One thing I am absolutely trying to avoid is the whole thing of stamping my feet and crying 'It's my wedding day!' that seems to happen a lot these days and has created a whole new stereotype of the 'bridezilla'. (I know it's not all that new, but it seems to be becoming more and more of an issue, and once upon a time it would not have been tolerated like it seems it can be these days.) I'm definitely not one of these, it's my wedding week, month, year types; you get your special day, and I do believe that people should make an effort to make it special for you, because in theory you should only do it once, but it's a day. People try and make it more with hen does, stag does, bachelor and bachelorette parties (I know these are the same thing), wedding showers and all that, but it's just ridiculous. You get a day. And even then, be reasonable about it. For some things, it's reasonable to say, 'It's my day' and for some things, it's just not. This came up recently when we were (correction, I was) designing the wedding invites.
First off there seems to be a shift towards the use of the phrase 'Together with their families...' at the beginning of the invite, instead of it being the names of the bride's parents, but the whole reason it was the bride's parents' names was because *traditionally* it was the parents of the bride who would pay for the wedding and then host everything. 'Together with their families' seems to muddy the waters a little, so we went for just putting our names (though keeping the tradition of the bride's name being first) invite you to be a part of their wedding day. I also had to cut out the fact that it said 'their beautiful wedding day' because it felt really twee and a bit sickening, if I'm being honest. If I could have got away with giving people a post-it with the address and time, I probably would have done that instead, but I stripped it down and tried to make it something that was pretty, somewhat elegant and just a bit more on theme for me and my partner rather than something gushy and overdone. Don't get me wrong, we can be insufferably mushy with each other and definitely are with our son, but I think that's different.
On the back, we've put in the sort of information you would 'normally' (I'm not sure what normal is in terms of a wedding, because there are so many different traditions and so much that has been added to over the years and it just feels ridiculous) go on the details card, and even that has caused issues. Why are you putting a dress code? Because a lot of our friends are neurodivergent and you can Google a dress code to give you a better idea, which can be reassuring, but you can't Google a blank space to try and figure out what to wear, can you? Why do they only accept cash at the bar? No, a cash bar is just the opposite of a free bar, because everyone can get drunk on their own dime, not ours. Sorry, but weddings are expensive enough without us paying for everyone's alcohol for six hours of a reception. Oh, and we just bought a new house and had a baby so thank the stars there actually is a wedding in the first place rather than bemoaning the lack of free alcohol, maybe?
As if all of that wasn't enough, everyone has their ideas on who should and shouldn't be invited, and sometimes that's coming from a place of who they get on with and who they don't and sometimes it comes from a place of tradition. We've very much said tradition can go in the bin, because whilst it's traditional to only have family at the ceremony and then invite friends to their 'night do' that was never what we were planning. And where do you draw the line with family? There's immediate family, and the family that you actually spend time with, and then there's everyone who you're related to but don't see, or distantly related to, and very often different bits of the family keep in touch with different bits, so you can end up with siblings where one keeps in touch with cousins and the other doesn't, but then it's the question of why you're inviting up to a certain level but then not including their kids, or not including the kids of that person. There's the big question of, is it a child free wedding? If not, does that mean you have to invite the offspring of every person you invite? If it's a pet friendly venue, do you invite literally every person and their dog? It becomes madness. I don't want the whole thing to have the same vibe as a family party I went to where so many people were asking, do you remember me? I've not seen you since you were three. I was about fourteen at this time... I still don't know who the people that were asking me that were. It would feel really weird to me to be hosting a wedding an not know the people we're inviting, or be looking back at the photos even a year from now and have someone ask 'who's that?' and neither of us know.
The big issue I had this evening though (well, the evening when I actually wrote this which was a while ago now) was how the hell do you address the invites to your parents? There seems to be no general consensus on this past that you write the envelope formally - as in Mr and Mrs Whatever-Your-Face, and then the inside you either use first names or Mum/Dad Mom/Dad whatever... I ended up calling my mum, because the last thing I wanted to do was upset her by putting her and my dad's names on it, but then if it's supposed to be from my partner and I, he doesn't call them Mum and Dad, so isn't that weird? I'd feel kind of weird writing the one to his parents addressing them as Mum and Dad, because they're not my mum and dad, but is it disrespectful for him to use their names? Honestly, I'm really not sure... That obviously then also extends to grandparents - do we use their name, or call them their grandparent name?
