Would you attend a wedding without a formal invite? Update: Received an invite

[Andra]

So here's the deal: a friend that I haven't seen or spoken on the phone to in a year is getting married in less than a month. She attended my wedding two years ago and knows I did most of the decorations myself. Two months ago she e-mailed me asking if I had any wedding decorations left from my wedding that I could lend her. I did have some things she could use and I was glad to help and excited that my friend was getting married. My DH sees her Fiance sometimes through work (but they don't work directly together) and so I gave her a box of decorations by sending them with DH to work one day.

Still haven’t seen or talked to her on the phone and she has changed phone numbers so I don’t have a current number to call her anyway. DH talks to the fiancé and finds out that they are not sending out formal invites to their friends. Their families will be receiving paper invites, but friends are just being invited by word-of-mouth. So DH says we are invited and makes plans to take off work to go (it is in another state). I say, “Wait a minute that doesn’t sound right. It sounds to me like this is a family-only wedding and we will be rude to show up uninvited, especially since I haven’t seen her in over a year.” DH assured me that the fiancé invited us verbally and that we should go.


I’m fine with helping her out with the decorations (she helped by passing out programs at my wedding) and not attending her wedding, but DH is adamant that we are invited. I don’t want to e-mail her about this because if we were not invited she may think I’m fishing for an invite and feel pressured to invite us. I would also feel very uncomfortable if we went and it was only their families there.


So, my question is would you go? Just send a gift or a card?

UPDATE: Still waiting on her phone number. I asked Dh to get it for me if he sees her fiance and I also e-mailed her to ask for her phone number. This evening I received an e-mail from someone inviting me to her shower! Do people even send printed invitations anymore? I don't know what to say about the wedding shower until I find out if I'm invited to the wedding. I will send her a gift no matter what I do, but this is getting a bit crazy. :shrug7:

Update (again): Sorry I almost forgot about this thread. For those who were wondering, we ended up receiving a paper invite last week. It was hand-delivered and taped to our front door. She also included a note inside thanking me for the decorations. I talked to a few mutual friends and found out that only two people attended her shower because of the e-mail invite (some of them just don't check their e-mail very often so they didn't even get the invite in time to attend). I didn't attend because I had something else that day. Anyway apparently someone put a bug in her ear about the invite confusion and she decided to do them after-all. SO, even though it's only two weeks away we are going to the wedding. We're going to try to car-pool with another couple and looking at it as a mini-vacation.

[lmcconne]

Without an official invitation, I would be hard pressed to consider myself invited. But I have to say, that etiquette rules of yesteryear seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs.

[XUfan]

Can you get your husband to get a phone number from her fiance? Then you could talk to her directly.

Guys...please don't throw things, I love you all...but...

Sometimes men don't quite get the plans right when they hear them. A few times, I've had to call the someone, after MY husband talked to THEIR husband, and made plans for us to go over to their house for dinner. And you guessed it...the wife didn't know a thing about it!!

[beth119]

Can you get your husband to get a phone number from her fiance? Then you could talk to her directly.

Guys...please don't throw things, I love you all...but...

Sometimes men don't quite get the plans right when they hear them. A few times, I've had to call the someone, after MY husband talked to THEIR husband, and made plans for us to go over to their house for dinner. And you guessed it...the wife didn't know a thing about it!!

LOL. I am usually the one caught by surprise when other couples show up for dinner at my house. DH likes to invite at the last minute, and never tell me.
The worst time was after we had bought our house, he brought his boss over to see it, and dinner. He called me 7 minutes before they showed up, I was still in my PJ's (lazy day) and the house was a wreck.
I did the quickest clean up EVER and we ended up going out to eat!

As for the wedding, I would send her a friendly email, asking if there is anything else you can help with, and see what kind of response you get. Maybe she'll mention an invite one way or the other?

[Andra]

Can you get your husband to get a phone number from her fiance? Then you could talk to her directly.

Yes, I'm sure I could get her number, but I'm still worried about seeming rude for calling to ask if we are invited. What should I say?

Guys...please don't throw things, I love you all...but...

Sometimes men don't quite get the plans right when they hear them. A few times, I've had to call the someone, after MY husband talked to THEIR husband, and made plans for us to go over to their house for dinner. And you guessed it...the wife didn't know a thing about it!!

I totally agree. My DH doesn't understand wedding etiquette rules at all and I'm worried that he misunderstood or maybe the fiance doesn't really know what's going on with the invites because the bride usually handles that. No offense to the men on the board intended.

[preciousbabes]

Lol no offence men but they can get things a little mixed up and men are more likely to throw around invites, for our wedding we had formal invites then all of sudden random people were turning up I was like where are these from, oh hes from the shop down the road I invited him, oh hes from the butchers I invited him too LOL - even when we were walking down the street he would be like I am getting married next month want to come!!! like its a house party lol

I would try and get her number then ring her, find out how the plans are going, were the decorations OK etc then just try and mention about whether its family, where its being held etc if you feel embarrassed to ask directly try and word it around the house, or just say your fiance mentioned to us about coming not sure if thats OK sort of thing lol.

[oceanbreeze]

I would also ask DH for the fiance's phone number to contact your old friend. The guys may have their wires crossed on this one. First off its out of state, secondly to not get any invite (in writing) at all would plain out tell me that there was no invite for me. If you can't get the phone number, email her and ask her point blank what is going on because you heard "xx" from your DH from her soon to be DH.

Personally, I think its rude of her to call upon you for decorations and then fall off the planet again. She should have at least invited you guys formally. If you talk to her and there is no invite brought up in conversation (by you or by her) then I would send a card and well wishes instead of attending.

[billig]

I agree with the other PP, get her email or something and don't bring up discussion about the invitation and see what she says.

[misse]

Well it is common practice here to send out invites to family and very close friends. Usually wedding announcement says all friend and family welcome to attend.

[Andra]

Thank you everyone! I've been thinking these same things. I'm going to try to get her phone number and call her to to ask how the final plans are coming together, etc. Maybe she will bring something up about the invites.