So if you have just gotten engaged, you might be excitedly trying to organise an awesome engagement party, or maybe you have just had yours and now are focusing on the wedding itself.
…but then a slow creeping realisation comes to you…you can’t invite everyone at your engagement as a guest to your wedding!
Sure you would like to, but I am also sure we would all like to have our own island, private jet, and $10 million dollar mansion, the problem is that all costs money, and believe or not, you aren’t made out of the stuff!
So what do you do? How do you not invite someone to your wedding who was at your engagement party? Should you only invite the people who will be attending your wedding to the engagement? Well while everyone may have their own personal opinions, here is mine not only from a guy who has gone through this, but someone also in the wedding industry as well:
Step 1: The engagement is NOT a wedding
So many people seem to forget this and go full crazy in the preparation. An engagement party should be that! A Party! Now some parties is an open invite, others is more of a selected assembly of people, but unlike a wedding there is no expectation to be invited. Now you can make it a very well organised party, but if you start spending over a 1/3 of what you will on the wedding and think personalised keychains for those attending is a good idea, congratulations, you have officially gone overboard!
Step 2: Invite the people you like to your engagement
If you invite people out of obligation, you set yourself up for failure. Phil down in Accounting who you say a friendly hello to in the elevator every morning might be a nice guy, but you don’t need to invite him to your engagement even if some of your friends in the office are going. He will say congrats to you in the elevator. Same with your boss, same with your friend from high school who you occasionally like their Facebook post. It’s not whether you would mind them being at your engagement, it is do you WANT them at your engagement.
Step 3: You have a lot of friends….who to invite to the wedding?
Ok, let’s say we have followed the 2 steps and you have 150 people coming to your engagement. Wow, aren't you Miss popular! Problem is, you only have a budget for 85 people for the wedding reception. That means some of the people who you are having a drink with and gave you a small present for your engagement will not be attending the wedding.…and you know what? That is ok!Phil from accounting is really happy you invited him to the engagement but was not expecting an invite to the wedding. Most people don’t, especially when it is very clear you have so many friends.The problem comes usually with these kind of scenarios:Scenario 1
You have been friends with Jill and Kat since high school, you all hang out together occasionally but you normally are always seeing Kat for coffee. You invited them both to the Engagement but now you have looked at the numbers, you can only invite one person to the wedding. You want to invite Kat because you see her more, but you are worried what Jill will think…
Scenario 2
You only had 20 people at your engagement and you are telling everyone how amazing your wedding is going to be and everyone is going…except Sam, your friend from work who you are friendly with but don't see outside of the office. Since everyone from the office (who you are friends with outside work hours) was going you felt obliged to invite him too. He then asks what the date will be and he will ensure he books it off free…
Sound familiar?
At the end of the day, sometimes egos will be bruised, but it is not their ego paying for this wedding, its YOU! In Scenario 1, most people would understand, and if they don’t, then they aren’t really your friends. In Scenario 2, being friendly is not the same as being friends. If you explain to anyone who might have their feathers ruffled that it is purely a budget thing most will understand…if you just don’t like them…why did you invite them in the first place?
Hopefully this will help give some perspective when deciding on who to invite :-)