Our daughter and her fiance will be married out-of-state in a church wedding followed by a reception. His family and their mutual friends will all be able to attend, but most of our family and friends will not. Therefore, we plan to host an open house reception for the couple in our hometown two months following the marriage ceremony.
However, some of our friends have indicated that they hope to be able to attend the wedding.
My question concerns the invitations. Since we have no idea how many people from our hometown will make the 9-hour drive, do we send everyone a wedding invitation and an announcement about the open house? We're also having difficulty with the wording of the invitation, open house announcement, and RSVPs. Do we need two RSVP cards -- one for the wedding and one for the open house?
Thanks for any suggestions you may have.
Etiquette Now
WEDDING ETIQUETTE EXPERT
Post #2 of 2
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Re: Post-wedding open house reception
[In reply to]
Dear Jrfb,
There are no separate invitations for parents to invite guests to their child's wedding. Your daughter and her fiance send the wedding invitations. If they wish to invite your friends, they would send them the same wedding invitations they send to all of their guests.
You would send invitations to your reception about 6 weeks before the event using informal language (event, date, time, location). There is no need to mention the wedding, as all guests will know that the couple is married by the date of the reception. Please remember that this is not a gift giving event. So, please do not mention anything about gifts and if any arrive, put them out of sight.
Post-wedding open house reception
