<p>How about using the formal form on the envelope and a handwritten note inside with the invitation? In any event I can’t imagine anyone being offended by a formal inside envelope.</p>
<p>Jonri – I think you are overthinking this issue. The ‘aunt and uncle’ must know that they are just two out of however many invitees. They probably will be so excited about receiving the invite that they won’t think twice about the address. If, however, they are offended (which means they’re kinda touchy!) just apologize for the ‘oversight’ and let it go. </p>
<p>I’m enjoying all the letters and stories! Whew…I wished once that I could have had a boy since my own wedding didn’t exactly go off smooth as silk. But now I’m quite anticipating a wedding for my d…many years away may it be!</p>
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<p>Probably true! But it is very easy to do so once you are deep inside Wedding World. It is difficult to keep a good perspective in the swirl of details.</p>
<p>jonri–the book I used when my daughter got married 3 years ago has a list of “addressing protocol” for formal invitations and nowhere does it admit of such informality as “Aunt” “Uncle” or “Granma Noni.”</p>
<p>The full names (first and last) with titles (Mr, Mrs, Dr. etc.) go on the outside envelope.</p>
<p>The inside envelope has names such as Dr. and Mrs. Smith. Children’s names may be listed here. There are certain ways of doing things if the wife has kept her name, if she is a Dr. and he isn’t, if they are both doctors, if there are 2 single people living together, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Just get a good book and follow the rules. You may lose some arguments, but you may win some! ;)</p>
<p>That is not to say you can’t use your common sense in a situation that doesn’t fall under the “rules” or where there are good reasons for doing your own thing.</p>
<p>I sometimes consulted more than one book. If they disagreed…I won!</p>
<p>jonri, I’m with you - I always thought you address the inner envelope as the bride or groom would address those people - Aunt and Uncle in this case. But I think that an inner envelope that reads “Grandma” would be weird, so I could be wrong - imagine that!</p>
<p>I’m following this discussion closely since my daughter got engaged in December…and I’m learning that everyone seems to have different opinions and strong views, so I’m fairly certain that the “rules” are not set in stone. </p>
<p>I’m also finding out that a skill that I learned while doing college visits comes in handy in this situation - biting my tongue and letting my D make her own decisions. </p>
<p>If anyone’s offended by how the inner envelope is addressed, it would be unfortunate, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.</p>
<p>mommusic, </p>
<p>Thanks for the hint! I googled “wedding invitations” and “aunt and uncle” and found an etiquette site where someone asked this question. Guess what?!! The etiquette maven said that when relatives are close the inside envelope should be addressed using the name you usually call them and gave aunt & Uncle as an example!!! So, in at least one person other than yours truly’s opinion, if you always call your grandmother Noni, you address the inside invite to Noni, not Mrs. Liberti. </p>
<p>Thanks!!! </p>
<p>Please understand that I’m not bent out of shape about this. The envelope hasn’t been addressed yet and my sibling & spouse are not people who would get all huffy about it. However, I think they would notice and be a little hurt. I’ve got at least one source who agrees with me!!! My kid will do what I want for this invitation–just thought it was weird to do it my way. There’s no argument about it–just a difference of opinion. </p>
<p>So, thanks for the idea of looking for multiple sources !</p>
<p>PS–the etiquette mavens disagre about a lot of this stuff. The Knot site’s expert says that when a married couple uses different names or unmarried couples live together, you use alphabetical order when addressing a single envelope to the address–so Mr. John Doe and Ms. Susan Smith. Some etiquette books say woman’s name always goes first.</p>
<p>I just was curious what other people thought. But the best advice was to keep looking until I found something that did it my way :)!!</p>
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<p>Speaking as a married woman with her own last name, I really have never noticed whether people put us in alphabetical order or female first.</p>
<p>I’m just happy when they have the common sense to list us with our own names.</p>
<p>^So true! Just use my name. PLEASE!</p>
<p>^^Even my own mother doesn’t do that! (Use my own name. She simply doesn’t “get” that I didn’t change it.)</p>
<p>^^ We get every combination of our names. Some people just hyphenate us. We hyphenated our kids, but not our own names. Recently married D ditched the hyphenated name and took her husband’s last name. It’s not much shorter than the hyphenated name!</p>
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<p>Who is this level-headed young lady and how can I introduce her to my son? ;)</p>
<p>For the OP: What’s actually been happening in our families lately is the groom’s family offering a single sum to the bride’s family long in advance, whatever the groom’s parents can afford but pushing towards “generous.” Then, let the bride’s family decide every detail of everything that the etiquette books say are the groom’s (flowers for people, liquor, license/clergy; and some books add: photography, music). In my culture, there aren’t rehearsal dinners, but we do some other gatherings instead around the weekend. In families where rehearsal dinners are celebrated, I read that’s the groom’s financial responsibility. </p>
<p>With the single check, the bride’s family can budget any way they wish, relative to the groom’s contribution: less, equal or more. Nobody has to get into close negotiations over daisies vs. roses, wine v. gin. Also the groom’s family doesn’t limit the event if the bride’s family had something different in mind. It’ll work where the groom families are easy-going uncritical types, happy with anything or everything. </p>
<p>I care whether the young lady brings kindness and intelligence to the relationship, and we see the same flowing from our boys towards her. If that’s happening between the couple, and the parents can recognize it, a lot of details can be worked through. I hope.</p>
<p>^^^ I like that idea, paying3tuitions!</p>
<p>Pleased to help, Sportsmama!</p>
<p>Actually, though, if anyone can punch holes in it (the one-check sum from groom’s side, leaving all details to the bride’s side…), I’d like to know also since it’s a different approach than the traditional. If anyone can jump in with warnings, go ahead please! No system is the best, but I think the more ideas we hear, the better.</p>
<p>When my son got married last year, the bride’s parents gave the couple a check with which to work with. We did the same. The couple then made all the decisions. They skimped in areas that weren’t important to them (cake) and spent more than I would have on areas important to the bride (pictures). It was a beautiful wedding though and everyone seemed pretty darn happy. Our check to the couple covered the alcohol at the reception (her parents don’t drink), and flowers, with enough left over to help in areas that bride’s parent’s check just didn’t cover.</p>
<p>We separately paid for the rehearsal dinner for 50 people, tuxes for two of the groomsmen (also my sons, husband already owned his tux), my dress, pillow for ring bearer, basket and halo for flower girl, brunch at our house the morning after the wedding for 60 people, and a wedding gift to the couple. I never really added it up, but obviously it was significant. I wouldn’t do anything different though.</p>
<p>A few possible problems with P3T’s approach:</p>
<p>1) Though your message makes clear it’s not intended to do so, I think it suggests to the bride’s family that they need to spend twice the amount the groom’s parents donated. If I were the bride’s parents, I think I’d see a contribution of $10,000 as a suggestion that a $20,000 wedding is expected. I would feel very awkward putting on a wedding that costs $15,000 if the groom’s parents had given me $10,000. Some of the earlier posts in this thread are from people who envision a simple wedding in the backyard. Getting a check from the groom’s parents MIGHT be seen as an effort to dictate the kind of wedding it will be while appearing to be generous. </p>
<p>2) There could be misunderstandings, particularly if the bride came from a different culture. I think you’d have to make it clear that this is our contribution and we are NOT going to host a rehearsal dinner too or pay for anything else you might think is our responsibility. </p>
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<li><p>I barely know the parents of my kid’s spouse to be. I’d find it incredibly uncomfortable talking to them about money. To me, the approach set forth in post #255–telling your own child and spouse to be what you are willing to contribute-- makes more sense.</p></li>
<li><p>Maybe I’m “odd,” but if the parents really are orchestrating the wedding–which I think is rare; most kids want to plan their event themselves–I wouldn’t appreciate having all of the scut work dumped on me. That would be especially true if a rehearsal dinner is expected. Great! Now the bride’s parents have to plan that too!</p></li>
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<p>Now obviously, if your S or D is marrying a high school sweeheart at the age of 25 and you’ve known the other parents for lots of years, none of this may apply. But in my kid’s crowd, that’s unheard of. Most of my kid’s friends are marrying people they met in college or grad school or people they met while working first job. The parents usually don’t meet each other until the 'kids" are serious. In that case, I think handing someone you don’t know well a check for your share of the wedding might cause some discomfort. As I said, maybe I’m just odd, but I’d feel really uncomfortable.</p>
<p>“If anyone can jump in with warnings, go ahead please! No system is the best, but I think the more ideas we hear, the better.”</p>
<p>P3T, you are right. Jonri, I see your points. That’s why it’s so good to share ideas. I’m glad there have been so many people willing to share. 
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<p>By the time I am going through this with my kids, I hope to have a lot of information from a wide variety of people. There isn’t one right way to do things, but hearing from different people can help you match their ideas with your particular situation/family.</p>
<p>We used a wedding planner. We did a lower level “plan” with her, and it was worth every penny. She took care of a lot of the busy work (especially since D and the groom were out of town until a month before the wedding) and lined up appointments for them with caterers, cake places etc. for when they came to town to visit/wedding plan. She was low-key and not very expensive, in my view. The “day of” she took care of handing out the gratuities and gave me good instructions on everything I needed to do and when. She kept everything moving at the reception. </p>
<p>I DID wind up planning the rehearsal dinner and it was at my house! That actually wound up being more stressful than the actual reception, which was NOT at my house. It all went fine, but there is still some anxiety when a bunch of people are coming to your home- especially when you have cats that like to roam the counters and a large dog who will eat anything! My sister and her family really did the orchestrating of it that evening- since many of us were at the church rehearsing when the caterers brought the food etc. It all worked- somehow.</p>
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In our case, we did something similar – my husband and I made up a budget first thing, and assigned different aspects to either set of parents or to ourselves, given that his parents had indicated that they would like to pay for approximately half of the wedding. </p>
<p>We generally stuck to traditional roles (flowers to his parents, reception to mine, etc.), but switched items to different columns according to what made the most sense financially and logistically. We planned most aspects and picked most vendors, since his parents live 40 miles away and mine live 750 miles away, then discussed plans with all parents, and arranged for the assigned party to pay the vendor directly when all were satisfied.</p>
<p>It ended up being a lot of discussing, as you might imagine. I don’t think it would have been a bad idea to have money given to us in the first place, but of course it’s somewhat inevitable that plans change (often in an inflationary way!) between the day after the engagement and the week before the wedding.</p>
<p>Ok
I think I got lost in the intervening years. When did flowers become the groom’s family? When I got married (UMMMM) years ago, I picked and bought the flowers. I selected the bouquet I wanted and my mom agreed to pay for. No way I was having him either pick them or make him pay for them. </p>
<p>Sigh. I guess I’d better catch up on what is expected from us besides the rehearsal dinner and our own expenses. Google here I come. We have a destination wedding and I have to pay for the family since they cannot afford to go without us paying for it. When I did all the financial planning, I did not expect a wedding on top of college expenses during a market downturn. :(</p>