Inviting guests to party after dinner is over?

This is known as a tiered wedding and is considered very rude. I understand wanting to celebrate your wedding with everyone you know, but it's rude to treat some guests differently than others. Think about it from your guests perspective.

Omg. I think this is so rude and I would be so offended if someone said I could come to their wedding after dinner to dance, but not be a part of their special day such as ceremony etc.

Curious to see others opinions, but my initial reaction is NO! Rude!

You don't do this! It's a tiered wedding and it's rude af!

I'm just going to quickly ask for clarification on the 50 guaranteed declines a year in advance; is this a destination wedding?

Also, if you wanted them there, they would have been on the original guest list draft. What you have planned is a tiered reception and that's considered to be very rude and poor hosting.

This is so fucking rude I TRULY cannot understand how anyone would think this is acceptable. Not only that, you think you're being nice to these people by "still inviting them, kind of".

Why don't you want to feed these people? How would you feel if you got an invite like this?

You may think it's rude but it is what it is. I work in the service industry and Saturdays are our busiest day and they tend to end extremely late. We can not run a successful business without all of our staff members in place meaning I can't invite any of my coworkers. We do not have enough staff for people to ask off to go to everything. I do however still want to extend the celebration to the people I see 6 days a week.

It would be rude of me to NOT invite them to join after they are done working.

Seems alittle early to be worrying about this. Wait awhile. You might not have to worry about asking them to come after, you might have room for them the closer it greets to the actual wedding date.

First of all, you have no idea who won't come, so count on 100% attendance. Secondly, tiered receptions are a huge etiquette no.

Invite them to everything if they're that important to you. And then let them know that you understand if they can't get off, but they're welcome to come late.

But be prepared to feed and seat every person you invite.

ETA: Also, you asked "is it rude..." in your post. Why would you ask if it's rude and then argue with people who say it is?

It would be rude. Besides, if you know they will only be able to make it after dinner, why not just invite them either way? At least you gave them the option AND you were polite.

Candy, Many many brides and grooms choose not to invite co-workers (we aren't) It's not rude to not invite them. HOWEVER, it is rude to tier your reception. Imagine being told; "Hey! We really want you to come to our wedding and give us a gift, but don't come until after dinner because we don't want to pay for your food!"

Please don't do this. Just don't invite the co-workers.

I echo the other posters. If your co-workers can't come due to their schedule, simply don't invite them. I am not inviting my co-workers to my wedding.

@Candy, you don't decide which parts of the wedding people attend. You invite them to the event and if they want to come, they'll show up when they can. If they don't feel like coming because they just got off a long night of work, they don't.

I would also like to know why you bothered to ask if this was rude if you were just going to reply with "is it what it is"...?

It is too early. These people may not be in your life by next year. That's just kinda how it goes with coworkers. Also, I would recommend only inviting people with whom you have a relationship outside of work and inviting those who you are actually friends with to the dinner AND dancing. If they can only attend the dancing, cool. But, let them decide that. It's kinda like saying, you're important... but not that important.

It is rude and has been covered before in the forums. It's pretty much saying your not important enough to go to everything. Inviting people is pretty much all or none.

Hi Candy!
Can I ask what you ended up doing? We have a similar issue we are getting married at home and just don’t have the space for everyone to sit for dinner, also the majority of the people invited for the wedding and dinner will probably not stay for the later shenanigans! I’ve struggled with this but my fiancé is all for it.

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Kirsten,

We didn't actually to do this. I ended up just inviting my boss and business partners from work, no one else from work. My husband didn't end up inviting anyone from his work, mainly because he dragged his feet on his invite list to the point where I had to take over. Men, huh?!

We did however have a guest who changed their mind on coming an hour before the ceremony which was a cluster since he wanted to invite his friend whom we've never even met. Because the venue wasn't able to take any more guests at that point, the ONLY option we were able to offer is him coming after dinner. We didn't allow his random friend to join him, but he ended up coming and really enjoyed himself.

I suggest keeping the wedding very small if you are not able to accommodate everyone you want to invite for both ceremony and reception. Either that or extend the wedding date so you are able to have the wedding where everyone is invited. A lot of people these days are inviting their very, very close family members and that's it.

Good luck!

My partner and I attended a friends wedding and had no idea it was a 'tiered' reception until at the ceremony we asked other guests if they would like to join us for a drink while we 'waited' for the reception. They told us they were going straight to the reception? A bit more enquiring and I realised there was an A and B guest list. I was mortified, hurt and embarrassed.

Funny enough, we met up with another couple who were B listers also, (only invited to the post-reception) and although we ended up having a nice afternoon while we waited around for a couple of hours, she (from the other couple) and I were fixated on the fact we were on the B list.

At one stage I went to the bathroom determined to take out half the cash I had in an envelope for the newlyweds, but I didn't.

I can say though, this was 5 years ago and it still offends me! .. I would have rathered not been invited!

I hope this sheds a light from a 'guests' feelings

This is very rude. Invite them to everything (ceremony and dinner plus dance) or nothing at all.