Wedding Invitation Q&As

Composing wedding invitations involves complex-and beautiful-etiquette guidelines. We RSVP to your urgent questions.

Inviting Difficult Family Members

Q: My fiancé and my brother do not get along. In fact, no one really wants be around my brother, who’s always nasty and mean-spirited. Should I include my brother in my wedding or even invite him at all? —Orlando, Florida

A: You don’t have to include your brother in the wedding, but you should invite him. He’s your brother, after all, and regardless of how difficult he may be, he still warrants an invitation. Not to extend one will cause greater problems down the road and damage any chance of ever salvaging a relationship with him. People do change, and he may be going through a difficult time. Years from now, neither of you would want to look back on your wedding day and realize that you didn’t invite your brother because he was being a jerk at the time. So, extend the invitation and let him decide whether or not to attend.

 

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I have a few friends who included a Save the Date magnet in their wedding announcements. It was pretty helpful - I attached the invitation to my fridge using the magnet provided, and then on the day of the wedding, when I was scrambling to get out the door on time, I was able to quickly locate the invitation for directions. For my Save the Dates, I did a postcard. However, I still like the idea of including a magnet in the actual invitations. My invitations will have a pocket for the RSVP card, and I was thinking of including a magnet of my fiance and I there. Would this be OK, and if so, what would be the proper wording on the magnet at this point - would "Save the Date" still be OK?