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Wedding Etiquette Forum

Inviting last minute guests

Our wedding date is only two weeks away.   Our budget is tight and we managed our expenses by keeping a tight hold on the number of guests invited.
The RSVP date has come and gone and we did not have as many "yes" responses as my FH expected from his family.   We now have room to include a few others but I wonder if it's too late.  We'd have to invite them in person ( no invitation as the RSVP date has passed ) and many would know that the original invitations had already been sent.   These are people that we know would like to attend but we simply could not include in the initial guest count.
Your thoughts .....

Re: Inviting last minute guests

  • I think it would create a very awkward situation.  "Sorry you weren't good enough for an invitation, but some of the more important people are unable to come so you can come and bring a present!"  I know this is not your intention at all, but I don't think you can pull it off without it coming across like that.
  • edited March 2010
    I think it would be rude... although that said, I did send last minute invitations (aka 4 weeks before the event, with 1.5 weeks to rsvp) to a few guests who I forgot to get addresses from and then slipped my mind following sending the invites, so I'm not really one to talk! But I do think that two weeks is too little notice, and there's no way to make it seem as though you didn't exclude them during the invitation sending phase, so I'd personally leave them off at this point. 
  • Sounds a lot like B-listing.  I wouldn't do it.
  • I was in a similar situation with someone who asked me a couple of months before if she was being invited to the wedding.  I told her that we wish we could invite everyone but space, yada yada.  We had someone decline so I called this person (thinking I was doing her a favor and being nice) and explained that we now have some space at A and K's (mutual friends) table and would she and her H like to join us?  She said sure and it totally backfired because I counted them in and then they didn't show.

    It seems like the right thing to do would be to extend the invite but I wouldn't do it.
    The Bee Hive Est. June 30, 2007
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  • I think 2 weeks out is cutting it too close.

    Your intentions are good, but just leave well enough alone.  And look on the bright side, you're catering might be a little less than you budgeted for!
  • No. Two weeks is too late.

    One (tacky-ish) thing I did was chat with a couple of my girlfriends I invited as singletons about a month before the wedding. I let them know that there was plenty of space in the venue so if they wanted to bring a guest to let me know. One of them took me up on the offer (she had just started dating a guy but it was going well enough that she wanted to bring him to a wedding...they're still together 7 months later so I'm really happy in hindsight that he came!).
  • I would just stick with what you have and not invite any extras at this point.
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  • My FI and I were last minute invites to a wedding on New Years Eve. We hadn't really become friends with the couple until a few months before the wedding so it didn't seem weird that they would suddenly decide to invite us and we loved that we were included at all. I suppose it depends on who the people you want to invite are. If there are people you have known for a while (before your engagement) then I would say don't invite them because they will know they were B list, but if they are people who you didn't know then or who have only recently become close with it might be okay. We didn't mind it at all, but definitely invite them in person if you do.
  • My coworker did this for her wedding. I was originally invited but some other the other girls we hang with outside of work were not. She gave them each an invitation and they came. I asked one later on if she felt weird about being invited later on and she said she did, but understood the sitatuation. She felt it would have been easier to just not invite them. I was actually surprised my coworker did this. I think I would be uncomfortable with it.
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