Invited friends to my home for lunch but they each want to bring someone else too.People I don't know well.

[Motheroffive999]

As title.
Invited 3 school friends over for lunch next week end.
First friend texted and said they are looking forward to lunch and could they bring their adult daughter too ?
Then this morning another girl phoned and said she has family visiting and can she bring her mum?
2 minutes ago the 3rd friend phones to ask what time we are eating and could she bring her kids aged 14 and 15 ?
Is this normal?

Yes, rude and re-schedule as they are obviously very busy.

My friend did this to our group when I was hosting dinner at home. She asked if she could ting her latest man, someone she had met once following swiping left..or right or whatever.

We weren't comfortable with a stranger being in our house.

A home visit, a bit odd. If you were going to a cafe, I’d be fine with it. I met some really lovely people recently when my good friends brought their good friends with them. We had a fantastic day out and got absolutely hammered!

Hi I think. A breezy text to say it's clear that people have loads on so let's rearrange to another day

Say you realise family comes first

Why? There hasn’t been a family emergency. One person has a family visitor and didn’t have the sense to check the dates before accepting OP’s invitation (or saying the visit was convenient, whichever came first). Another wants to bring their 14 and 15 year old “kids”, who could easily look after themselves. No way would I be letting them off the hook like this.

Weird behaviour. Why do they have these people in tow? Are they afraid to tell these family members that the already have plans that day?

But the OP was hoping to cater for 4 people, and she knows the other 3 people well. She’s now been asked to cater for 8, 4 of whom will be total strangers.

Agree. Its cheeky- you cant expect to double the amount someone is catering for.

Just send this text and then never follow it up.

Cancel and if you want to rearrange say let’s do a day when people are free or say numbers are too big let’s find a cafe.

“Hi all, we’ll reschedule, I don’t have room to cater for 8 people (you’ve all asked to bring 1 or 2 extra people), so let me know when you’re free for lunch. Or we can all go to a pub for a pub lunch. Let me know!”

I’d say yes, bring them, but as everyone is bringing at least one extra person, bring a dish too. The more the merrier! But also, you’d prepped for the cost of four for lunch and now you have eight, so it’s only right they should bring some nice bits.

That's really cheeky unless unexpected childcare emergency etc, or they've said they can't come because they have these people visiting and you've voluntarily extended the invitation to enable them to come. Odd all 3 have asked but maybe they realised one was bringing an extra so thought they could too, once the 'good friends catching up' vibe was already spoilt by the first person.

Catering for 3 good friends is totally different from catering for 7 people of very varying ages, some of whom you hardly know.

What days you day when they asked? How hard is it to rearrange seeing these people? I think you are quite within your rights to say everyone is obviously busy and as everyone needs to bring extra people, the lunch had got much bigger than you'd planned, so can you rearrange for a day when they don't have other people to entertain.

It’s not a win win at all though, is it? It’s only a win for the people who get to bring their extra guests. It’s not a win for the OP, who finds her event hijacked; who has to organise and pay for extra catering; who may now have to deal with special dietary requirements at short notice. And you can bet at least one of the guests will be annoyed at the extras, despite having invited extra guests of their own.

I’ll never forget my friend’s mother turning up uninvited at a party I was hosting. I didn’t really mind given it was a party rather than a meal with set catering levels - but then she announced she was a vegan coeliac and couldn’t eat anything I’d provided. She said she’d just have salad, as if she was being incredibly helpful; there wasn’t any. She didn’t stop complaining about it.

As she left she said, “Next time you invite me over, do some salad”. I was fuming. There had never been an invitation in the first place and there certainly wasn’t one after that!

I'd use this option.

How lovely you must be that even though they all have valid excuses not to come they do t want to say no to you

Actually, scrub my previous post. THIS option!

Nah...sorry but I wouldn't. Talk about setting a precedent 🙈 "let's all just go round so and so's- they're always good for providing us a meal' each to their own though.

I think it depends on how close friends you are and the type of meet up it was. I generally wouldn’t mind at all if a good friend brought a family member/s although I appreciate it changes the dynamic of things. If I didn’t fancy it, I might say sounds like you’ve got your hands full, let’s catch up another time. If I didn’t have enough food in or whatever and I didn’t want to cater for larger numbers, I’d say let’s meet in a cafe/pub. It may be your friends are trying to keep everyone happy and want to see you despite other family obligations. I think it’d be worth reflecting further on things here. What is the relationship like with these friends generally? Do you feel they do not prioritise you? Or that they take advantage of you? If that’s the case, then I can understand why you might not be up for having more people coming round and you might want to reconsider the friendships. But if they’re generally good friends, I think you should just communicate with them to work things out.

This is the perfect response.

If you were happy to have all and sundry gatecrashing you wouldn't have posted about this, so rearrange for another time.

Or just be a regular, normal adult about it, say 'no' and rearrange 🤷🏻‍♂️

@Motheroffive999

Use any of the great responses suggested above & decline! It's really rude & it completely changes the dynamic from 4 old school mates catching up & gossiping about mutual acquaintances to a weird, mis-matched, multi-generational lunch for 8, where people don't know each other & the teens will be bored stiff & undoubtedly glued to phones! Absolutely not!!

It depends what sort of lunch you're talking about. If you enjoy cooking for people and it was going to be a big dish of something, its not much more effort to feed the extra people

If you dont like cooking or dont have the space or dont have the funds to feed the extra people then say no

I think its unbelievably rude but I would probably say yes as I like to cook and have a mixture of food, but only for people that would enjoy it I suppose.

This @Motheroffive999

Also, why can't a 14 & 15 yr old be left home alone for a couple of hours while their mum pops out to lunch??

Have they all been chatting to eachother, saying oh I'm taking so and so, and the next person saying well if you're taking so and so then I'm going to bring my mum.

Seems so weird that they all want to bring people.

Reschedule.

If they didn't all know the others were asking for a plus one (sounds like they contacted you 1 to 1?), I don't think it's rude or cheeky or abnormal.

And yet I don't think you have to agree if it doesn't appeal to you. If not, I'd say, "it sounds like everyone has relatives around that day and so let's reschedule for another day" or similar.