Who should receive this annoucement?

April 14, 2009 6:38 AM

Wedding Announcement Etiquette

My fiance and I have a planned elopement in May. Our friends and family all know and are excited for us. We've ordered wedding announcements and will be mailing them to all of those that would normally have been invited to a wedding, plus others who are out of the area, co-workers, etc. The announcements will be mailed the day that we get married.
I have been estranged from my step mother for about 10 years. We are not on speaking terms. My question is whether or not I should address the announcement to my father only or include my step mother as well? If we were having a wedding I would not have wanted to invited her. I do not want to put my dad in an uncomfortable situation, but at the same time do not want to send the impression that I'm open to any communication with her.

posted by JennyJupiter to human relations (10 comments total)

Well, whatever you do, just make sure you ask for cash on the announcement.

at the same time do not want to send the impression that I'm open to any communication with her.

Well, there is the obvious question of why this is so. It may be that your joyous occasion might give you two the perspective to resolve whatever differences you have. I mean: one assumes that since you have not disavowed your father, your stepmother has not done anything truly unforgivable.

It's also truly good that you aren't having a wedding, because not inviting her would be 10 times worse for your father than this. Anyways, send the invitation to both. You can continue hating your stepmom later.
posted by TypographicalError at 6:44 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]

First, can you just address it to "The Jupiter Family"? This works especially well if they still have any kids at home.

Second, are you worried that she'll assume the lines have been reopened and then contact you? You can repeat whatever behavior you've already been doing to avoid contact. Send a short note (separate from the announcement) explaining that you wanted to let your father know of your wedding but aren't interested in maintaining contact with her. I assume she already knows the reason for the estrangement, so no need to rehash that.
posted by desjardins at 6:45 AM on April 14

Okay - you want to completely avoid communicating with her, but you want to avoid being rude to her? By properly handling marriage announcement etiquette? These two goals seem incompatible.

Is it really all that likely that the presence of her name on the announcement would spur her to do more than send cordial congratulations? It seems to me more as though you want to send a subtle message to her by not including her name on the announcement - but the message you'd be sending is a rude message, there's no getting around it. I would think it'd be better to just put her name on the announcement and include a note inside saying you don't want to have contact with her. (Or, to accept the possibility that she'll send you some well-wishing.)
posted by XMLicious at 6:45 AM on April 14

Writing her name on a piece of paper will most likely not conjure her back in to your life like a demon. Especially when there's no actual event for her to attend and possibly ruin. Also, sending it to solely to your father might not seem like a tactful omission to her -- it could seem like a deliberate slight, which I'd think would be more likely to provoke an unfortunate reaction than simply including her name and moving on.
posted by hermitosis at 6:46 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]

Life is short. Why be unnecessarily hateful to people?
posted by musofire at 6:51 AM on April 14 [3 favorites]

Include her name as you would for any other married couple.

There's quite a bit of difference between not wanting to talk to someone and not acknowledging their existence. Moreover, you've been presented with the opportunity to be gracious and take the high road, and all it costs you is writing her name on an envelope.

Win-win, from where I stand.
posted by DWRoelands at 7:02 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Thank you all for your responses. I have decided to include either her name or address it in the following way: Mr. and Mrs. Jupiter. I think that it is better to take the high road has DWRoelands put it-which will avoid hurting my dad's feelings in any way and not generate any new family gossip.
posted by JennyJupiter at 7:10 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

That sounds like the right road. Congratulations, by the way. About half-way through planning our wedding, my fiance were talking about how much easier it would have been to elope. We mentioned this in a sort of off-hand way to both sets of parents and they were like "well, why didn't you? We wouldn't have minded." I'm glad we actually had the wedding as it was a lovely affair but I wouldn't have minded eloping, either :-).
posted by Happydaz at 7:55 AM on April 14

Happydaz - I'm in the process of trying to convince my fiance that we should go ahead and elope before our wedding which is slowly being taken over by my mom and turning into the "typical" Indian wedding that I was trying to avoid (esp since my fiance is not Indian).
posted by echo0720 at 3:13 PM on April 14

We started out planning a small wedding and realized that we couldn't really swing a small wedding on the budget that we set for ourselves. So we decided to do something special for just the two of us. Making that decision was a huge stress relief and planning the bed and breakfast stay, and vineyards that we are going to visit has been fun!
Every married couple that I've told that we are eloping says that they wish they could have done it that way. Nearly all of our friends and family think that it is a great idea.
echo0720, if you have any questions about what we are planning, I'd be happy to fill you in.
posted by JennyJupiter at 6:36 AM on April 15