Hello all! I am hoping for some advice on invitation wording. My parents ( I am the bride) are very graciously paying for our wedding. I need to figure out a way to word the invitations that clearly indicates my parents are hosting but don't make the groom feel slighted.
A little bit of background: my fiancé is a self professed novice when it comes to weddings- he has only attended one wedding in his entire life and he was a teenager and remembers nothing. To put it in perspective, he did not know that a mother & son dance was thing, that the bride typically walks down the aisle to music, that my engagement ring wasn't also my wedding band or what groomsmen/bridesmaids are. I have asked him to learn a little bit about weddings online or watch movies that feature weddings (4 weddings and funeral, anyone? lol) etc. so we can plan the wedding as a team. I explained that it is stressful for me to have to explain literally everything about weddings to him, especially when I do not know everything about or care much for wedding planning myself (and it is too late for a wedding planner at this point just FYI). Additionally, I am often unfairly placed in the role of "bearer of bad news" when he gets over-stressed about information I relay to him- like when I told him he needed to get his groomsmen gifts and he got all stressed about that. Alas, he has not taken my suggestion to educate himself at all on weddings; so despite my initial hopes that we could share the wedding planning burden; it has not worked out that way.
Anyway...
Since my parents are hosting the wedding, the wedding invitation verbiage will be somewhere along the lines of "Father first name and Mother first name last name, invite you to share in the joy of their Daughter First name Middle name to Groom First name Last name, son of Grooms father and Grooms mother etc." I shared a draft of the invitation with my fiancé (because I am still trying very much to have him involved despite his lack of interest or knowledge). He did not understand why the invitations are worded that way or the concept of the hosting parents "inviting" the guests and was upset that he seemed "secondary". He is not upset from a place of pride where he wants it to seem like we are paying for it, he just truly does not understand that the invitation should indicate who is hosting. I tried to explain this, but he does not quite get it. I explained that if he and I were paying for the wedding ourselves, the wording would be different but that since that is not the case, it is worded in a way to indicate that my parents are hosting the wedding. I know my parents will feel disrespected and hurt if we word the invitation in a way that implies we are hosting it ourselves or they are hosting it in conjunction with his parents, so that is not an option. My parents have not butted in at all regarding wedding planning and I am extremely lucky and grateful for this. The wedding verbiage is something that both they and I want on the invitation, and I think it is a fair ask.
Any suggestions on how to A) help him understand invitation/hosting etiquette and B) word things in a way that clearly indicates my parents are hosting, but doesn't make him seem like an afterthought? Should I have not sent him the draft to begin with? Ugh.
Also, any advise on how to get my fiancé more educated on and involved in the wedding planning would be great! I am getting kind of burnt out, frustrated and resentful at this point...
Sorry for the long post and the venting!
Thank you!
