We are a married couple and we have friends, “Eva and Matt”. We invite them to our house frequently and are super-hospitable to them in our home. They have a close circle of friends who live near to them and we know they do a lot of entertaining/socialising without us (obviously fine, we’re all grownups).
Matt recently invited us to Eva’s 40th birthday where we were asked to turn up at a prestigious venue for the “surprise” party and pay £100 each to be part of the party. We were very happy to do this, showed up early for the “surprise”, paid our £200 for the party, brought a present and wished her well.
The party at the venue was at a slightly weird time- 4pm to 8pm on a Saturday- but we didn’t think much of this. We got a babysitter for our kids (he said “no kids”) and showed up to celebrate with her.
Towards the end of the party (as we thought) we were looking for Matt to say goodbye and Eva told us that he had left. We thought this was a bit odd and wondered if they had had an argument. However my husband called Matt and he was on his way home to their house to prepare for the “after party” to which we were clearly not invited.
So- Matt invited us to his wife’s surprise party- for which we paid £200 and couldn’t refuse “because it’s her important birthday”- but didn’t invite us to the “real” party which was clearly taking place from 8pm onwards at their house.
Am I over-reacting to be annoyed that we just got invited to “fill up the numbers” for the surprise in the fancy venue, but weren’t asked to be there at their house? I understand that they’d prefer to have the “after party” with their “real” friends, but it stings a bit that we were only invited to make up the numbers (and the money) at a prestigious venue.