One idea - say something like, we would love to have you curate the wine and liquor options - here’s the vendor we plan on using - could you recommend a range of selections in each category for us?
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In some circles, that’s the pastime :). What’s left in life if you don’t get to judge and feel superior?
I would like it worded whichever way the grooms parents want. I and my daughter definitely want them on their in some form. Either as hosts or as the parents of the groom. Daughter wants it one of those two ways. Not saying that she and groom are paying for it (which among the people she knows would be what “together with their families mean.) There are a variety of reasons for this including the “that’s just weird” feeling she has about that. If she wanted 'together with their families…” I would not object. She definitely does not.
@maya54 , respectfully, all those wording choices do not necessarily signal who is paying. That some people might take it that way is their problem. The wording indicates who is hosting which often is also who is paying, but not always. Here is an explanation of how and why wedding invitation language has evolved, from my favorite etiquette expert, Miss Manners:
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My parents have generously offered to pay for our wedding. My mother also offered to take on the job of preparing invitations, about 200, for which I am very grateful. She selected wonderful tasteful invitations, and I was very pleased.
However, my mother-in-law saw the invitations and erupted in tears. The invitations stated: Mr and Mrs. Bride’s Parents invite you to attend the wedding of daughter and fiance.
My mother-in-law has been divorced twice, and she told my fiance and his brother that she believed that my parents did not list her name on the invitation because of her divorced status.
I am furious. My parents would never do such a thing.
I am certain that my mother consulted etiquette guidelines when she selected the language and form for the invitations. Question No. 1: Were the invitations properly drafted given that my parents are paying for the wedding?
Question Two: How shall I handle this personally with my future mother-in-law? Right now I feel angry and insulted that she would accuse my parents of such an action.
GENTLE READER: Your prospective mother-in-law’s notion that her name was omitted because of her divorces is only pathetic. What is insulting to your mother is your own notion that she might think she has bought exclusive rights to be on the invitation by paying for the wedding.
That fact is that this is a simple misunderstanding about the traditional wording of a bridal invitation and a common, practical variation of it.
The form dates from when a single young lady was married from her parents’ roof and protection – a situation that, while rarely true nowadays, is still honored in the custom of the father’s giving the bride away. So they – not the couple, and not both sets of parents – did the inviting as the hosts of the wedding.
The bridegroom did not need family identification because he was likely from the same town, or at least had conducted the courtship under the eyes of all who were likely to be wedding guests. All of them had long since inquired, “Who are his people?”
Now that brides live and choose husbands where they please, the bridegroom’s family’s guests may be puzzled to receive an invitation from people they don’t know. So his parents’ names are sometimes included. Or they may include a personal card with the invitations they send.
Miss Manners recommends that you and your mother gently explain the misunderstanding to your prospective mother-in-law, and offer to change the wording or suggest that she include her card. Or you could turn this into a full-fledged family feud poisoning your wedding, not to mention your married life.
Just wait until the grandchildren come if you think negotiating the wording on an invitation (most people just glance at it to see the date, time of day, and if their husband is going to be forced to put on a tuxedo on Super Bowl Sunday) is complicated.
Why not just ask the parents of the groom to send over a draft of whatever wording they’d like for the invitations? If they include the bride and grooms names which to your D somehow implies that she is paying for the wedding - the kids really need to take one for the team. And if they stick with a “Mr and Mrs. Team Bride request the honor of your presence at the marriage of Bride and Groom, son of Mr. and Mrs. Team Groom” you have your answer. Folks can assume, presume, judge, or ignore to their hearts delight… but I just can’t fathom a scenario where “what other people might think about who is paying” is more important than respecting the feelings of your in-laws. And your D will surely understand that in the richness of time.
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I have to say…I agree with @cinnamon1212 . We got an invitation to a wedding thwt had only the first names of the bride and groom. No last names at all…no parent names…and honestly, we had no idea whose wedding it was. As it happened, one of us was a co-worker of the grooms parents. We had never met their son, but did know the parents through work.
We did figure it out…but it took some sleuthing.
I don’t remember the exact wording on DDs invites, but I think it was something like this:
Thumper Girl, daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Thumper
And
Fiancé Guy, son of Mr. And Mrs. Fiance guy
Invite you to join them for the celebration of their marriage.
Something like that…honestly, I don’t really remember.
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That was the case with my nephew. The wedding was in Boulder. I think the only people from Boulder were the bride’s great aunt and uncle who hosted the reception (so were invited to the rehearsal dinner). Yep, the other 168 people out of 170 were from OOT. Most of the B&G’s friends were from OOT even if originally from Denver/Boulder.
Even if they excluded the Denver guests (about 1 hour away so many did stay at the hotels), it still would have been ~125 guests at the rehearsal dinner, and honestly at that point I would have felt excluded if all the aunts and uncles of the couple except me were invited. Seems kind of mean to exclude the aunt that see them all the time (ME) and include the groom’s father’s brother and sister who he’s seen maybe 4 times in his life.
But the point it is okay to do it your way. Communications is the key. I hope OP can put it delicately for the groom’s parents so everyone feels comfortable with their contributions. My sister didn’t feel bad at all that she didn’t pay $50k.
Just looked at the most recent wedding invitation my daughter got. It says "You are formally invited to Bride’s first name & Groom’s first name’s Wedding Ceremony and Reception.
No parents, no last names, just like thumper1.
It’s so sad to me that the wedding planning and costs have caused as much heartache as has been revealed in this thread. I’m really sorry for all the cruel things that have been done to people.
For our S and DIL’s wedding, we told them we were happy to help in whatever way they wanted but had no strong feelings as it was their celebration. My DIL said her mom (who is a young widow) felt the same way. They had us print things on our printer—they wrote up what they wanted printed, including choosing font & spacing and bought the cardstock. I’m very glad S and DIL got to plan things the way they wanted, including the save the date, invitations and wording. As far as I know everyone just remembers it as a happy event.
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My suggestion is to speak with the bride and groom first about this to help sort it out. We have been in MOG/MOB situation 3 times, all very different from each other. 1.Our son knew we wanted to contribute and asked us early on if we had an estimate. We gave a lump sum to couple, plus paid for large rehearsal dinner. B & G did not pay anything. We had no input to the wedding but wish we had (fancy wedding, but only one food option some of our friends couldn’t eat,and bride’s family would not allow us to order or pay for alternate meal offering , very slow time line day-of), and were a little embarrassed. Our friends were a small contingent. 2. Our daughter told us early on that they, B & G, would like to contribute, but MOB, FOB not in financial position to and whenever we wanted shared costs to please ask B &G. Out of town wedding, mostly B &G friends, several G relatives. We paid almost all, B & G some. G side did pay for very nice rehearsal dinner and B & G paid for after party. 3. groom and his parents told us early on they believed in cost sharing. Wedding was maybe more expensive than they had envisioned but they did not complain and were very pleasant and agreeable. They paid for rehearsal dinner. Week after wedding they pleasantly reminded us to collect from them. We split food, band, venue, a couple other things and paid for many things ourselves, and B&G paid for a few things. We suggested an amount upon their request and itemized the things we suggested to split and offered they could pay that much (or less because things turned out to be more expensive than anticipated).
B& G made most choices each wedding, including input on invitation wording . Weddings 1&3 included all parents names, wedding 2 only our names, and G parents totally fine with this. All had B&G full names of course.
I’m not sure we would have navigated these well without getting early input from bride and groom. They were able to communicate expectations from parents-future in-laws. Also when we were primary planners ( daughters) we had a spreadsheet budget/ guesstimate of each type of cost to set expectations.
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That’s a mouthful to fit on an invitation.
I’ll have to look at D’s invite to be sure, but I believe she had DH and I on the invite and if you were invited to the rehearsal dinner, there was an additional insert (invite) with son-in-law’s parents, as the hosts, on that.
I’ve also seen invites with the B&G names and the wording “together with their parents” but no parent names. That doesn’t bother me either. I don’t need to be featured or lauded as the payer of the wedding, nor would I want to cast intentional or unintentional shade on in-laws as far as who paid for what. My older D gets a lot of invites and most of those are very simply worded. I like that trend.
My younger D’s boyfriend has divorced parents/stepparents - it would be a huge mouthful to include everyone on the wedding invite. I don’t think younger D will want to have all of the parties and events that older D had. If she marries this boy, his extended family are extremely wealthy but not at all generous with their money, so I don’t anticipate that they will make any offers other than maybe the rehearsal dinner.
I stand with my initial opinion that brides and grooms should take the lead on planning their own day and parents should play only a supporting role (regardless of who is signing the checks), offering advice when asked. I would find it exhausting trying to live up to a friend group’s elevated view of what a wedding thrown by me, should look like.
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About the invitation wording…
I had mentioned a while back in this thread that an invitation could simply say: “You are cordially invted to the wedding of B and G” which doesn’t imply who is hosting/paying.
An alternative could be: “You are cordially invited to the wedding of B, daughter of X and Y, and G, son of X and Y…” It identifies both sets of parents but not who is hosting/paying.
This discussion made me go look at both of my daughters’ wedding invitations. As shared here earlier, I paid for both of their weddings, though they did all the planning, using the amount of money I offered them.
Older daughter’s invite starts with " Fiance’s name & Daughter’s name request the honor of your presence to share in the celebration of their union at…"
Younger daughter’s invite is informal and funny (kinda their style and my SIL is involved in comedy): “You are invited to G & B’s wedding. We want you there when we officially become Mrs. and Mr. Daughter’s Name.” (they truly now are Mr. and Mrs. SIL’s name legally, but the “joke” likely was that daughter’s name is more well-known publicly)
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Our invite had last names…first name of both parents…and last name. Let me try it again…
Susie Thumper, daughter of Joe and Carol Thumper
And Joe Fiancé, son of John and Barb Fiancé
Invite you to join them to celebrate their wedding.
Honestly, when I get a wedding invitation, the most important things are the day, time and location. I have never given much thought to the wording or whether it means anything in terms of who paid what.
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I don’t get the mouthful concept. A one page invitation has plenty of room for the names of the participants- the couple and their parents, whether bio or not. And I haven’t seen an invite which spells out “seventeenth of May , half past four in the afternoon” in at least 20 years. The date for most invites these days is 1/8/2025, 4:30 PM and takes up barely half a line of type. And if the couple has to reduce their personalized “Cypher” or graphic from 30 point type to 25 point type to fit in their parents names… well, put me in the “take one for the team” camp re: bride and groom.
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Responding to the OP’s question–have your future son-in-law communicate with his parents. Also, why assume his parents won’t/can’t contribute?? People often say they wouldn’t do X or Y and then when it comes down to it, they change their minds.
My D got married in May.The wedding invitations were not traditional. The invitation read: Along with their families XX and YY invite you . . . " No parent names. Rehearsal dinner card read: X and Y invite to their rehearsal dinner. They hired a graphic artist who did a small drawing of the wedding venue that was on the top of the card and another drawing of our garden for the rehearsal dinner card. The rehearsal dinner was in our garden and the reception was at a venue the groom’s family owned.
H and I probably paid more of the wedding expenses than the groom’s parents but it all turned out beautifully and everyone was happy.
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When I got married 25+ years ago, our wedding invitations just had my parents name at the top. They paid for almost everything, and my in laws paid for the rehearsal dinner. Since families on both sides were relatively traditional, it wasn’t an issue.
However, a good friend of mine who got married the same year had a much different situation. My friend (I’ll call him Mark) married a woman who was from a European country. Her family was relatively poor and she found opportunity and love in the US when she came here as an au pair. When it came time for the wedding, Mark and his middle class parents paid for the entire wedding in their home state in the US. They even helped fly some of the brides family over from Europe and hosted a couple of them in their home. Things were going well with planning until it came time to design the invitations.
Marks parents were paying for the bulk of the wedding and wanted their names to be listed at the top of the invitation. Bride was very upset and said her parents would be so insulted if her parents weren’t listed at the top, as that was tradition. She didn’t think that the fact that Marks parents were paying should have anything to do with the wording of the invitation. It was a huge culture clash and caused a lot of ugliness. Poor Mark was caught in the middle between his bride and his parents. Eventually he decided on the wording that began something like, “Together with our parents, (then parent names of both sides listed) we invite you to our wedding, Bride and Mark XYZ. I can’t remember which set of parents were listed first.
They’re still married, but let’s just say this was just the beginning of culture and expectations clashes between Mark, his family and his wife.
To each their own. Ultimately it’s up to the B&G.
I just don’t think the invitation wording needs to try overly hard to convey some kind of unwritten agenda about who paid for what. I wouldn’t be offended if my D wanted to go with simpler format and say “parents” rather than listing the names.
Esthetically, I prefer a more minimal invitation format, with a larger font and the pertinent information easy to find, rather than a bunch of info crowded on in a small font.
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Did I mistake who said that - somebody said they got a wedding invite where there were no last names and since it was the child of a work friend they had to think a bit on who this was getting married.
I don’t think that the party paying gets naming rights! (In the case of weddings, top billing).
They may but good lord. In the case of Mark’s family, why wouldn’t they continue their generosity, and take the high road by including the brides parents (as was ultimately decided).
I am clearly more reticent about advertising what I am paying for than a lot of people!
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