Meal, the next day...

MBIreland

Hi there,

We are getting married next June in North Dublin. We have about 150 or so guests coming to the wedding and are planning to have a meal for family and close friends the following day.

Would anybody be able to share their experiences of sending out invites to this? Should we invite everybody, where most people will simply decline? Or will everybody feel obliged to attend, especially if they live in Dublin?

Would it therefore be ok to invite just selected people, thereby running the risk of upsetting people who were not invited?

A bit of a conundrum that hopefully some of you will be able to help us with.

Thanks in advance

Kev.

Your thinking to hard about it....

What I did was tell everybody who went to the wedding,that we were having a barby the next day and they are more than welcome to come,but theres no pressure if they dont...

I recon I had about 60 the next day and it was brill....well recommended

BC

We had a meal the next day just for immediate family & the bridal party. So it was parents, brothers, sisters and their boyfriends & girlfriends and bridal party and their partners. It was really nice and to be honest, we were so exhausted that I was glad it wasn't a huge crowd.

I think if you're going to invite other guests along then you have to do it early in the day as most people will be going home and so don't want to be hanging around waiting all day.

ThePiedPiper

If I was you, I'd keep your options open on this, keep it small and casual if you do decide to go with it. From personal experience, my brother tried this when he got married, and everyone was zombie like the next day so it was a bit of a damp squid. When I got married, we sort of thought we'd hang around the night after with a couple of family members, but we and everyone else were absolutely wrecked the day after and decided to just spend a quiet day at home sorting things about before heading off on honeymoon. It was so nice to be at home in our own house with all the drama over and just relax together.

From the perspective of someone who's been asked to go to a party the day after, I have to admit I've never had any appetite for it. A wedding already takes up a lot of time and money for guests, and because we've a child, we're always keen on getting home to relieve whichever grandparent is on childminding duties so we never go to the day-after parties. However, you might have some family members who've come from abroad, etc who are keen to have another day. Think about it carefully though.

How Strange

Op I agree with the others who say you'll be completely exhausted the day after as will your guests. We did nothing the next day except visit the in laws and one of the grannys because we were wiped and it was nice just to be at home, the two of us, enjoying a takeaway and a glass of wine.

Strangely enough we found the day after to be slightly anti-climatic prob because everyone was wrecked which also meant we just wanted to relax and keep a low profile.

If you're doing something do it early and keep it small. Remember some people will have kids so might have to arrange babysitting etc. I'd say immediate family for brunch would be the best thing so everyone can go home and relax after.

MBIreland

Should have mentioned that I am originally from the UK and so will have quite a few guests travelling over for the ceremony, hence the need for something the day after. Just want to ensure that people don't feel obliged to attend, but not feel excluded either. We don't have anywhere to have a barbecue though, so it would have to be a sit down meal somewhere.

A tricky situation, hopefully we will get it right with some of your advice.

Thanks

tfak85

hi OP we are doing it the other way around, getting married on a friday with about 60 people for a meal and having a party the next night with whoever, i think it's gonna be about 150...
we are sending out slightly different invites and we sent out two sets of save the dates...you could either do this or you could just mention it to appropriate family members in very much a not a big deal kind of way, depending on whether or not you want everyone at your wedding knowing the plans...

judging from what others are saying though you may find people are wrecked the next day, would you think about doing a dinner the night before the wedding? or even a couple of nights before? you can even do something quite casual which will give you more free time on the wedding day, you will only have to do quick "rounds" with those family members rather than getting caught in a full catch up when you're quite busy.