Wedding Etiquette Forum

Showers and the work place

After reading a post on etiquettehell.com, I now have a question about a sitaution that may pertain to myself and want to know the proper and best way to handle it. In the post, the writer mentioned his/her workplace hosted a shower for two co-workers that were getting married. The poster then went on to say that no thank cards were sent afterwards (fail) but also that no one received any invitations to the wedding. The no invitations part is where I'm hung up. FI and I have already been backed in to a corner once and made concessions over our guest list (we had wanted a very intimate wedding, > 30 people, as I've mentioned a couple times on here - now we're back to inviting ALL of his family and mine due to family concerns and his parents not wanting to explain why their siblings weren't invited - whatever, we've worked it out and it's fine and luckily is family is all very, very sweet and excited to come). I work in a department with all women and there is a chance they may throw a shower for me. I know that I am under no obligation to invite them and I've only worked here 6 months, but is the poster from the original article wrong in assuming that the co-workers should have invited them all to their wedding simply because they had a work place shower thrown for them? The rest of the post had much more, including a baby shower for said couple and a whole lot of etiquette fails on the part of the wife but I'm mainly concerned about the inviting co-workers aspect.

Re: Showers and the work place

  • Have you made it clear that wedding invites were family exclusive while in the workplace? I did this and my co-workers still graciously gave me a group gift. No one was offended because they wanted to do it. If you haven't made this clear yet, I would start dropping hints now as to the initmacy of your affair so that there is no confusion.
  • I have discussed a little bit with my co-workers about our desire to have a small wedding, just family and close friends so it is known. I'm just wondering if anyone has encountered a situation where co-workers expected to be invited simply because they threw a shower for their employees. It just seems very presumptious.
  • Is your wedding really in a year and eight months? If not, don't be worrying about stuff like this now, you'll make yourself crazy. They don't be thinking about a shower for a year or so anyway. 
  • No, my ticker is wrong and I can't seem to fix it :/ It's going to be in September of 2014.
  • I've never heard of this. Like I said I would drive home your desire to have an intimate setting for your wedding for the next year and you won't find yourself in this position. Don't get me wrong you will have a lot of bean dipping in regards to invites in your time frame going forward with everyone (not just co-workers). It happens to all of us.

  • ckel24 said:
    I have discussed a little bit with my co-workers about our desire to have a small wedding, just family and close friends so it is known. I'm just wondering if anyone has encountered a situation where co-workers expected to be invited simply because they threw a shower for their employees. It just seems very presumptious.
    Its sweet that co-workers want to throw a shower but in no means should they expect an invitation. 

    When I first started my new job a year ago, one of my bosses was getting married. I was invited to the work shower and I gave a gift. I wasn't invited to her wedding, some of her closer co-workers were invited though. I was sure it was due to her being closer to a few of those girls, and I wouldn't really want to go to a wedding of someone I had literally just met. (Shes also with the company 4 years)

    I am still waiting on a thank you card for the gift I gave though....I don't really accept a group thank you email for the party as a thank you for the gift. 
  • HisGirlFriday13 said above. At my office, whenever someone gets married or will be having a baby, we throw them a shower. But under no circumstances does anyone expect to get invited to the actual wedding or baby shower. Quick question though. My wedding is still a while away, but if my coworkers throw me a shower - Do I have to send them actual Thank You cards? Or will a blast email suffice? Or does it depend on the culture? At my job, people send blast emails for any showers thrown. Is that fine?
                                 Anniversary
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  • I wish I could help here but I'm one of two women who work there so showers are not something that happens were I work. The PPs gave good advice though.
  • Work showers and club/group/church showers are exceptions to the "anyone invited to a pre-wedding event must be invited to the wedding" rule.

    That said, if you really want to avoid the situation where you feel like you might have to invite your co-workers to your wedding although you don't want to, your best course of action is to avoid talking about your wedding, sharing photos, etc. as much as possible with them.
  • @pinkcow13 - I would still send thank you cards.  If they get you a single gift as a group, I'd consider it ok to send one thank you card to your office.  It's typical at my workplace for an envelope to be passed around and a card to sign, and you're welcome to add a couple bucks if you choose, and sign the card.  In that case, I'd send one card "To all my co-workers at XXXX, thank you for the generous gift of..."
  • BMoreBride6BMoreBride6 member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper
    edited December 2013
    I married the son of the pastor of a fairly large church.  If we could have invited everyone from the church we would have (many of them watched DH grow up), but we just couldn't.  This was made clear (not in a "you're not invited!" way, but my FIL, but the ladies in the church still choose to through me and shower.  Many women who knew they would not be invited to the wedding gave gifts and had  great time.  I was horribly uncomfortable with it at first, but once I realized how much they were looking forward to it, I let it go.  I think these are the situations where the "pre-wedding events" rule does not apply.  

    ETA: I should say; however, I had thank you cards out within 10 days.  I would never disregard that! 
  • pinkcow13 said:
    HisGirlFriday13 said above. At my office, whenever someone gets married or will be having a baby, we throw them a shower. But under no circumstances does anyone expect to get invited to the actual wedding or baby shower. Quick question though. My wedding is still a while away, but if my coworkers throw me a shower - Do I have to send them actual Thank You cards? Or will a blast email suffice? Or does it depend on the culture? At my job, people send blast emails for any showers thrown. Is that fine?
    No, an e-mail blast will not suffice. Regardless of how lax their etiquette standards are, don't lower yours to meet theirs. Please send a real, hand-written, thank-you note. However, if they get you a group gift (which is common), one thank-you note written to the whole group and passed around will suffice.
    Anniversary

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    I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'
  • Agreed with PPs. My company actually gives us a budget to throw birthday parties and showers (hey, it's good for morale!), so we have cake and cards pretty much every chance we get. My coworkers had no expectations of being invited to my wedding up until I sent them all Save the Date cards a few weeks ago. I dig my coworkers and we're a very small group (9 in total). We like to hang out outside of work, so it felt natural to include them in my special day. If I wasn't close with any of them, I wouldn't invite them to my wedding even if they do throw me a shower.

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  • There are about 40 people in my department. I like most everyone, but only socialize with a small handful outside of the office. It is common that when someone is getting married, a lunch will be planned for a nearby restaurant and gifts and cards will be given to that person for their wedding.
    I've been to a few of these and, unless I socializedMerry Christmas!! with the person outside of work, I wasn't invited to the wedding. Everyone in the department is welcome to attend these lunches (though it ends up mainly ladies), but understands it doesn't mean a wedding invite is coming. If one is thrown for me, I will attend, be appreciative, send thank you notes, but only invite those at work whom I am actually close with outside the office.
  • I have found work showers are mostly just an excuse to sit around and eat cake anyways. I agree it's the exception to the rule of shower/invitation. Now our department is pretty good about it, several people over the past few years have gotten married and generally they will post an invitation as an announcement sort of thing, but its just sort of an unwritten rule that we don't actually accept it as a real invite unless we get one personally. 
  • pinkcow13 said:
    HisGirlFriday13 said above. At my office, whenever someone gets married or will be having a baby, we throw them a shower. But under no circumstances does anyone expect to get invited to the actual wedding or baby shower. Quick question though. My wedding is still a while away, but if my coworkers throw me a shower - Do I have to send them actual Thank You cards? Or will a blast email suffice? Or does it depend on the culture? At my job, people send blast emails for any showers thrown. Is that fine?
    If it is a "group" gift from an entire work place (in a situation where you have no way of knowing who actually contributed to the gift*--let's be honest, we all have that co-worker who never contributes to these things. LOL) , It is safe to write a group thank you card and put it in a commonplace for all to read.

    If it is individual gifts, individual notes should be written.

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