Wedding Invite Assumptions

[RatalieTatalie]

theres a largeish group of us who are all friends from school, all in regular WhatsApp contact, meet up throughout the year etc. Within the group some are closer than others due to living closer etc, but no rifts or drama.

we all get hen invites a few months ago, everyone agreed and paid. Now wedding invites have come out and all but one girl have them!

I now feel really conflicted about going to the wedding as I can’t understand why you wouldn’t invite all of us (there are plus ones going, so if I was organising it I’d have picked the friend over partners as it’s apparently a space issue). Especially after inviting someone to your hen do which you know will
cost them time and money to come and celebrate with you.

Totally understand that someone’s wedding guest list is their own and wouldn’t dream of trying to interfere. And that no one is entitled to a space. I just couldn’t picture myself so obviously excluding someone, who has now had to find out via everyone else slowly piping up about receiving invites on the group chat.

Would it be unreasonable for me to decline the invite (without saying why obviously) and let the other girl believe I wasn’t invited either so she doesn’t feel alone?

Are you absolutely sure that this is the ONLY reason and that something else hasn't also occurred?

I ask because at my daughter's wedding her brother was not invited. Other friends and family were quietly concerned and questioning. They did not realise her brother had abused her as a child. Not that I am suggesting anything like this but wondered, as on the face of it it seems so unreasonable, maybe there is something you don't know. Just a thought.

Did the bride control / input on the hen invitees?

Abysmal for the bride to leave the poor girl just to figure it out for herself. It'd put me off her for life.

If you decline the invite she may well invite the left out person instead. Then you'll be the one left out. It wouldn't bother me but it's possible

I think it’s more the reciprocal feeling of you valuing someone enough to give up a weekend (and the money) to spend with someone who you then feel wouldn’t value you in the same way in return?

If I were your other friend I wouldn't want to go to a wedding I'd deliberately not been invited to.

The bride isn't very nice

To be honest, my first assumption would be this is a mistake. I have a similar large group of friends, meet up at Christmas every year, this year I was the only person not to get a card from one couple in the group. I now because I distributed their cards for them. It was obviously an oversight, not even worth mentioning. But in your situation, I would privately drop the bride a message just to flag up what seems to be an oversight.

I think I was just thinking the other girl could then assume we both weren’t invited? And so
might still feel rubbish but wouldn’t feel personal! 🤷‍♀️

The bride sounds like an insensitive sort of person. Unless as dorsetdame said above, there is an issue of which you’re unaware. Unlikely though.

Hopefully the woman who’s been left out will withdraw from the hen party and spend her cash on something better.

Has your non invited friend committed and paid for the hen?
If she's got particularly far to come for the hen that really is shitty behaviour from the bride.

Yes absolutely the reason. The girl not invited is genuinely so inoffensive, she’s just the most out of touch with us all. Confirmed by bridesmaids that yes, not currently invited but plan was to extend the invite if people couldn’t make it.

Which I think possibly could’ve worked ok had everyone not slowly started dropping thanks for the invite into the group chat maybe.

I’m sure not done with malicious intent by the bride but really hasn’t come across well at all

Yes we’ve all paid already. The bride gave the list of invitees to the bridesmaids to organise quite a while back.

The wedding party has a few teachers so had to plan well in advance to book somewhere in the holidays.

she’ll be travelling a couple of hours, nothing horrific but definitely not round the corner.

Well what a horrible thing to do! If I were your friend I would drop a simple message to the bridesmaids saying ‘I am no longer able to come to the hen. Please refund what you can’

It’s difficult because most venues have a maximum that you can’t exceed. You can’t send out more invites than the max initially as imagine if they did all accept and then had to take back an invite but chances are someone won’t be able to make it and you then get space for someone else.

if she hadn’t been invited to the hen then she would have been totally excluded when she might have still wanted to join that given several of her friends are going.

probably the bride should have given her a heads up of what was happening but that still would have come across mean and if someone did decline quickly could have been avoided with her invite going out very soon after.

The way this has worked out, asking her to pay the hen before leaving her waiting for a space on the wedding reserve list, and not even making it a priority to contact her directly to explain, is so thoughtless, to be offensive and hurtful.

Gosh I can see why you're thinking you'll say you've not been invited either, I can't imagine being able to style it out being the only non guest at a hen.
Bride should shoulder her cost if she decides to pull out. Pretty humiliating.

Then don't invite little-known short term partners!

It’s just dishonest …

But people will also be offended that their partner wasn’t invited whilst someone else’s was. With that approach you need to decide where to draw a line

But then you end up declining the invite creating a space that she then gets and you end up being the only one missing out.

100% correct on assuming a wedding invitation goes along with a hen invitation that involves significant time and cost!

This is why you should always do your guest list first, and choose the venue afterwards so you can get one big/affordable enough to include people.

That’s a bit crap

i thought those on a hen do were the best friends

but she invited someone who lives miles away and doesn’t see much for the hen

but not the wedding

she isn’t a nice bride imo

Also surely she wouldn’t want to go as a “plus one” so she can turn up to a wedding she wasn’t invited to

That's really rude of the bride! Can she be reimbursed for the hen thing? She must feel so excluded and used...

This was difficult...I shared a house with some amazing people...one of the couples got married and everyone but dh and I got invited. Tbh I was sofa surfing and it wasn't high on my list...we all re meet up 8 years later and the wedding couple asked why we never responded to their wedding invitation...we explained we didn't think we been invited...turned out the invitation was sent to an address we lived at a year ago...things do happen. Wish I'd just messaged now saying congratulations on the wedding and totally understand if not invited as know it's expensive. I felt awful we seemed rude for not responding to the invite now although we didn't know. We would have had to turn it down as we were literally homeless and no idea where we were. If friends they understand.