I think the difference here (for me) is that I don’t really get the “inviting and hosting” part. Aren’t the B and G inviting some guests? The G’s family? I am also not a socially experienced person and “hosting” is just not part of my lingo in a way that indicates “I/We are responsible for this event” For ME, I can’t imagine a wedding that does not put the bride and groom “in the driver’s seat” for planning, executing, announcing, etc.
There isn’t a right, but there are different thoughts/ways. Bottom line for me, it’s a celebration of family(ies) in honor of a new family being established (the couple) and while it takes $$$ to make it happen, the $$ doesn’t drive the emotional parts of the wedding. To me, the invitation is an emotion/personal detail.
Back in the stone ages, my parents paid for all of our wedding but both sets of parents’ names were on the invitation.
If our D changes her mind and wants a wedding (right now she’s saying she wants to elope at the top of a mountain) we’ll be footing the bill, but I would just have the invitations be from the bride and groom.
I’m also in the camp that the invitations and celebration are about the couple and their love, not who is footing the bill.
Not in our house. The wedding/party is being given by, paid for and hosted by DH and me. The groom’s family is not involved. They did not ask to be and we did not invite them to be. My D and her fiancé have made many of the decisions but DH and I are paying for all of it: we are inviting people to attend the marriage of our daughter and celebration of it. In my social circles the person/people paying, is the person/people hosting, is the person/people extending the invitation.
They all gave us lists of people they wanted to attend the wedding but the invitation comes from DH and me. My wedding invitation was the same, as were my sisters, all my HS, college and grad school friends. The only times I’ve received a wedding invitation from anyone other than the bride’s parents is for second/subsequent marriages when the couples paid for their own weddings.
Guess it just depends on individual circumstances.
I’m not a huge fan of there being conditions attached to gifts.
Not when I’m the giver or the recipient.
Since this is a free country, everyone has their own right to gift or not gift on their terms.
I also feel that a wedding is two families making a lasting relationship. If there is any possibility of alienating one part of that family, I’m not in favor of that.
So I guess I would ask myself, if I do this, how will this be interpreted by the other party. The other people in this relationship. Because I will have to deal with them for many years to come.
IMO people should word the invitation in a way that makes all parties involved happy and comfortable. People’s thoughts and customs on how to do this seem to vary and that is OK.
I’ve seen many different wordings on invitations and its all good.
I didn’t remember, so I dug out one of my own wedding invitations to see how it was worded. My parents (names) invited people to the marriage of their daughter (name) and my now H (name). No mention at all of my H’s family. The wedding announcements were the same.
We were young (just out of college) when we got married, and my parents paid for everything. I was consulted, but my mother controlled most of the wedding details. I didn’t know any better, and didn’t really care. I chose my flowers, my wedding dress, and the kind of cake. Of course H’s parents were asked for a list of guests they wanted to attend, as were H and me.
My in-laws didn’t even host the rehearsal dinner. They didn’t seem to understand what a rehearsal dinner was. So a close family friend hosted a very simple rehearsal dinner in her home.
I had a church wedding followed by a formal sit-down dinner with an open bar and band in a restaurant. That was the way it was usually done where I lived.
One of my D’s invitation said “together with their parents” and the other two did not have the parents’ names on the invitation. We contributed to the costs but only minimally. The girls were well aware that my position was “We pay for college not for weddings”. As an actual middle-class family, we couldn’t do both.
I have thought that the tradition of the bride’s parents issuing the invitation had more to do with the patriarchal concept of “transferring” the bride (and rights to her fertility) to the groom rather than indicating who was paying for the wedding. And in the past, there were times when the parents invited people who did not know the bride and groom (at least not as anything other than their parents’ children) but that seems silly to me now. I just hope we aren’t celebrating a business merger when we have a wedding any longer!
The wording references who is hosting the wedding which in many ways translates to who is paying. Traditionally, it was the bride’s parents that hosted but that is less true these days. If the parents are contributing more than a token amount, I think they should be acknowledged as hosts, even if the wording is “together with their parents”.
I don’t see paying for a wedding as gift. It is paying to host a party for family and friends to celebrate this occasion, similar (but more elaborate usually) to a graduation or other type of party. If parents gift their kid money to be used as they see fit and the kids decide to use it on an elaborate wedding rather than a house payment or a new car, that may be considered a gift
What about the side of the family who simply doesn’t have to the $$$ to contribute to a wedding? Or have already made financial decisions as to what they can/will be responsible in their child’s life post high school graduation? Adoration, love for a couple and support of their union is NOT based on $$$ on the table!!!
Can this family not greet guests, give a toast, share a dance - or whatever is the definition of “hosting”???
The intent of most marriages is for a lifetime and for better or worse. Support comes in many forms many of which are NOT tied at all to money. It comes down to emotional support for a couple long past that event venue.
Completely agree. I’m honestly surprised at the borderline hostility/indignity surrounding the idea that in the circumstance where one family pays for the entire party they are considered the hosts.
If I throw a graduation party for my son, I’m the host. If I throw an engagement party for my S and his fiancé I’m the host. It doesn’t mean others can’t give a speech or a toast or produce a slideshow, or contribute to the guest list. 2 friends and I threw a graduation party for our kids when they graduated from college. The invitation was from all 3 families. If the 2 of them had planned it without me I wouldn’t expect to be included on the invitation although I’d hope to be invited to the party.
I have no issue with parents who don’t care about the wording of a wedding invitation. Do whatever makes you happy. Give your kids the $$$ and let them run with it. Pay for the whole thing and word the invitation however pleases you, the B, the G, the G’s family, whomever.
The wedding invitation with only the bride’s parents is how we chose to go.
Not clear why who is on the invitation is being correlated with family support of the couple during their lives going forward or evidence of hostility toward or alienation of the non-paying family.
IMO this thread is getting a bit judgmental. What works for one family/set of circumstances/local customs may not be right for others. And that is OK.
What IS important is that (most importantly) the couple and both families are happy/comfortable with how things are handled. And that sentiment holds true well beyond the wording of the invitation.
I wonder how people feel when the parent of the bride is a widow or divorced. Of modest means. My son’s mil is a widow, so is my sister. My sister in law is divorced. She was to split the costs of the wedding with her ex, but it’s debatable if she’s doing that.
What if the groom’s parents were wealthy and wanted to pay for the entire wedding? Would they be the hosts and therefore the invitations say mom and dad of groom invite you to the wedding of their son to bride? What if the divorced father, or mother was footing the bill? Do they get the billing at the expense of the other parties?
Would my sister, a widow, be embarrassed by being left out of the invitations.
In 2023, there are lots of family combinations. And lots of answers. I’d personally rather be inclusive whether or not the support was money, all the money, some of the money, a little money or no money. Because support can come from much more. And as a parent I would hope that who paid for what was between the couple getting married and not the parents. So to not create hard feelings.
I am divorced and paying for most of the wedding. My ex is not contributing. The groom’s parents are giving some money, but not enough to make a dent (to be frank). Instead of giving my ex any credit or embarrassing my kid, I prefer to let the kids do the invite and let them be the hosts.
I had to go dig up D2’s wedding invitation to see how it was worded. D2 did almost every bit of the planning herself (I offered to do anything/everything, but she doesn’t delegate well), and that included the invitations. She worded it “DH’s and my name joyfully invite you to the wedding of D2 and Fiance.” Presumably she chose that wording because that’s usually how it’s done here and I don’t think it occurred to her to do it differently. We did pay for the wedding (other than a small amount D2 picked up because she hired a band that was over-budget).
The rehearsal dinner was paid for and hosted by the groom’s parents and the invitation included only their names.
Honestly, I have never heard of anyone getting feelings hurt or feeling “excluded” by not being on a wedding invitation. Perhaps because in my circles, it’s just so ingrained that the parents of the bride pay for the wedding and take the role of host that it’s quite unusual to see it done differently.
Anyone who wanted to toast was welcomed, and D2 did plan the traditional FOB/Bride and MOG/G dances.
Everyone seemed perfectly happy at this wedding. Hopefully that was actually the case.
I would like to offer a slightly different perception on the wedding invite. 39 years ago we paid for our own wedding, since my parents (bride) did not pay, I did not word the invite with them as the hosts. I don’t remember how I worded it, but I felt strongly that it was our party and we were the hosts.
It was probably along the lines of "you are invited to the wedding of Bride (daughter of MM and DD) and Groom (son of MM and DD).
We will just leave it to our kids how they want to preface the invite. However, if they ask for my opinion and they include the parents, I would strongly suggest that they include all of them on equal billing (including steps and divorced, unless there is such an estrangement that one is not even invited), no matter who is paying for what. There are enough rough spots, especially if one set of parents is much less affluent/generous than the other to rub salt in that particular wound.
As we went through the planning process for D’s wedding, a few things became very clear up front. First, the B+G really wanted everything to happen in Center City Philly and not a venue in the suburbs, which did increase the venue and other costs. Second, we as the bride’s family had significantly more financial means than the groom’s family. Third, we had a certain vision and expectation for how nice we wanted the reception to be that differed from the groom’s family’s expectations coming from a small Midwestern town. Let me add that the groom himself was totally in sync with what we envisioned. But it was definitely a bit awkward trying to make the groom’s family feel included in the planning while being sensitive to their financial circumstances and the fact that they were used to much simpler weddings without “all this pomp and circumstance.” (That was a phrase the MOG used in discussions with B+G during planning.)
We could theoretically have offered the B+G a budget of X and said you can save whatever you don’t spend. That’s a perfectly valid approach. But the truth is that FOB and I both wanted this experience for ourselves as well as for them. B+G were very happy with the event and we don’t have any regrets.
We as the parents of the bride paid for almost all the costs associated with the ceremony and reception and a farewell breakfast (continental breakfast) at the hotel for the out of town guests. The groom planned the rehearsal dinner which was limited to 30 people, mostly the bridal party, immediate family and a few out of town guests. But at some point in the process it became clear that the groom’s family couldn’t comfortably afford to pay for the rehearsal dinner so we covered it.
The B+G were both very involved in all the planning and the G designed the website and designed and printed all the paper products (invitations, place cards, menu cards, welcome poster, signature cocktail signs, etc.) The cost came to 5 figures and let’s just say we could have bought a very nice car for the cost. The wedding invitations came from the B+G not the parents, and the rehearsal dinner invitations said the X and Y families invite you. Similarly the announcements at the reception were about how the X and Y families welcome you, and toasts came from FOB (first), FOG, MOH, and BM.
My parents were divorced and remarried, as were DH’s. Putting our names, four sets of parents, and details of the wedding on the invitation would have required a huge invitation or a 2 page one! We went with the “Together with their parents, Dick Smith and Jane Jones request your presence…”. That covered everyone and took up the whole standard sized invitation.
many years to come.