do i HAVE to invite him?

[stormageddon]

Hi ladies,

hoping you can help me out with something here, had an email from a friend today just saying she is excited to see me at the engagement party in 3 weeks and that she is working out a car of ppl to come together (they all live 2 hours away from me) and she asked if i invited andrew, no i went to school with him and my other friends are really close with him but i never was so i said no.

about 30 min later i get a text from him congratulating me on my engagement and then asking what date it is. i havent replied yet.

as i said he is a really good friend to my other friends and best friends with one of our groomsmen so do i just say yeah sure come along and if i do say this does it mean i need to invite him to the wedding?

[Ashling]

You will get a lot of different responses to this question, this seems to be one of the areas where everyone differs and it really seems to depend a lot on your particular social circle.

I am from the school of thought that says it is a huge no-no to invite people to the engagement party that you do not invite to the wedding. Traditionally the engagement party is for people to get to know each other before the wedding, so you don't invite people who aren't going to be there. It can also really hurt people's feelings, I was invited to an eparty and not the wedding once, and I felt a bit annoyed that they were happy to have me show up and take my gift when it wasn't costing them much but when they had to pay for the actual wedding I wasn't important enough for an invite. I was waiting for my invite to the wedding and then one day saw photos on Facebook of the wedding! So if you do decide to go down that path, make sure you tell people.

So I would say don't invite him at all, if he isn't a good enough friend to warrant at the wedding, then realistically he isn't a good enough friend to warrant an invite the engagement party either, is he?

Also I don't think the "rule" goes the other way. If, between the engagement party and the wedding your friendship with this guy is built up again, you can always invite him to the wedding.

I don't think you need to invite him just because he is friends with your friends, I would just politely thank him for the well wishes, and I would make sure you let the friend who is organising the car load know that he is not going to be invited.

[stormageddon]

Thanks Ashling i do also think that if we invite him to the e party we should invite him to the wedding, its not about not paying for him as we are paying for food and a small tab for the e party also and i dont mind too much inviting him, we are inviting other people that we are not too close with also its more that he must know that invites have gone out already and it might be silly but i feel a bit guilty like the kid who just picked all popular kids to be on my team at school and left the others out lol....

[Mjulz87]

stormageddon, what does your fiancee think? or is he not fussed?

Is your wedding big or is it something small and intimate?

Honestly, if it was me, I wouldn't invite him. Our wedding is small and intimate so it's only our close immediate friends & family....if your wedding is something small and intimate and he gets offended for not being invited, just apologize and say you had to stick to a budget and unfortunately, there were a few people you'd like to have invited but couldn't. Maybe just write back to him saying "aww Thanks! We're getting married on (date). Can't wait!!" ....and leave it at that?

If your friends get upset that you didn't invite him, explain that you're on a budget and you the guest list was made on a fine line.....if they're going to ***** about it like school kids, clearly they aren't "friends".

But if you don't mind paying for him to be at your wedding, then by all means invite him the more the merrier!

[mrcm1166]

if it were me, I would think ok did his name immediately pop into my head when I thought of people I was going to invite?
was his name on the list of the final people who did get an invite?

if no to those then I wouldnt extend an invite now

[mellie29]

Bar what your FH says - I would say No.

I invited a girl to my engagement party who i was not close to but my friends were close to. She did nothing but complain about how she wanted to leave after 1 hour of arriving. Because we were not close it did not mean anything to her and she did not care if it upset me.

She almost ruined my night and caused some tension b/w FH & I and some of our other friends due to her behaviour. It really put a dampener on an otherwise amazing night.

[pinkperfection]

if he's not a close friend of yours, i wouldn't invite him. our friends have plenty of other friends that we see because of them, but it doesn't mean that we invite every friend of theirs. only invite who you want. why would he send you a text saying what date? he's asking to come. that is rude.

[stormageddon]

Hi ladies,

Thanks for your insight, I am inviting 100 guests to my wedding and i expect about 80 to come so its not exactly intimate, we are having a cocktal wedding as we want a more celebratory party feeling so I guess it doesnt bother me if he comes really. I mean it's not that i dont like him it's just i only see him about twice a year at other friends parties so i didnt even think of him.

FH thinks dont invite him but I am actually thinking i should simply because he is the best friend of one of our groomsmen. this may sound weird but our groomsman is a bit socially awkward and doesnt really like big parties or crowds so i was thinking that if his bestie is there he may feel more comfortable? i mean we invite ppl's partners that we have never met so why not someone best friend that i went to school with?

I am still a bit he found out and assumed he was invited when i didnt send him one but he is the type of guy that probably didnt even realise that invites were sent haha and the thing is I really cant be bothered stressing over this I am trying to keep everything stress free as i am having so much fun organising my big day

[Mjulz87]

At the end of the day, it's entirely upto you! I guess given your cicumstances of your groomsmen, then invite him. It's just one person, he'll know other people and as long as your partner doesn't mind him being there then why not? ...like I said before, the more the merrier

I have a feeling you'll end up inviting him.....and if you decide to, maybe just send him a formal invite and skip the save the date and sneak his address from someone? and if he mentions he didn't think he was invited because he didn't get an invite, maybe just tell a fib and say you sent him one and you thought it was strange that he asked you about the date?

[seaweed]

What's the harm? I would invite him.