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Guest list issue

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Polar E Bear

Polar E Bear

Rough_Rock
Joined
Feb 23, 2007
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8
I''m brand new to this forum, but all the posts I''ve read have been so helpful! So I was hoping for some advice on our biggest problem right now: the guest list.

We''re trying to keep it reasonable, but of course, the numbers are way higher than we had anticipated. I thought we had a pretty good list, but then a co-worker of mine approached me and told me he wanted to be invited to the wedding. I thought he was joking, since it seemed inappropriate to ask for an invitation to a wedding, but he has persisted in asking if he can come. I''ve been putting him off, saying the guest list isn''t final, but I don''t know what to do! I like him and he''s a nice person, but inviting him would necessitate inviting several other co-workers and their dates (the people he works with whom I have known longer than him). I don''t want to hurt any feelings or cause awkwardness at work, but inviting all those additional people will be expensive.

I''m considering just inviting them to head off workplace awkwardness, but I feel a bit bullied into it. If I don''t want to invite him, how do I politely tell him he''s not coming while avoiding as much drama as possible?
 
Welcome, Polar!
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What a frustrating situation! I can''t believe he put you in such a position. That''s neither polite nor considerate. That aside, I would tell your co-worker that you are sorry but you and your FI agreed to keep the guest list small and are mainly sticking to family and a few VERY close friends. He should understand at that point. Weddings are expensive!
 
The impropriety of people never ceases to astound me. Seriously.

I would tell your coworker that right now you are keeping the wedding very small and just family and longtime friends are invited.
 
Thanks for the good advice. You guys are building my confidence to be able to say no to him! The situation is a bit stickier, though, in that it is not just family and very close friends who are invited. I work for a very large company comprised of many smaller units. I''m inviting all the co-workers in my little unit. The offending co-woker actually works in a different unit that works extensively with mine (thus, by inviting him, I would have to invite the other people in his unit). I''m afraid of offending him if he finds out other people from work are invited, but I had to draw the line somewhere, so I chose to draw it at my unit. Telling him that just seems rude, but I can''t think of what to say that would not sound rude.
 
I would tell him pretty much what you just said. Next time your co-worker brings it up, simply say, "I''m sorry, Bob (or whatever his name is), but FI and I had to cut down the guest list and really had to limit the number of people we''re inviting to the wedding. Unfortunately, this severly limited the number of co-workers we could invite."
 
the fact that you are inviting some co-workers does make it stickier. if you are trying to keep your list contained, why are you including co-workers?
 
I''m inviting the co-workers I consider to be friends, the ones who work in my unit. These are the people who I see socially outside of work, whose houses I have been to, with whom I exchange brithday presents...the people I feel very close to and really want to share in my wedding. The problem is, I don''t think the co-worker who is asking to come sees that distinction, and I can''t really say, "Well, I''m friends with these people and not with you." It seems too mean.
 
yes i think it could be construed as mean b/c of course he''ll find out others were invited and in the context of work, it could get messy.
maybe just invite him to keep the peace. or decide to invite zero co-workers and just keep it family and close friends (which will achieve keeping the list under control).
 
Can you just say that you are having a difficult time drawing lines in the sand, and have decided that the work invites only be extended within your own group. That you would like to invite him, but would feel that you had to invite other friends in his group as well... and your list can''t accomodate that?

Sometimes the truth is the best way to go. If he''s a *(&% about it, well, you don''t really need that kind of person at your wedding now, do you?
 
Date: 2/23/2007 2:12:59 PM
Author:Polar E Bear
I''m brand new to this forum, but all the posts I''ve read have been so helpful! So I was hoping for some advice on our biggest problem right now: the guest list.

We''re trying to keep it reasonable, but of course, the numbers are way higher than we had anticipated. I thought we had a pretty good list, but then a co-worker of mine approached me and told me he wanted to be invited to the wedding. I thought he was joking, since it seemed inappropriate to ask for an invitation to a wedding, but he has persisted in asking if he can come. I''ve been putting him off, saying the guest list isn''t final, but I don''t know what to do! I like him and he''s a nice person, but inviting him would necessitate inviting several other co-workers and their dates (the people he works with whom I have known longer than him). I don''t want to hurt any feelings or cause awkwardness at work, but inviting all those additional people will be expensive.

I''m considering just inviting them to head off workplace awkwardness, but I feel a bit bullied into it. If I don''t want to invite him, how do I politely tell him he''s not coming while avoiding as much drama as possible?
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I''d tell him, "You know, I''d love to be able to invite you, but because our reception venue has a set limit to the number of people we could invite, I had to limit it to only people in my immediate group to avoid overstuffing the room."
 
Thanks for all the ideas on what to say. Not inviting any co-workers is not really an option, because some of my very closest friends work with me. In fact, it''s a co-worker and her husband who are throwing us our engagement party, so we can''t very well not invite them! Inviting all my co-workers is not an option, because there are nearly a hundred of them who I work with in varying degrees of closeness. It''s all in where to draw the line.

When does this get easier???
 
ok in that case i''d follow sweet pea''s advice and be upfront with him in a kind way. say you''re only able to invite your immediate group since it''s a small-ish wedding and if you opened it up beyond that, you''d have to invite the entire company!

that''s a fair response and since he was so upfront in inviting himself, he should be able to handle the same directness in return. i think it might be easier that it''s a guy instead of a girl.
 
Polite people do not ask for invites. You are being bullied. Please do NOT invite someone who is a coworker, who has been properly excluded from your invite list because of a line you and your FI have reasonably drawn, just because of "his feelings". If he was considering YOUR FEELINGS he would make this as easy as possible for you and graciously take the HINT that he will not be invited. At worst, a polite person who is very close to you might mistakenly ASSUME they would be invited, but a polite person would not be angling for an invite. Hope this makes you feel better about your decision, which I hope you stick to.

I would not give a specific reason for not inviting him; this just invited discussion or misinterpretation. Keep it general, like "I'm sorry we will not be able to invite everyone" etc.
 
I agree with Cara wholeheartedly. Someone who is causing you as much *grief* as this guy is NOT being respectful to you at all, and therefore you should not feel bad AT ALL about not inviting him. Please don''t feel like you are being rude by not inviting him- in reality he''s the one being rude by pestering you so much. Don''t reward his rudeness with an invitation!

Like someone else said, you could blame it on your reception site- say it only seats 150 people (or whatever) so that has limited your invite list (that gets around the co-worker group issue somewhat).
 
Hubby and I had a similar problem, but even COMPOUNDED because we work at the same place!

If we had invited co-workers, it would have been two good-sized departments, and we couldn''t do that for logistics reasons. Our reception was aboard a schooner which only held a limited number of people.

Believe me, I feel your pain.

I can suggest two possible responses. If you are okay with nicely saying no yourself, I''d just say "It''s so nice that you''d like to share in our day. I wish we could invite everyone, but with space and budget considerations, it isn''t possible to invite all our colleagues. We felt the best solution was to limit invitation the colleagues we socialize with outside of work, and we appreciate everyone''s understanding."

If you just can''t feel good doing it that way, you could let your FMIL be a bit of scapegoat for you. "It''s so nice that you''d like to share in our day. We were hoping to invite a good number of co-workers, but it was really important to my FMIL to include some extended family members. In order to still stay with our budget and seating, we had to cut back on the number of colleagues we could invite, so we selected those we socialize with outside of work. We know people will understand our need to prioritize inviting family members."
 
I have been through a similar situation! When we got married, I was managing a big box store and there were definitely some "rude" people who flat out asked me if they could come to the wedding...and there were other ladies who worked part time who always treated me kindly, gave me great advice as far as wedding planning and marriage, and I had also spent time with them outside of work. Fortunately for me, working in the retail industry had its benefits: we got married on a Sunday, and since the store''s business hours were from 12-6 on Sundays I at least had an out with some people who I knew would have to work that day no matter what.

I did invite a few people who "bullied" me into it, and they ended up not even showing, to my dismay. Again, it is out of line to invite yourself to any sort of social function, weddings being top of the list, IMO. I even had one lady come to the ceremony, leave before the reception, who did not so much as send or give us a congratulatory card, let alone a gift (not that that''s what''s important, but when it came down to it, she was there to take in the "spectacle" and not there as a guest.)

My point is, don''t let anyone bully you into inviting them formally. I agree with other posters who say that honesty is sometimes the best policy in these cases. You will avoid a certain amount of grief that way, for sure.
 
I have a similar problem, FI and I both work for large organisations, plus I am a local politician and have party colleagues and various people that I probably "should" invite. We also both have big families (50 on my side alone just including 1st cousins!)

Our venue has a limit of 120, and FI and my''s first "people who must be invited" list was 185. So it just wasn''t going to happen...

So, we are having 120 of family and very close friends and then I am having a drinks party in London for all the others. I am also timing it for mid-august in the hope that loads of them are on holiday and only the people we really care about will turn up! Is this bad of me???

We held our e-party on Valentines and it was lovely as all our best friends made the effort to come and the hangers on round the edges had a good excuse not to!

Weddings are soooooooooooo expensive and people should understand. I have a work colleague who is getting married next month and I have given her lots of names of suppliers and I often ring her up for a chat about her wedding - but I have never expected an invitation. I think she was pleased to be able to chat about her plans without feeling she should be inviting me (I made it obvious that I knew I wasn''t that good a friend). How rude some people are though.

However, I work with another girl who was very silly and invited her entire department except 2 people, and invited two of her very close colleagues, but not their wives. It was all done very, very deliberately and there were no problems on numbers etc - she was heard inviting people she''d barely met to the afterparty and when one colleague asked if in that case he could bring his fiancee she said no. It wasn''t that she had fallen out with the girl or anything like that even, she only knew her by sight. One thing I did find interesting was that the people who were not allowed to be invited were all female and IMHO all would have scored 8 or 9 out of 10 in the looks department.
A number of people still haven''t forgiven her for it.
 
I''m new too, but I''ve definitely been a lurker since prior to getting engaged!

We''re tackling the guest list too, and I''m so jaded now... I''ve had coworkers do the same thing, and the first thing I say is we''re having a small wedding & I''m not even sure I can invite all my really good friends... I''m really sorry! Like aljdeway thought, we also work together at the same company, we work in the same department, and we met at work... everybody knows us and we''re friends with everybody. The thing is, we''re actually going to be inviting some people from work. At this point, I''ve struggled with not upsetting anybody so much... that I''ve come to terms that, regardless of what I do, someone will always be upset. We might as well just invite who we want b/c it is our money, and it our wedding day. Hope it all works out for you!
 
I feel your pain, Polar.

Our goal was to keep our guest list to no more than 75 people. This meant that I could not invite any of my local co-workers, which was OK with me. But I did invite two co-workers from our Northeast and Southeast offices (i''m in CA). These ladies are super-important to me, and we have a friendship (granted, long-distance). This of course raised eyebrows in my local office, and I couldn''t BELIEVE that some people just assumed they were going to be invited! It was tough holding my head high, but I did and never once apologized that we weren''t able to invite them.

GOOD LUCK!
 
I had a similar situation happen to me. I am horrible at these types of situations so I was like ok. and just put them on it. In the long run, one more person (two if they bring a date) i figured wasnt worth the akwardness, although, i do think its VERY rude when people do it, but because of my personality i just went ahead.
 
wow that is RUDE! I would just politely say that you and your FI have decided not to invite coworkers
 
It seems as though you have tried being polite with this person. It''s very unfortunate that some people almost force you to become "not so polite." But I agree with everyone else tell him that you and your FI have decided to keep your list limited to certain people. It''s your wedding and you''re paying for it. You really don''t need to explain your reasoning for inviting who you invited. I''m in a similiar situation. I have been working on my guest list and it is at 200 with family and close friends. I have an enormous family and I just can''t cut them out. I have people that have been making comments like "oh I''ll be patiently awaiting my invitation." I want to just say "well you''ll be waiting." Don''t get me wrong I would love to invite some of those people but a line has to be drawn somewhere and since it''s my wedding and I''m paying for it I will draw that line. Another thing is that people will come to your wedding and enjoy the day, eat plenty of food and have plenty of cocktails but when it comes down to it they go home after it''s all said and done and they don''t even think about the financial struggle you may have encountered to pull the day off. So all in all do what''s best for you
 
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