of all, the invitation was sent out 2 days late because
the RSVP date for a hotel room was two days past when the invitation was
received.
Secondly, although the groom and my
boyfriend and I had all said what a great time it would be and how happy
the groom was that my man would finally have someone to canoodle with,
there was no RSVP for "a guest". My boyfriend and I are
really upset that they would be so cool about it and then not actually
invite him to bring me as his guest. This to me is simply rude, and
extremely tacky. The invitation even said that if you want to come to the
reception just make sure you are there by 11:30 (as it is a morning
wedding). It's almost as if they are expecting people not to go to the
reception. I was going to get a gift for them, but now I don't feel they
deserve one. If you know you aren't going to be inviting someone to have a
guest, then you shouldn't openly discuss what a good time they will have
when you know that they aren't going. I simply think they are tacky
people, and they certainly wouldn't get an invite to my wedding. I don't
even want my boyfriend to go, but it's either that or lose a friend of a
lifetime. I couldn't ask him to do that, but I don't think he should spend
much money at all on their gift. Invitations 0908/03
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