Tell me I'm not a speshul snowflake

behsco90

I know you ladies will have the right answers for me (which I'm guessing will be I'm not a special snowflake, but I could be wrong!)

Inviting some but not all coworkers: FI and I both work for my family's business.  About a third of the employees are my family members and will be invited.  The rest are non-family members.  FI works in sales, and there are 7 other guys in the department, but he is only close with 4 of them (one is his manager) and wants to invite them but not the other 3, and ask those 4 guys to keep it on the DL.  Can we invite only those 4 guys, or is it all or nothing?  In case it matters, we would not be inviting any other employees (besides family).

JCbride2015

behsco90 said:

I know you ladies will have the right answers for me (which I'm guessing will be I'm not a special snowflake, but I could be wrong!)

Inviting some but not all coworkers: FI and I both work for my family's business.  About a third of the employees are my family members and will be invited.  The rest are non-family members.  FI works in sales, and there are 7 other guys in the department, but he is only close with 4 of them (one is his manager) and wants to invite them but not the other 3, and ask those 4 guys to keep it on the DL.  Can we invite only those 4 guys, or is it all or nothing?  In case it matters, we would not be inviting any other employees (besides family).

Generally, inviting some but not all coworkers is fine.  I would be a little concerned in this case because his department is so small, and he's actually inviting the majority of his department.  Is he really close with these coworkers-- do they hang out outside of work and have legitimate, stand-alone friendships?  If so, I think he should go ahead and invite them if it's important.  But honestly if he can go without, it might go more smoothly at work if he invites nobody.  This would just depend on your work dynamics, I think.

Either way though, I don't think it's bad etiquette to only invite the 4.  Just a judgment call.

huskypuppy14

I personally think it is fine. People are not entitled to be invited to your wedding because they work with you. If you were inviting all but one person it would be a little different.

mrscaty

I think the situation is a little different because your family owns the business. Unless your FI is really really close with these people, and their close friendship is super obvious, I would leave them out for fear of playing favorites and creating hurt feelings.

AddieCake

I think inviting more from the department than not (and there are only 7) will look bad. I'm a teacher and made sure to invite everyone from my department for exactly that reason. I am friendly with most and socialize with most, but the few that I don't, I invited anyway or I would have felt like a dick.

jacques27

I am normally in the "No one should expect to be invited and as long as you're inviting people you're actually close to outside of work and not just singling out one person to exclude, it's fine" camp.

But I do think that this being your family's business (so I assume someone in your family makes large overall decisions for the company and then also has the potential to determine hiring/firing needs, potential layoffs, promotional decisions, etc....yes?), that you need to tread lightly, especially since these are the ONLY four outside of family and you're not inviting coworkers from your department (unless you have none outside of family).  I think any potential hiring/firing/promoting that goes on in that department could end up with an extra dose of hard feelings and the perception of favoritism depending on how it plays out.

Is your FI genuinely friends with these four people and talk and get together outside of work and the occasional happy hour?  If the company shut down tomorrow and you all had to find other jobs and went your separate ways, would this group of people still be coming over to your house for football on the weekends and inviting you over to theirs for a summer BBQ?  Do the other people in the dept. know they are friends outside of work (at my workplace, we have lots of groups who are "friendly" with each other - but we all know which groups are actually friends outside of the workplace, too)?

In summary:
Genuinely friends?  Invite the four.
Just friendly and happens to be friendlier with those four?  I'd go with all or none.

behsco90

Thanks ladies!  Looks like a mix of replies, I guess FI and I will have to give it more thought.  He does socialize with these four outside of work (I tag along sometimes as well).

mlg78

Only you guys know the personalities of those 3 other people.  Will they be hurt?  Will it change the dynamic of working together?  I'd lean towards inviting them. 

jenajjthr

I teach and their are 10 of us in the science department. We got 2 new science teachers this year. They did not get invites to coworkers wedding this year. We are a close department and have regular get togethers outside of work. But because they just started 3 months before the wedding, coworker and FI didn't know them well enough to invite them to their wedding. Nobody's feelings were hurt, but it is a know your crowd type of thing. 

If the other "half" of this department will feel hurt by not being invited, then you may need to rethink your invites. You are talking more like half versus just 20% from my department. 

SP29

My stance on inviting co-workers is not to look at them as co-workers but friends. Don't invite people BECAUSE they are a co-worker, invite them because you are actually friends with them and want them there.

Jacques put it well:

Genuinely friends?  Invite the four.
Just friendly and happens to be friendlier with those four?  I'd go with all or none.

Since your FI hangs out with the 4 outside of work, but not the others, I think you are more than fine to invite only those 4. 

MandyMost

Just make sure you send the invitations to their homes (as you would with any invitation) and don't hand them out in the office or something! And of course keep the wedding talk to a minimum in the office.

I think the "rule" is that it should be obvious to the people who are not invited why the other people are. It sounds like in this case it's clear that your FI is friends with these 4 outside of work and not the other 3, so it should be fine.

Also, I think it would depend on the personalities of these 3 people, as well as the size of your wedding as a while. If you're inviting over 150, for instance, I'd think it may be easy to just add these 3 more (plus SO's).