Weddingbee Blog

and again, attending your wedding is a privilege, not a right.
=D

(un)fortunately, we both have large families. our guest list is huge with family and a few close friends alone, so i explained it to my co-workers that it’s a family event. i too am contending with the fact the a co-worker getting married a couple of months ahead of me invited the whole department as well.

With coworkers I think it is a safe bet to invite only those whom you feel a special connection to or whom you see outside of work, ie. socially. For me, if I am unsure, I ask myself, would this person invite me to their wedding, and if the answer is no, then don’t feel obligated to invite them.

Two different approaches –

1. For the select few at work who are invited, quietly pull them aside and make sure they know you couldn’t invite everyone so that they will be on your team to help keep it quiet, and plus they will feel extra-special.

2. What we did — Policy was to invite as many friends from former jobs as we wanted, but nobody from our current jobs. Why? Well, it’s TMI for people we work with; don’t want any wedding gossip or vulnerable info to get back to our jobs (our livelihood, afterall). We reasoned that colleagues are not really proven to be actual friends until after you find that you have left a job and yet stay in touch. Worked out just fine, and no hurt feelings.

We had a destination wedding, but only invited bosses and very close colleauges (2 on each side). Nobody from office came. However, caused major drama on hubby’s side. His boss didn’t show to the Bahamas, but the boss’ peer did…made for some very awkard moments back on the ranch. Suggest you don’t invite current colleagues.

Thankfully we did the destination wedding approach. I’ve got a family, but hubby has a huge one (13 aunts & uncles, and 76 extended…plus spouses). This was one of our major factors in going away since we had to pay for it ourselves.

As far as coworkers, we decided if we did not hang out with them outside of work or consider them a friend, they wouldn’t make the list. I really keep my personal and professional separate, so I am only inviting my boss. (And I know he cannot make it.) FI is inviting 3 coworkers, but for all of them, this is the second place they have worked together.

We are having centerpiece cakes, so I was thinking I’d bring in some leftover cake to my little core group of 6 people.

While neither of us really have co-workers yet we are having problems with our families. We both have HUGE families and so just with our aunts, uncles and 1st cousins we have 180 people in a venue that only can seat 200. This has been very frustrating for us because both Mom’s are insisting that we invite at least all of those people even though we literally couldn’t pick most of them out of a line-up and don’t know most of their names. On top of the fact that we don’t know them is the money situation. Both sets of parents are contributing but not nearly enough to cover the costs of having all of the people that they want there. It seems very unfair to us that we are paying well over half of the total cost yet we are only allowed to have 20 friends there! Anyhow, the other problem that we are having is the kids of our cousins. Most of our cousins are married and have at least 1 kid. While I didn’t want kids there for all of the usual reasons (ie: crying during the vows, running around during the speeches, etc) we also just flat out can’t fit them and certainly can’t afford to have them there since each additional person costs about $125. We have taken all of the appropriate steps (Only addressing the invite to the adults in the household, writing letters explaining that while we would love for the kids to join us for the weekend we simply can’t accommodate them at the wedding and we will arrange for a babysitter if needed) I know that some of them will flat out ignore our request and bring their children anyway - what do we do about that? How can I possibly be more clear without being rude? If they do show up and I have nowhere for them to sit and no meal for them (we are having a plate dinner, not a buffet) what do I do? I know this was supposed to be about co-workers but I needed to vent - sorry!

Thanks for all the replies everyone. On one hand I’m lucky, I work with 4 other people. Of the four, three are invited. The other one isn’t because he’s a saleman who literally only comes in once a month. And two of the four I babysat for 15 years ago, and for about 10 years. So they’re like family. And since the remaining co-worker is a brother to one of the two, I’ve known him 15 years, too.

As for family, it’s along the lines of Ms. Mouse. A little bit of friends, a lot of family. In my family, people just don’t forget when you don’t invite them to your wedding. It’s sad but true. I sympathize, Ms. Mouse!

Yeah, we sort of went by thistleorchid’s philosophy but much to our horror pretty much everyone is going to come!! Including a friend in the military stationed out of the country who told us (surprise!) that he thinks his new girlfriend (as of like 4 days ago) is going to be able to come! SCORE! But since she lives here (they were friends for a long time first) this is like the only time he’d be in the US for a long time, so we’re letting him bring her if he wants. Sigh. But I feel like EVERYONE has some random exception that makes it okay for them to tack on one more person….

And I’m just not inviting ANY coworkers at all. Seems simpler, leaning on the “family” angle, and the few that I hang out with outside of work, I do that quite rarely, so I don’t think any feelings are hurt.