Weird wedding trend: Telling someone not to save the date.

Dress? Check. Flowers? Check. Invites? Posted. Anti-invites?

Sorry…. what?

Imagine finding out your friends are getting married, only to receive a don’t-save-the-date card.

Apparently it happens.

There’s a new trend in weddings where happy couples send wedding announcements to the people who didn’t make the cut for their invite list.

Ouch.

The trend is being described as the ‘anti invite’ (or a don’t-save-the-date card) and a recent letter to a Slate magazine advice column confirms its existence.

This is a letter to ‘Dear Prudence…’

Recently I received two separate announcements letting me know that I’m not invited to the wedding of a friend. Apparently, it’s a trend for brides and grooms to tell people who didn’t make the cut that they aren’t going to witness the special day. (Google “How to tell someone you’re not inviting them to your wedding.”) I have no idea how to respond. It seems churlish to say that I’m relieved, but it’s also awkward to admit my feelings were hurt. Please help.

—A Perplexed Nonwedding Guest

Awks.

Now, we couldn’t find the anti invite available at any Etsy stores, but a quick Google search of “How to tell someone you’re not inviting them to your wedding” (as suggested by the Perplexed Nonwedding Guest) shows that there’s definitely a market for them.

It looks like the problem of how to tell people they didn’t make the cut  is a common one.

So what do you do?

One site suggests blaming the budget if a friend asks why they’re not invited. (Try: “It’s SO hard not to go into debt over this, because of course we want to invite everyone…”). Another suggestion is to use “intimacy” to close comments (Use: “We made the difficult decision to just keep the wedding very small — mostly just close family.”)

As for how you tell them, there’s the one that suggests you call everyone who didn’t make cut. Another suggests an informal, one-on-one chat.

Yes. An informal chat. With everyone that doesn’t get invited?

No wonder they created the anti invite.

What do you think of the idea? How would you tell people they’re not invited to a wedding? How do you choose who gets invited and who doesn’t?