Bad Manners and Brimstone

I wish I didn't feel this way but I think I would still feel B listed. 

I understand it - guest lists are severely limited and a lot more people that wouldn't normally be cut are going to be cut.   I wouldn't really be offended but I don't think I would be able to convince myself that I wasn't on the B list though.

 It's just a feeling.

I have to ask myself, though, how it’s different from a situation in which a couple originally contemplated a wedding at a tiny venue that only seats thirty or a destination wedding, in neither of which cases I would have been invited, but then decided to have a big wedding for 200 instead, and now I am.

My relationship to the HC themselves is not a determining factor for me.  At my age, 63, except for relatives, and even then sometimes, I’m much more likely to know the parents well than the bride and groom.  I rarely know both of them.

Quote from: Gellchom on October 04, 2020, 07:41:59 pm

I learned a few things about the wedding pertinent to this discussion. 
- they hope to be able to have up to 30-40 people in live attendance
- they invited 200 by Zoom (not sure whether or not that includes the live attendees).
- I asked if it hadn't been during the pandemic and they could have had a regular wedding, how many people they would have had.   He said they hadn't really thought about it, because the couple only got engaged fairly recently, so it had never been an option, but maybe around 100.

Gellchom -- thank you for posting this bit of actual conversation. I think it just might change my mind about B-listing and possible gift grabby.

I was thinking that Zoom-inviting people would only include the people that you would otherwise invite but due to the pandemic, social distancing and what not, are unable to attend the physical event because of the restrictions.

Changing the live invites from 100 (budgeted) to 200 Zoom invites (free) does bother me.

I'm not sure if it's akin to passing out/showing off wedding photos after the event or not. Or even if it's a new form of wedding announcement.

Looking forward to what others have to say.

I agree, if the Zoom invite extends beyond what the original guest list would have been, then it feels gift grabby, at worst, or that the couple has over estimated people's interest in their nuptials. I'd consider my relationship to the couple, or the family if I knew only the parents, when deciding whether or not to gift - or even to show up.

I have weeks where I'm on Zoom for 12-15 hours. I have a couple coming up that will approach 24. I'd have to have a fairly close relationship in the couple to Zoom on those weeks.

DaDancingPsych -- Thank you for posting that. It is a very nice break down of whether I would attend a Zoom wedding or not.

DaDancePsych, I love your estimate of "I'd probably be the 5th / 10th / 200th person invited..."

I think in most situations, we KNOW where we would probably fall.

I think that's why my DH wasn't insulted to be B-listed that one time. We knew they'd have other people who would naturally fall before us, and they wouldn't have HAD to invite us at all. But they did, and it wasn't an insult to know that there were 80 other people who came before us, because of course they did.

That is a very good point.  What is so terrible, really, about not being on the very short list of people who would be invited to a smaller event?  We can't be everyone's very best friend.  I wouldn't WANT to be in inner circle of everyone I like!

I don't think this is really "B listing," anyway.  I think that that term means hosts treating some guests better than others -- like, some guests get a full meal, others are only invited for dessert.

This is more like the "second flight" situation -- where the hosts realize that for some reason (change in venue, infusion of cash, learning that a larger number of invitees than anticipated will be unable to attend, etc.) they will be able to invite more people, so they do.  That doesn't mean that they are inviting people they don't care about just to increase their gifts!  Not at all.  Everyone has some "maybes" on their invitation list that they end up not being able to include.  Often, these people are not borderline acquaintances at all -- they may be more like "would love love love to invite but don't have space because of the people on the 'must invite' list."

But it all gets blurred in the Zoom situation.  I mean, that father of the bride in the 200 person Zoom wedding told me he figured maybe they would've had 100 at an in-person wedding -- but I don't think he even thought about it until I asked; they hadn't planned and then cancelled an in-person wedding for 100.   

So it's more like a couple deciding to have a wedding for 200 in the park with pizza; if they could only have had 50 for a more expensive/smaller venue, does that mean that the other 150 are "B list" or otherwise insulted?  Maybe it's a compliment -- "We could've had a fancier reception, but it was more important to us to have more of our family and friends." 

Extrapolating to Zoom, I guess you could even say that a Zoom wedding for 30 is nicer than a Zoom wedding for 200 -- you can't see everyone at the same time, etc.; we all know the down sides of very large Zoom events.  But they chose a Zoom for 200 anyway so they could include more people.  Are 170 "B" guests?   

I do think that I would feel different if it were 1000.

I think there is a whole new area of etiquette to be written.

This is where I fall too. If I were getting married and having a Zoom wedding, I wouldn't invite any extra guests over and above the number I would have invited, had they been attending in person.

That makes sense, but the problem is that now we are getting out of the period where Zoom or live streamed weddings are rescheduled in-person events that were already planned or in the process of planning.  In those cases, the hosts know how many they had originally invited or were planning to invite.

But now, where weddings are being planned remotely from the get-go, no one --including the hosts -- knows what that number would have been.  They never had planned for an in-person wedding, so how can anyone say that the number that would have been invited was an intimate 30, a festive 300, or anything in between?  The bride, the groom, and their families might all have had different pictures in their heads, or might not have even thought about it at all.  It would be difficult to try to imagine it -- especially without pricing venues and services and the like to see what your parameters would have been, which would be a real waste of everyone's time. 

Thanks for the update, IWish . . . do you still think that you were b-listed?

I say to do what you would do if you were invited in person.

To me, one reason we do wedding gifts/showers is to help a new couple get set up in life.
This person is set up in life if it is a second wedding.

Also, how close do you feel to this person?