to wonder if this person should be invited to the wedding?

[TidyDancer]

Yes, it's that time of year, and yes it's me with another wedding thread!

A colleague who is currently on ML (let's call her Becky) is getting married in the autumn and has sent out invitations in the last month. The majority of us from work have been invited only to the evening do which is absolutely fine, with a couple going to the whole wedding day (these are people she is especially close to, so totally understandable).

The problem is this: I work in a reasonably small team within a much larger department. There are 8 of us (9 including Becky) within a department of approx 40. 3 of the small team have not been invited. One has joined us since Becky went on ML, so understandably not invited. Another does not get on with Becky, the feeling is very much mutual so he wouldn't go anyway. The third (we'll call her Laura) is a very long serving member of staff who is very notably absent from the invitations. While the other two could be understood (colleague two wouldn't care that he wasn't invited), Laura will be very upset and hurt.

The reason Becky hasn't invited her is that Laura can be very outspoken, at times rude and always has an opinion about everything. I personally doubt she would make any kind of comment about the wedding itself, but she can be difficult. She thinks she is very liked and respected by Becky though, and her exclusion would come as a huge shock.

I realise there is nothing I can personally do to change this situation. On the one hand I agree that Becky can invite who she wants to her wedding. But on the other I don't think she realises just how uncomfortable a situation this is to be in. It will cause tensions in the team and the rift will perhaps not be repairable. If the invites are hidden from Laura, she will be upset we didn't tell her. If we tell her, she will be upset she isn't invited. Some colleagues are of the opinion that Becky can invite who she wants, others think she is being very rude and bridezilla-ish and the other opinion is that she just being plain spiteful for the sake of it. Becky, while a lot of fun, can be quite cutting at times. She is also feeling very left out of the team while she's on ML as we do socialise together, but afaik she has been invited to things, obviously with newborn twins she hasn't been able to attend. There are thoughts that she is excluding Laura because she feels excluded herself.

So what is reasonable/unreasonable here? Should Becky be able to invite who she wants, or should she be fair to the team?

Some potentially relevant info:

1. Laura is unaware she is the only one not invited.
2. This is not about numbers. We all have plus one invitations and she has invited a manager from another team as well as a couple of people from other departments (neither of which she is close to).
3. Becky is senior to Laura.
4. Becky's manager feels it is very unfair, but has refused to approach her with this (I guess rightly as it isn't really a work issue and Becky is on ML until Christmas).
5. Some team members are feeling uncomfortable enough to be thinking of withdrawing their acceptance and not going to the wedding.
6. The wedding is a significant distance from where we work (we are in Bedfordshire, wedding is in Suffolk) so we would all travel together - meaning at some point presumably, Laura would hear of the arrangements.

Opinions? And any advice!

I still think it is unkind to leave one person out of a group in such a deliberate way. It's not "wrong" but I think it's very unkind. THAT is two faced imho. Becky has clearly never told Laura she doesn't like her so she had no way of knowing.

This actually happened to a close friend of mine. She thinks she was the only person not invited to a colleagues wedding (and someone she thought of as a friend) because she had fallen out with a mutual friend of theirs several years before. The weeks preceding the wedding were absolutely horrible. Everyone asking "how are you getting to the wedding?", "What are you wearing?" and each time my poor friend had to say "I'm not invited". Everyone would look really shocked and embarrassed for her, it was so horrible for her.

I do believe if you mix work and private life you are responsible for any bad feelings caused. I have some really good friends from work and socialise with them and invite to personal events. However if inviting the team, then I would do just that invite them all. Becky is inviting work colleagues as from Tiny's post I do not see a close personal friendship between her and Tiny other than colleagues. Becky's wedding/ personal life should not affect the team esp as she is more senior than Laura, and at the moment there is already bad feeling before Laura even finds out.

Becky has invited 5/8 people.

Seems reasonable to me.

And I would have been gutted at having to invite certain people from work who I didn't like, just so I could have had the ones I did like there.

Had one particular person come, I would have been very inhibited, and that wasn't what I wanted at one of the most important days in my life.

It was also about what my DH wanted, and he would not have wanted that one person either.

No one knows exactly why Becky and her OH haven't invited Laura specifically, but it is their right.

"But if you invited everyone whose feelings may be hurt by not being invited, where does it end? Becky's feelings are just as important, and more importantly she's paying!"

No, it's just this one person, who is on the team, who would expect to be invited because she is the only one out of the 6 people on the team who apparently gets on with Becky who isn't invited. 1 of them Becky doesn't even know and the other one and she don't get on at all.

Perhaps all the team should boycott the wedding. That way Laura need never know.

Out of interest, those people that say Laura should be invited even though Becky doesn't want to invite her to her wedding. Would you really want to go to an event where you weren't welcome or wanted? Would you want to risk the B/G getting hammered and telling you exactly what they think or you? Would you not rather find out that actually your "relationship" with that person was not what you thought it was and was infant false? Why on earth would anyone want to put someone or themselves in a position to go somewhere they are not welcome? Why try to force someone or yourself onto someone that doesn't like you even if they haven't said anything directly in the past and want you around.

I don't get it?

I also don't get why everyone wants to force the B&G to invite someone they don't want at their wedding.

""The reason Becky hasn't invited her is that Laura can be very outspoken, at times rude/difficult ""

No-one knows how rude Laura has been on occassion.

Perhaps there have been comments about the wedding, or ML etc, you don't this in your life, or rather, at your especial and expensive event.

So you drop a nice neighbour/second cousin from the guest list, to invite people who are rude and difficult?

My DD is getting married next year, if a "Laura" had anything negative to say, I would happily skull rag her out of the venue.

It might not just be about Laura, Becky might have close relatives who won't stand for her shit.

I wouldn't invite anyone who isn't guaranteed to turn up with a smile on their face and be nice.

OP write posts about "difficult" relatives being pandered to and enabled, why should you do this for work colleagues, they should change, or accept being excluded.

Becky's wedding she can invite who she wants.

Tidy if you are that concerned you could offer to decorate the reception venue for free if Laura is invited.

I can't help but thinking ahead to when Becky returns from ML and needs as many supportive colleagues as poss as she juggles baby twins with work.

Evening do only invite to a colleagues wedding will be pants. I did it once. You and the other work people arrive when everyone is steaming having been drinking since lunchtime and you don't actually know anyone except the other work people so you stand round talking to each other all night. Which you could have done in the local pub, without travelling to Suffolk at probably quite a lot of expense. In conclusion, Laura has had a narrow escape.
Agreed.

I posted earlier on the thread, I think this is between the two individuals to sort, should there be any fall out. Nobody else should get involved.

I agree people shouldn't be getting involved as at the end of the day it's Becky's wedding and her decision as to who to invite.

But that doesn't stop me thinking she's being rude, childish and hurtful and if I were her colleague, my opinion of her would go way down over this.
If she has a real problem with the way a colleague speaks to her she should have raised it in a professional way. To be friendly and pleasant to this person's face and then just very publicly snub her when she's issuing evening invitations to her wedding is not really the behaviour of a nice person. Nor is it a pleasant or comfortable position for her colleagues to be put in.

Yes, entirely Becky's decision as it's her wedding. But entirely up to other people to feel her behaviour is not very admirable.