Inviting College Friends Now Divorced

StephJean83

Hello and sorry for the long rant, I can ramble but I'm trying to stay on topic and make sense. I'm new to this whole wedding planning and yes, my wedding is still a few years out but I'm trying to get a general guest list(more of the number vs who) so after the holidays we can look at venues and get a set budget for what FH and I will contribute and what my parents will contribute(they have offered but we haven't talked specifics). In this year alone we were invited to 8 weddings. I know it is proper etiquitte to invite those who's weddings you've been invited to but my question is, what do you do when you are invited to a wedding and the couple have since divorced? My FH was in a fraternity in college and he still close to most of the guys from his class and the few classes around his and some of those guys have gotten married and are now divorced. My FH is obviously closer to the guys because he lived with them but some of the exwives he still keeps in touch with, mostly through FB because like everyone else he went to college with, they are all scattered across the US. I've meet some of the guys that but haven't meet their exwives. My FH says, it is proper to invite BOTH of the former couple because he was invited to their wedding and I countered that no, you invite your friend or the one you are closer to if you were friends with both. The example I gave him was that my former boss(whom I'm still close to) had gotten married(I was invited to the wedding) and than because of personal reasons divorced almost immediately. She has since remarried someone else(again, I was invited to that wedding). I told him I would invited Sally and Bob(not real names) but not Tom because I am close to Sally and that inviting Tom would be silly because I don't talk to him. He said that in his case(using one friend as an example) he still talks to both Stacy and Joe(Stacy on FB only because of distance) and it is rude to not invite both. I said that not inviting Stacy wouldn't be rude because we would still invite Joe and that from what I have heard(never meet Stacy before), it sounds likes if she would come it would be inviting unnesecessary drama. From what I've gathered, Stacy(in this one couple example) was in the "sister" sorority to my FH's fraternity and she is still friends with other couples/individuals from the group but not the ones my FH is cloest to, whereas Joe hangs out regularly with our roommate(another guy from the Frat) and my FH and the other guys my FH is closest to. Is it ok to invite only one person from a divorced couple if you went to their wedding? Or is it proper etiquette to invite both parties?

gurrlballa10

You don't have to invite people just because you were invited to their weddings.  That's just silly.  If that were the case, then I really messed up since I didn't invite a (now just FB) friend of mine whose wedding I was IN 6 years ago. 

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

You absolutely do not have to invite people whose weddings you were invited to. What if your budget only allows for 50 people, yet a friend of yours was able to invite 300 people? What if you want to elope? People who elope have most likely attended weddings in the past, I can tell  you that much.

Loopyseven

Invite who you want to share the day with, regardless of whose wedding you were or were not invited to.

itzMS

Your FI has to decide who is important to him, not based on if he attended their weddings. If both of the divorced couple are friends of his, he can invite both (with plus ones) and they can decide if they'd like to attend.

First thing would be to determine your budget and how many guests you can afford to host. Then, the question of inviting distant "brothers" and "sisters" may be a moot point.

StephJean83

I know there are people who's weddings I was invited to that will not be invited to ours because friendships have changed. There are people who's weddings I was not invited to but will probably get an invite to our wedding. I'm trying to get his ideal size of the wedding because I know my parents will help us out with the wedding and just knowing his parents, they probably have a number in their heads they are planning on spending towards our wedding, which is beyond awesome that our parents are able to help us, because of his rather large family and group of friends, I want to get an idea if he is looking at 250 vs 400. My FH seems to think that because he has ever spent any amount of time with a person, they should get an invite(from the college roommate he hasn't spoken to since he moved out of the dorms and into the Frat house in 2002 to the exgf of his who hangs out with a group of his hs friends to the lady that cut his mom's hair last) and I said that I want to invite just the people he and I as a couple and individuals are closest to. Just because Suzy is friends with Carrie and was invited to Carrie's wedding and FH, Carrie and Suzy went to hs together and as a group still hang out and FH and Carrie are good friends, maybe Suzy shouldn't be invited because she is FH exgf. I swear every day when I wake up, he has realized why someone else NEEDS to be invited. I'm trying to find ways to keep it a reasonably decent size wedding but not forcing to go into massive debt for it, and I made the decision that some of my relatives(aunts/uncles/cousins) will not be invited, I'm not close to any of them and most of them I haven't spoken to in at least 2 yrs, some even longer.

gurrlballa10

I have no idea what your big long explanation had to do with anything, but like we've said, have him pick the people closest to him.  We can't make him figure that out.

StephJean83

I guess what I want to know is, what is the proper etiquette on inviting or not inviting a now divorce couple who's wedding you were invited to. I've tried to tell him that we only invite those we are close to but he says that it is rude to not invite someone if they invited him to their wedding, even if the couple is now divorced. I told him that if he wanted to invited Joe, that is fine but no need to invite Stacy, whom he isn't particularly close to, just because he was invited to her wedding to Joe. He has this idea that etiquette is inviting everyone you know to avoid hurting someone's feelings but disregarding budgets/venue size.

itzMS

Until you have a budget and know how much you can afford to pay per guest, you really shouldn't have a guest list! Even the most inexpensive of weddings cost around $50/guest all things considered.

Take everything step by step. It seems like your FI is just really, really excited at the moment.