DD is 6 on Thursday and is having her party this Saturday. There is a strict limit imposed on the number of children (not by me, by the venue) and so we can't invite all the class. I told DD to just choose the children she plays with and there are about 4 girls from the class who haven't been invited. But I've since realised there is a bit of a clique and there's a group of 5 of them who are very close, 2 of whom haven't been invited. They haven't been nasty to DD about it but there have been comments like "please invite me to your party and then I'll invite you to mine" or "why isn't so-and-so coming?" etc. DD said she doesn't play with these girls so isn't bothered about them coming, but I'm worried they will gang up on DD about it. DD is in a mixed Y1/2 class and these girls are 7 - what do you think, could 7 year olds be difficult with her about this? I don't think DD would really be aware, or even remember, about who came to her party or what parties she was & wasn't invited to and any problems would all be very quickly forgotten - but as these girls are older than her maybe they'd more aware and cause problems for DD?
The thing is, I now do have room to invite all the girls except one and even then someone else might drop out so they could all come). Should I just invite them all anyway? But then it would be really obvious that they're replacements as they're only being invited a few days before the party! Also I've already done individual food boxes & party bags and I haven't catered for them, so it would be extra work to then cater for them. The other thing is that come September, DD won't be in the same class as these girls ever again so it's not like they're going to be best friends.
I don't care about what the parents think, I'm not bowing to any pressure to invite everyone or anything like that - I just really want it all to be ok for DD and for them not to cause any problems for her.
Sorry for rambling on, but I would really appreciate some advice on this!!