Is This Normal? Wedding and Shower Invite Question

This is in poor taste on their part. The rule of thumb has always been that you don't invite anyone to the shower who is not on the guest list. That was a shameless "gift grab" on the bride's part and her mother should have either:
1. Reviewed the guest list and eliminated the "shower only" invites
2. Spoken with you PRIOR to the shower to explain that they were limited on the number of guests due to the venue (not financial- that makes it worse), but that she hoped you would join them at the shower to celebrate and no need to bring a gift. You would have brought one anyway, but at least you would have had a heads up!

The gracious thing to do would be to send a card (no gift) congratulating them on their wedding, but that's really up to you.

I think it is in very poor taste to invite someone to a shower but not tothe actual wedding. Yes, it certainly IS true that the lists SHOULD be pretty much the same. Actually, showers are a bit more intimate, so if anything, I'd expect to get a wedding invitation but not necessarily a shower invite. I've never had it happen vice versa. Just rude gift-grabbing, IMO.

Yes, you are correct!! You should have been invited to both. I have never heard of being invited to the shower and not the wedding!!

Personally, I would never invite someone to my shower with out inviting them to my wedding. I think this is a sign of the current "gimmie gimmie" -"tacky tacky" behaivor of the current and coming generations.

That is super rude.

My sister just changed her wedding plans for a whole host of reasons and they will be going to the courthouse. Same date, but very different location. They were not going to do any kind of reception following the ceremony, so we cancelled all bridal events surrounding the wedding.

Now they are having a reception, but it's still a little too late to have them. We will probably do a dinner for her prior to the wedding, but that's it.

Shower invite? Wedding invite.

That's rude, tacky & looks like a church grab-for-gifts.
VERY bad taste.

This is why people that go away to get married DON'T have showers!

The general rule of etiquette is that you invite people to a shower who are going to be invited to the wedding. But I think a lot of the comments here are being very hard on what might be just a mistake.

If this was what I'd call a "church shower" where it was given by folks in the church (and especially if it was AT church), that would be different in my book. I have been to wedding showers and baby showers at church for folks I didn't know very well and only knew at church, and had no expectation of being invited to the wedding (or the baby's birth! :-) . I think things are a bit looser, and more forgiveable, if most of the church is giving a shower as a general show of affection and faithful support from the congregation. For instance, our older ladies in our church might give a shower for a young couple and invite everyone in church, period. In that case I would see it as an informal church event -- different from going to the bride's best friend's house or a restaurant for a fancier shower, for instance. But even if you were invited to a more formal shower or one given by friends or family and not the "church family" -- well, is it a big deal that they breached etiquette, especially as you don't know the bride very well? Since you don't know her, I don't get the idea that your feelings are hurt, just that you're curious.

The fact that the bride's mom apologized for not inviting you to the wedding and mentioning the financial issue -- well, it was not very graceful but look on it as heartfelt and well-meant. I suspect that someone had told mom of the bride that they'd committed a social "error" by having a shower and not inviting those same people to the wedding, and she now feels embarrassed, hence her awkward mention of the finances. I'd feel sorry for her if that's the case.

I'd just be happy that you had a chance to give good wishes to your child's Sunday school teacher and glad you didn't have to find a good dress to wear to a wedding you weren't that into attending anyway! Folks make these mistakes. Mostly they're just honest mistakes and only a problem if folks get upset or picky about points of etiquette of which people sometimes are unaware. Unless you feel they're out to get presents and having a shower just for that purpose, I'd forget it.

their actions were done in poor taste. it would have left a bad taste in my mouth for sure.

I agree with the others. You weren't important enough to invite to the wedding, but they sure were glad to get a gift from you at the shower.

Completely tacky.

They should have made sure the bridal shower invite list corresponded to their wedding invite list. I understand their budget was limited for their wedding, but that's still no excuse for being rude to those they couldn't invite to the wedding.

Yes, I find that strange and tacky.
To me, that's a bid for gifts. If you can't afford to invite people to the wedding, they should not be asked to give your a gift for a shower.

I think that is so rude. I have never heard of anyone just getting invited to the shower and not the wedding. I would want my gift back to tell you the truth. Its asking for gift. Your a better person than me as I would be kinda pissed.

I don't think it's appropriate to invite someone to a shower if you're not planning to invite them to the wedding. To me, that basically says "I don't value your friendship enough to spend the money to have you at my wedding, but please buy me a present anyway."

Showers should be a small subset of the wedding guests - just your absolute closest friends and family.

I haven't ever gotten a shower invite without being invited to the wedding.

If anything the invite list to the shower should have been more selective then the wedding list. A shower is supposed to be for family and very close friends of the bride. The choice to invite you to the shower and not the wedding was in very poor taste. I have heard of people being invited to the reception and not the ceremony (which I still think is a little weird, unless it is kids who could disrupt the ceremony), but never to the shower.

I am sorry! I have seen this happen both ways. Its unfortunate but it happens. I think its nice that they apologized but it was poor taste to invite to the shower and not to the wedding in my opinion.

They made a gift grab from as many as they could.
It's in poor taste.
If someone you know isn't all that close and invites you to the shower - it's perfectly fine to decline the invitation.
That they mentioned it at all means they KNOW it wasn't right but went ahead and did it anyway.
At least they feel slightly guilty about it, but probably not that much.

Additional:
A shower is suppose to be a showering of gifts from people who know and love you and want to give you a start in a new phase of life.
For weddings it's for the transition to married life and for baby showers it's for the transition to becoming a mother for the first time (it's not a celebration of the baby).
To ask acquaintances and people you are not close to to come to a shower is just a bid for as much free stuff as you can get.
And THEN some have the gall to skimp on thank you notes and go on to sell what they don't want for the cash - often to fund the honeymoon.
I work hard for my money and I'm not inclined to give it away to relative strangers.
This is just a result of the 'give me, get me, buy me' mentality that's only gotten worse over the last several years.

If it was the "church's" shower for the couple it had nothing to do with the wedding. It was the church's activity for the family.

People who are just normal people who didn't have a parent drill into them certain things to be normal and expected then they just had a party for the couple and invited everyone they knew.

Lots of people still think it's a faux pas to wear white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day or to wear black before 5pm. So it's not a big deal to me.

In the church I used to go to only certain people could attend the wedding ceremony due to the location of the wedding, in the temple. So there were family members and friends that did not get to attend the vow part of the ceremony.

Don't allow your feelings to be hurt just accept they wanted to include you as much as possible.

Slightly different situation whereby I wasn't invited to the wedding, but was invited to the reception.. the couple wanted to keep it intimate.. I was happy to not attend the actual ceremony.. Really, some are just too long and boring..

However, in the case of the shower.. ummm.. seems like if you are close enough that they invited you to the shower, then surely they could have you at the wedding.. Then again, their money , their rules..

I suppose it's like when co-workers throw you an office shower, usually many of the employees aren't invited to the wedding..

Life is just getting too complicated :)

Haven't read other responses...but...
How Rude! I have never heard of an invite to the shower and not the wedding. That is gift-fishing if I have EVER seen it. I see this as a very low-class mistake.
Wow. Just wow.

I was horrified to find out that a friend hosted my shower (a week before our very small wedding) and included someone not on our guest list. It was too late to fix and not someone I had kept in good touch with (via our old office) so I let it go. If *I* were in charge, I would only invite people for the shower from the wedding guest list. I find it odd to do otherwise.

I gotta say, I think that Leigh R. is right on here. Very nicely put.

I suspect there was either a miscommunication somewhere or someone recently pointed this out to the Mother of the Bride. While in poor taste, I don't necessarily think it was about the gift. (Not that you didn't bring a nice gift. I'm sure it was quite lovely :-) It's very possible someone thought, oh, we can't invite her to the wedding, but we want to include her so let's invite her to the shower.

I hear so many complaints that this generation is too casual or doesn't show proper etiquette or doesn't have respect for tradition. Well, there is some truth to that. If you look at what many people wear to work, it is often much less formal than what you would have seen 10 years ago. I'm just thinking many of the rules of etiquette are not being reinforced like they once were.

I think it's great that you were not upset and didn't take this at all personally. You enjoyed the shower and helped celebrate the bride. Good for you!

i'm older than lots of the mom's on this site and this was bad etiquette in the old days. Things may be changing. Etiquette (often thankfully) is not as important as it used to be. People are starting to do things more differently.

However, you are not wrong. I think it is still considered a bit tacky to invite people to a shower when you have no intention of including them at the wedding.

if the church or members of the church hosted it and not members of her bridal party privy to the actual invite list for the wedding hosted it not tacky at all.

my work throws showers for engaged coworkers and doesnt expect to be invited. now if the family through the shower it is a bit greedy..and seems they realized their error and felt bad...no harm done

Tacky, tacky, tacky. Nope, no different than 5 years ago. Tacky is still tacky.

Anyway, if you like this couple, who cares. Sounds like you were happy to go and give a gift.

I don't know -- it happens. I've gone to two showers like that -- one consisted of the woman's coworkers (including me) and her fellow grad students; for one, the shower-thrower just invited all the women at the dojo where the bride-to-be worked out. In neither case did I get all flipped out over not being invited to the wedding.

For both the cases I'm mentioning, though, I knew the women strictly through friendship and professional networks -- I'd never met anyone's family. And the shower throwers didn't cross-check the shower lists against the wedding invite lists.

So, I could see where it COULD be rude. But it doesn't have to be.

That is not typical.

Sorry, I just can't imagine getting upset over something like this. I'm sure she would have invited you if she could have. How is it weird or rude that she at least wanted to share her shower experience with you? Why can't people just give others the benefit of the doubt?

EDIT: And why do people think that showers are "gift grabs"? Good heavens, I had a bridal shower and the gifts weren't that great. It was the fellowship of friends and the celebration of the event that was important. I swear, some women just LOOK for stuff to get worked up over....

I would find that odd too. Usually the shower is for the people CLOSEST to the bride, not people who aren't even invited to the wedding. It seems like they did it in reverse, like they invited more people to the shower than the wedding. Strange, but maybe this is normal in their family/culture.

I don't know if this is proper etiquite or not, but at the church I used to attend, it is normal for the ladies of the church to host a blessings shower for the bride-to-be. It is not assumed that by attending the shower, you are invited to the wedding.

I agree that it's not the norm, from what I was always told. I do think it was an attempt to get gifts without having to pay for the # of guests at the actual wedding. But I don't think it was done out of malice or a mistake. The mom of the bride apologized and admitted it was a financial burden to invite everyone to the wedding. That, in my opinion, took some b*lls to admit. I wouldn't be offended, personally. Heck, she could have said it got lost in the mail or something. But she owned up to saying it was because they couldn't afford a large wedding. In my past, I always received a wedding invite long before any showers took place. So I would have been weary if I had received a shower invite for a person from whom I didn't receive a wedding invite first.

Here where I live, if you are invited to the shower, you are also invited to the Wedding..

Maybe at this Church, it is acceptable to invite everyone to the shower, but not have to invite everyone to the Wedding.

Different communities do things differently.

I know here at Weddings, the Germans, Czech, Hispanic, and Greek Orthodox, communities have "dollar dances during the reception..

This is not considered any type of "money grab", it is just a fun way to get everyone to dance with the bride and groom for a few seconds.There is a lot of laughing because usually it is some sort of super fast polka music. It is hilarious to see who all will dance with the Wedding couple. ..

Many times the bills are pinned to the brides gown.. But boy one time when this was mentioned here on Mamapedia, you would have thought this tradition was like a "stick up"..

People from other places freaked out..

If it does not bother you, I would not worry, but keep it in mind when your own children marry whether to do this or follow the traditional etiquette.

Wow! Yes! If you get invited to the shower, you should be invited to the wedding. That is really rude not to be invited.

You are correct to think only wedding guests are invited to the shower. Maybe the host of the shower really wanted to include you and did not think about the proper.

I am surprised the mother even mentioned their reason for not inviting you. I think that is very rude unless she was asked why you were not invited.

I just read your SWH, and I'm more confused. I know work/church 'friends' make a work/church shower and include those in that group and in these cases I can understand if you are not invited to the wedding (or real shower) to let the person know you care about that and want to celebrate them.