Friend assuming wedding invite despite not inviting me to hers the same year..

The only people who should be invited to your wedding are the folk you really want.
Forget about the ifs and buts about who, what and where.
Our original list was over 300 guests and it hit me - I didn't want anybody that I didn't know. So that's what we did, 70+ and when I walked into church, I knew every single person there.
No engagement party, no evening 'do'.

No, the ceremony. The actual important part of the day!

Why is it obvious that evening guests are excluded from hen dos? In my day hen dos were for all your mates and sometimes family

One thing that surprises me at hen dos nowadays is that the bride and grooms mums often go along. It was unheard of 40 years ago. Mind, that was usually just one evening locally with a meal and a nightclub if you weren't too pissed by then. Some even had it the day before the wedding!!

If anyone around is about this age and remembers things differently I'd be interested to know. Maybe it was just the culture of the area in which I grew up.
You definitely would not be bringing your Mum along and no way your Mum would want to come anyway.

Actually I'm not surprised that she assumed she is invited to yours. I guess in her eyes she is treating you all the same and is assuming that you are going to do the same. I suspect if you only invited the group to your evening do, including her, she wouldn't complain. You are invited to her wedding albeit to the evening do, just like the rest of the group.

Sounds like too much drama to me.

Put it this way - your wedding is a gathering of those who want to celebrate your wedding. Make it as big or as small as you like and invite those who will make your day complete.

She hasn't invited you to celebrate her wedding, so don't. Don't ask her about it and move the topic along if she brings it up. On the other hand she is keen to celebrate your wedding, so take that as a win.

Personally I don't think evening invitations are worth much. You either celebrate the wedding, in which case you're there, or you don't.

We didn't provide any food in the evening at all as everyone was there all day. You don't need more food in the evening if you had canapes in the afternoon and a three course evening meal just after which finishes about 8-8.30pm.

I think you are doing the right thing in erring on the side of rising above it. I think she’s creating an unnecessary divide in the group and ensuring everyone will have a much better time at your wedding, where they are invited to everything and have time to get to know other guests on the hen do.

It’s a shame she has chosen to split the group like you say. It will likely damage relationships in the long run (it would in my circle of friends anyway). Most people are really accommodating and understanding when it comes to wedding invites - but it’s the lack of communication and assumptions here that stings.

It costs nothing extra for people to attend that.

Do you mean the day part of the wedding? Of course it costs more, as you have to pay for catering as part of the day arrangements, which is paid per head, and depending on your venue/catering setup it can easily be £100 per head or more for welcome drinks/canapes and a sit down meal.

The evening buffet costs too, but not normally as much, as it would usually be a buffet setup, and people are usually expected to buy their own drinks.

If there wasn't the confusion about her wedding would you want her there at your hen do and wedding, all day?

Don't live your life building up tokens of who invites you where and when and whether they deserve being there all day or just in the evening at the wedding or whether they go to your hen do. Are you keeping a friendship scorecard? The only question is do you want her there or not.

I haven’t read all the comment OP, just the first page so apologise if others have covered this already.

I don’t understand the evening “dos”.
surely celebrating a wedding is being present for the ceremony and the vows. Not a party later. So I’d certainly expect true friends at that.
as for the cost argument. It costs nothing extra for people to attend that.

She's very cheeky.
She sees most of your group as casual second tier friends, but thinks she is of huge priority value to the group.
I really would keep my cards close to my chest and not rush into any decision.

Her wedding list list prioritises work colleagues, which is her prerogative. But it does remove the onus on OP to prioritise her.

Because many people want to celebrate their weddings with people who invited them to their wedding too. And that's fine.

If you want her there, invite her and if you don't then don't. Forget about her wedding, it's a different kettle of fish and you werent the only one of the group not invited to the day time, so it's not like she singled you out. I'm sure she had her reasons for her guest list and if you don't invite her, but invite the rest of the group it is going to make you look awful. I would probably re-think a friendship if a friend of mine did that purely to be petty.

Her wedding is her wedding and yours is yours. It's not tit for tat, unless your'e getting married at the age of 12.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Only one of the "close" group of friends is actually going on her hen do and to her wedding ceremony, so you aren;t the only one left out.

You assumed that you would be going to her hen do and wedding - why shouldn't she make the same assumption?

It's her business who she invites to her wedding and it's your business who you invite to yours.

I think after 20+ years your group of friends isn't as close as you think

If there's no bad outcome, then why not arrange your wedding exactly how you want it, without worrying about how other people have arranged theirs?

The friend has prioritised work friends and invited one girl from the group.

Similarly OP can prioritise those who invite her to their events.

For you to say the friend's motivation is fine but OP's wouldn't be, is your own opinion. I disagree with you though.

Of course she can. It’s her wedding.

There doesn't need to be a bad outcome for someone not to want to invite someone to their wedding without reciprocation.

There could be any number of reasons why the friend is only inviting this group to the evening do. If OP wants to invite the whole group she should do that. Singling out one member is petty.

As for the hen do, I think it makes sense to only invite people who are going to the wedding. They’ll definitely go on and on about the wedding there and it will be super awkward for those not invited. I’ve been to hen dos like that and I felt uncomfortable discussing the wedding in front of people that I knew had not been invited.

And what do you think would happen if OP - who presumably quite likes this woman in general and wants to preserve the friendship group - invites her to her whole wedding and hen do, while accepting the friend's invitation to the evening-only part of her wedding?

What would be the worst possible outcome in this scenario?

If she's working on the assumption that she and the wider group of friends are much more important to me than we are to her

She's not wrong, is she? You were intending to invite the whole group for the full wedding. So what stings is that you've realised that.

The hen is irrelevant - you've said it's a big expensive event, so I actually think it's better that she sticks to a smaller group than putting every possible evening guest on the spot. If it's abroad there are probably only so many spaces in the Airbnb etc anyway. Who wants to waste money on that?

You can't just invite her to the evening event without blowing up the friendship group. That's petty point scoring. Either the whole group or none - you can't exclude one single person.

Everyone else (except the hen do one) in your friend group will be well aware that you value them more than she does when both sets of invitations are received.

You'll look the bigger person AND have the people you want there to celebrate with you. Win-win

But why would she assume she's coming to mine?!

Because you are invited to her wedding, as an evening guest, you've told her about your wedding and she is excited about coming, she probably assumes she'd be an evening guest at yours too? Why are you so annoyed by her assumption, if you didn't want her to go you wouldn't have told her about it so openly.. so you have made it pretty obvious to her that she is invited in some capacity.

The whole point of this post isn’t whether she has been invited or not - it’s the fact that she hasn’t been invited BUT expects an invite to hers. It’s giving CF and superiority vibes.