Help Please!! Invitation wording - family fun

[pan_manda]

I am trying to get our invitations finalized and ordered and I am having trouble with how to approach the wording.

I am in a difficult situation in that my parents are divorced, my father is paying for the majority of the wedding, FI and I are contributing, and so are FI''s parents. My mother, however, will talk your ear off about the wedding until we bring up the finances. When we were first engaged, dad spoke to her and they decided that we would all put our money into a pot and that would be the wedding money, nobody was ''sponsoring'' (for lack of a better term) any one part of the wedding.

Since then, my mother has not committed to any amount, even though he and I have both told her that we cannot plan a wedding on a ''whatever you want you should get'' budget, and that we need a concrete number... even if it is a small number. Still nothing. There have been odd occasions when she has said that she wants to pay for our cake, or my shoes.... we remind her that we are pooling all funds and it still doesn''t sink in. My mother is quite a piece of work... she wanted to go look at MOB dresses before I went to look for my dress.

The easy solution would be to use ''together with their parents''. But I am my father''s only daughter, I am only going to be doing this one time, and honestly he has been a mother to me more than my mother has (but she will still be at the wedding). I would really like to be able to have his name on the invitation so my question is, how terribly wrong would it be to do this?

Mr. pan_manda''s father
requests the honour of your presence
at the wedding of his daughter
pan_manda
to
pan_manda''s FI
Saturday, October the twenty-fourth
Two thousand and nine
at two o''clock in the afternoon
Our Church
City, State

Thank you for reading through all of this!!

 

[stephbolt]

I probably would avoid that wording which singles out your father as the host in favor of using "together with their parents." Unless your father is pushing for the wording with his name alone, it might be better to error on the side of not offending anyone. Would FI''s parents be offended to be left off of the invitation?

I''m sorry your mother is being so difficult through this whole process.

 

[zipzapgirl]

This sounds a little bit harsh to me.

First, just because she can''t seem to get on board with the pooled wedding budget idea, she did say she wanted to contribute. Maybe you should adjust your rules a bit and let her buy the dress/flowers/cake/whatever and do the rest as a single budget. It sounds like she needs to be part of something tangible and can''t identify with making a "contribution" to the whole.

I know a lot of people see the invitation signifying who is inviting = who is throwing the party = who is paying, but I think it''s just as much or more where you are in your stage of life and independence, and your relationship with your parents. To make it simply an indication of who wrote the checks seems a bit sad.

Since you do have a relationship with your mom and she is involved in the wedding planning (and hopefully payment), I don''t think you can include your father and exclude her without a major dustup. She''ll be hurt and other people will notice and wonder why she was left off. It seems like a lot of drama to make a point

I''d either go with

Ms. Pan_Manda Mother
and
Mr. Pan_Manda Father
and


OR

Together with their parents

 

[SapphireLover]

I think you run the risk of your mother not speaking to you at all with that invite wording, never mind not contributing money. If I got an invite to a friends wedding worded like that, I''d be confused and I think it might taint the wedding with an uncomfortable atmosphere from the start.

Also, if DF''s parents have contributed, might they want to be on the invite?

I think it is safer to do the "Together with their families".

 

[SassyB]

I am in the same boat at you PM. My parents are divorced and my dad is paying.....
My Dad is super easy going so we just talked to him about it (since he is paying). He was okay with us saying "together with our parents". It''s made everything so much easier and no one''s feeling were hurt. I guess I''m suggesting that you have some options and talk to your parents about them.

The wording that you suggested is a bit harsh and would most likely hurt your mom.

BTW - My mom talks about her MOB dress ALL THE TIME! hahaha! Are we related? hee hee!

 

[ms.halo]

I was in a similar boat...my dad paid for virtually the whole thing. I used ALL of our parents names on the invite and have never regretted it. It''s not only about who''s paying. For me, there would have been several people who would have gotten the invite and said "who?" without the other name cues.

 

[VRBeauty]

I agree with the others -- I think you''ll have to find another way to honor your father.

 

[lilylover]

I agree that it would come off as very harsh and you could potentially regret it for many years to come.

What we are doing for my invitations is putting both of my parent''s names and both of FI parent''s names. I am not even sure if FI''s parents are going to contribute mnoey wise, but I felt that it was only fair for there name to be on there, too. After all, I am marrying their son.

 

[mrscushion]

Oy. I know you are trying to honor your dad and are grateful that he''s been there for you, but yeah -- it sounds overly harsh towards your mom and FI''s parents, too.

I too vote for "together with their parents."

I think that it would be better to express your gratitude to your dad in other ways, more personally, and often. I bet he''ll appreciate that much more anyhow.

 

[pan_manda]

Thank you for all of you replies! I have really been struggling with this and didn't articulate my thoughts very well. I do want to acknowledge DF's parents as well, so we will just use 'together with their parents'. My dad told me that he is fine with it, I just wanted to be able to honor him that way.

I am sorry that it came across as purely about contributing financially, and I understand that there is more to it than that... I didn't want to get too much in to the history.

Yes, she will be at the wedding, but she is not involved in the planning... DF, myself and my dad are the ones planning the whole thing. She and I do not have a mother/daughter relationship and that is because of decisions that she made years ago. I truly would be fine if she was not there, we went from 18-23 with very little contact between the two of us and her recent actions (not wedding related) are pushing things into that direction again. I have aunts and others in my life that have been maternal figures more than she has, and my dad is the one that has always been there (he is the one that took me prom dress shopping in high school even when she was around).

So, I will suck it up and make everybody happy by using 'together with their parents'. I think that a lot of my problem with it stems from the fact that my mother likes to take credit for things that she has nothing to do with and is very vocal about it.

I'm sorry I have turned this in to an endless ramble that makes little sense... I just wanted to thank you for your replies!


ETA - mscushion - you are right, I just wanted to be able to do this one thing for him... and he is being totally selfless and doesn't care if his name isn't spelled out on the invite. He and I have a relationship that is as close as the closest mother/daughter relationship could be and I try to do as much as possible to show him how much I appreciate him... we both keep talking about how we're not going to survive the father/daughter dance b/c we won't be able to see through our tears (very emotional people) but I will find some special way to thank/honor him that day