Birthday parties. Common for people to do this?!

[Cluelessfirstimer]

DS 4 was invited to a birthday party tomorrow. He cant go as its his cousins party the same day (different nursery no cross over friends).

The mum of the birthday girl created a WhatsApp group with everyone invited. Im still in it although I did tell the mum we couldn't come.

Anyway, today she sends a message. She invited "extra " people incase some couldnt make it. She over invited what the venue will allow by 5. 3 couldnt make it so its still 2 over. She has straight up tagged 2 mums to ask that they keep their DC at home as she doesnt have space.

One has replied kicking off that shes told her DC they are going and moved plans and it will cause huge upset.

Glad im well out of it but this is a bit shit right? Personally I think its awful the day before to suddenly spring on that 2 children cant come. Why would you over invite in the first place?

The group is kicking off now but the mum maintains everyone does this?! Im new to all this but I wouldnt even consider doing that.

I would love if no one turned up to teach that shitty mum a lesson. I feel for the kid, but the mum needs putting in her place.

No that's absolutely unacceptable. Only invite the number you can accommodate, add extras laster if you have some that can't make it (even that's bad form but better than over booking!).

I hope everyone boycotts the party. I can't imagine doing that to 2 little children excited for a party.

If she was really in a pickle putting out a message like 'Is everyone still coming tomorrow? Venue are being funny about numbers' that would have been better than singling people out, some people might have been unwell or pulled it at that point. But she should never have over invited in the first place.

This.

How embarrassing for her, that’s definitely not normal behaviour! If there’s a strict limit on numbers most people would just invite that many and then potentially invite others if people have definitely confirmed they can’t make it.

Now she’s created the situation she has to do something, but she would have been better off sending a general message saying oops, sorry guys I’ve messed up on the numbers and we are two over - was everyone still planning to attend, and that gives people the opportunity to drop out if they were already going to struggle to make it. Singling out two people as the obvious ‘spares’ is just awful behaviour.

Awful and that womans card is now marked into school as well I imagine.
Its the child I feel for

Absolutely awful. I will admit I’ve considered it before as so many venues round my way have a maximum of 25 and obviously classes are 30, but when I was doing whole class parties ruled those venues out for this reason ( yes it would probably have been fine, but I wouldn’t want to risk this situation). I have invited other people later, or let a few siblings stay, if a lot can’t make it but only if I know there’s space.

not normal. At all
block her and move on

Most soft play venues are also open to the public so surely she could have found a way round by having the surplus kids just enter as private individuals and ordered extra food?

Crazy. Not normal. We had one once where a lady sent a class invite to everyone and then tagged two mums and literally said 'not x and y thiugh as my kid doesnt want them there' ... then to make matters worse, she deleted that message after about an hour and one of the mums hadn't seen it and was still going to take her son! It was awful and so embarrassing.

Well she’s just got her daughter uninvited from many future parties…

No it’s not normal and everyone else does not do it. She is very rude and I’m glad people have called her out on it

Feel sorry for the birthday girl though

She’s an idiot, and her next party will be wall to wall no shows, unfortunately for the birthday child.
Some people really don’t know how to behave in civilised society.

I think thats awful to say two couldnt come. Having said that, we invited 28 to DD1's party (5yo) and at least 10 have not even RSVP'd. We put invites into trays (which are emptied every Friday into bags) so i went into the class whatsapp to try and follow up individually, but not everyone has put their name on their number or at any point in a year of messages explained whose parent they are. Anyway, thats a long way of saying, I can quite understand over inviting based on this year's responses, if you were wanting to maximise attendance or if the entertainer or whatever recommended a min number.

No - that’s unbelievably idiotic.

Wtaf is wrong with her. Such horrible and frankly bizarre behaviour. Don’t invite more than you have capacity for in the first place it such an obvious one and at that age I would always invite the whole class and book a venue that could accommodate them all- when my DC were 4 (only last year for my youngest) we had pretty much everyone come. We didn’t do smaller parties of just good friends until they were old enough to actually have an established and settled friendship group, which for DD was Y3.

Awful behaviour and no it's absolutely not the done thing. This mum is going to regret this as most will give her a wide berth now I suspect.

That’s awful. If someone can’t make it, you then invite someone else or invite a guest’s sibling to fill the spot. You can’t uninvite someone, or at the very least, invite them to another special play date to make up for it.

I find it completely amazing the degree of mental gymnastics and mental load and labour fathers can simply sign out off. They can literally swan around not organising, messing up, kicking off or just getting involved in such shit.

That poor birthday girl

She clearly has overstretched herself and was trying to be clever.
What matters is the children. Especially the child whose birthday it is. As it is some maybe won’t be able to make it anyway.
She would as other posters have said do well to accept she has messed up.
She would probably welcome practical helpful suggestions.

That’s totally insane. Have never seen this and can’t actually imagine it. Have definitely invited backups (and pretty sure my son was a backup recently), but at least a couple weeks in advance. I’ve never in my life uninvited anyone from anything. Totally crazy and now her daughter will have 0 parties to worry about. Poor thing.

She's not an airline so no, not normal behaviour

It’s a shame that she didn’t have any close mum friends who could have pointed out the drawbacks from her daft plan before she executed it.

Sadly, it’s just her child who will lose friendships and miss out, rather than affect the mum.

Hopefully, she’ll have learnt a lesson from this debacle before the child starts school. 🤞

This is awful

There is also a very obvious solution

Presumably at 4 it’s not a drop off party, so she just asks if 2 adults could NOT stay and leave their child in the charge of another adult please.

No this is down right insane. I can understand having a backup list of guests to invite once you know certain people can’t make it but don’t invite them until you know the spaces are free!

She clearly thinks she's Ryanair. Do you have to pay extra to sit next your friend as well?
Not suprised everyone is kicking off, totally unfair on the kids that have been uninvited.