Surprise Engagement Party, now Small Wedding..

abrewer5

Hello!

So our parents decided to throw my fiance and I a surprise engagement party since we were going to have about a 2 year engagement before the wedding. I had absolutely no idea they we're planning it, but now I'm running into a delimma. We're planning a really small wedding and planning to invite 50 people or less (immediate family and closest friends), but they invited over 75 to the engagement party to include some of their friends and cousins we aren't close to. I know it's proper to invite anyone invited to pre-wedding festivities to the wedding, but we really wanted to trim it down to only the people we are closest to, and I thought since I didn't plan the engagement party and had no say in the guest list maybe this wouldn't be completely against etiquette.

Is it completely rude of me to not invite them to the wedding? Or should I just suck it up and extend our guest list to avoid being rude?

Our parents are all divorced a remarried so we're accomodating 8 families which really starts to add up.

Thanks for any help!  

ashleyep

I know you're supposed to invite everyone to the wedding that you invite to pre-wedding festivities, but I've never understood that with engagement parties. They happen so early in the engagement that you usually don't know the guest list yet. And, like in your case, they're usually thrown by family members who want to invite all of their friends.

I don't have a suggestion for you, sorry. 

KDM323

I would say that if it was truly a surprise...and you had zero input on who they invited...you aren't obligated to invite everyone to the wedding.

I might be wrong though.

abrewer5

Thank you both for the input! I'm going to wait to see if I get more replies and try to make my decision from there...

yellowdaisies84

To be honest with you, it is a little bit rude to not invite everyone who your parents had at the engagement party. Everyone who came to your engagement party is now assuming that they are coming to the wedding so if you don't invite them they will be surprised and they might even be insulted or offended that you did not consider them important enough compared to others to invite them to the wedding. 

Having said that, it is completely up to you and your fiance. I know you didn't have a say in the guest list for the engagement party so I feel for you that it doesn't match up with what you want for the wedding. You don't have to invite everyone because you feel guilty or obligated. It is okay to decide to not invite everyone to the wedding.

Just keep in mind that it could be stressful for you to know that you're breaking etiquette and potentially offending people. It might be easier to try your best to invite everyone who came to the engagement party. It doesn't mean that you are a bad person if you edit the guest list a bit for the wedding day and ask your parents to pass on that you are planning a small, intimate wedding or that your venue only fits 50 or whatever you want. But since your question is is it completely rude in this situation? Unfortunately, I think it is rude. And should you expand your guest list to avoid being rude? I think you should try. 

Good luck!

misssunshine17

I feel like in this situation, it's out of your hands. Like when hosts invite people to showers that aren't invited to the wedding, it is the hosts faux pas, not the bride. If anyone throws a fit, direct them to your parents. Plus, after two years, hopefully they will have forgotten/not make a connection. 

abrewer5

Thanks for your input! I'm going to talk with my parents to see who was invited and go from there. We were trying to keep it at just parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts/uncles and our bridal party as our only friends invited, but I'm thinking that may need to change now. Hopefully our venue can adjust for the extra people.

OliveOilsMom

This was a surprise and you had no input.  I think you are fine to not invite the extra people to your wedding.  As Misssunshine said, it's your parents as hosts who made the etiquette faux pas.  I say you can invite you who want. 

ashleyep

abrewer5 said:

Thanks for your input! I'm going to talk with my parents to see who was invited and go from there. We were trying to keep it at just parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts/uncles and our bridal party as our only friends invited, but I'm thinking that may need to change now. Hopefully our venue can adjust for the extra people.

I think if your wedding is truly that small, then your parents should be able to explain that to their friends. They might be upset, but it's up to you to decide how much you care about your parents' friends being offended.

Abbyjensen

I would stick with the wedding that I wanted to have. Anyone who is upset can talk to your parents. Considering the engagement party attendees are their friends/family, they can handle it. But I would try not to make a big deal of it at all. Plus, they all knew it was a surprise.

NYCMercedes

Don't worry about other people's goofs. You have two years to keep wedding talk to a minimum around those attendees you plan not to invite to the wedding.

tammym1001

I agree that you don't need to invite people to your wedding who were invited to a pre-wedding party where you had no control over the guest list. If etiquette said you had to invite those people then that would give every overbearing FMIL in the world a reason to invite every one of their friends, neighbors, and distant relatives to a pre-wedding party to force you to invite them to the wedding. 

Ok so I know that's a little extreme, but basically that's the same thing. You had no control over the guest list for your engagement party as it was a surprise so you have no obligation to invite those people to your wedding.

Blue_Bird

You have no obligation here. This is your parents' mess to clean up.

Bubbles2014

I don't think you are obligated to invite everyone since you had no idea it was happening. If you could I think it would be nice though.

Dreamergirl8812

I didn't have an engagement party but I got the impression that they were thrown immediately after the engagement, and way before a guest list had been formulated. Has everyone else here who had an engagement party invited everyone who was invited to that party to the wedding?

Bubbles2014

Everyone invited to our engagement party will be invited to the wedding. Our engagement will be 10 months if that makes a difference, and the guest list was the first wedding thing we did.

Itsthevix

You do not have an obligation here. Your parents invited these people, not you. And since it will be such a long engagement, many of them will not even be thinking about it in a year, much less two.