Wedding Invitation Etiquette
The world is full of wedding experts, but like us, most of them are already married. As we stumbled through the whole process, we discovered which things came easy and which were quite difficult. Each couple has their own problems, but for many, the guest list is a significant one.

I had always envisioned having a huge wedding, like a community celebration. I don't like going to weddings in half-full churches. Out of my own vanity, I viewed a full church as a mark of popularity and achievement. I didn't imagine that I would have difficulty choosing who to invite, because I would just invite everyone imaginable. It didn't quite work that way. A few things got in the way:
1. Our hometown connections weren't as solid as they once were, so many of those friends had fallen out of touch with us.
2. Not everyone likes going to weddings, so an open invitation isn't sufficient for a lot of people.
3. Our celebrity status hadn't really extended beyond our own small community.
We still had quite a few people come out, a few reasons:
1. My job as youth pastor makes me a public figure.
2. We're both members of loving and supportive church networks.
3. Our social groups didn't overlap much.
4. I have a larger than average family.

We started with a small list of people that came to our heads most automatically. We were told we could sit 250 people at the reception comfortably, so we had a higher ceiling than most, and we wanted as much as possible to not let money get in the way. We didn't do much trimming, that is to say we didn't do any trimming. As the weeks went by, there were quite a few people that came to mind that should perhaps be on the list. Some were added, some were not, but our original list was quite extensive. Our meal was served and prepared by a committee of volunteers, so we were able to cut food costs. In some ways we had too many friends there, as we were not able to talk to all of them personally before the night was over.

Every family has their own political turmoil, even mine. I'll try to be as generic as possible, but in my extended family, a few weddings have been boycotted/unattended for theological reasons. I personally disagreed with those theological reasons as well as with the idea of using a wedding as the soapbox from which your views are preached. So I could have responded by neglecting to invite those who refused to show their support to others. I spoke to a few victims of those boycotts and asked if they wanted me to do that. Since they were indifferent, I went ahead and invited them anyway. (I use italics in this paragraph to diminish the meanings of these events. What happened hardly justifies using such weighty words, though that's essentially what they were)

Weddings to me are public celebrations, not opportunities for revenge, spite or theological debate. For me to boycott those people for boycotting other weddings would be textbook hypocrisy. There's no room at weddings for hypocrisy either.

   [ posted by William @ 2:35 PM ]