Rules of invites for a combined engagement, graduation, going away party

EllenandAndy · May 2012

Hey everyone,

My mother and I have decided to celebrate my engagement, both my finace and my graduations from college and the fact that we are moving away immediately after graduation all in one party due to so many family parties in the month of May.

My question is, do the standard rules of engagement parties apply? I have friends that I want to celebrate my graduation with but I do not know if I will be friends with them in a year to invite them to my wedding. Is it okay to invite them to this party or should I still limit the guest list to people I know will be invited to the wedding?

baystateapple · May 2012

Limit your guest list to people you know you will be inviting to the wedding. Same rules apply.

RYLZ · May 2012

Or just have a combo graduation/going away party and invite anyone you want. An engagement party is not totally necessary, and just creates the etiquette dilemma you're having about who to invite.

lyndausvi · May 2012

I would leave the engagement part out of the party. Just make it a graduation/going away party.

Sephiroth · May 2012

There are some people who believe the engagement party falls outside the bounds of the rules of pre-wedding parties, since they generally occur long before final plans are set for the wedding, sometimes even before general budgetary guidelines have been decided. So this is a bit of a gray area, technically.

Regardless, inviting people to an engagement party without subsequently inviting them to the wedding can cause hurt feelings, particularly among invitees that believe engagement parties *are* subject to the pre-wedding party rules. It's generally not worth causing those hard feeling among people that you care about.

midgetthemighty · May 2012

Why doesn't an engagement party fall under the "pre-wedding party" rules? It's a party, before the wedding, directly related to an impending wedding.

I would just do as the others have suggested and take out the engagement part. People will still most likely congratulate you on it but this way you can invite whomever you wish without worrying abut hurting anyone's feelings.

Sephiroth · May 2012

Midge - The reasoning is generally that for all other pre-wedding parties, they are planned after or as the guest list is being set for the wedding, or at the very least, after you know how big the wedding is going to be, and therefore you have no excuse for not limiting the guest list to wedding invitees.

Situations where it's most understandable to have a guest list difference are ones where there's a large, informal engagement party almost immediately following the engagement, the engagement is a relatively long one, and sometime in the intervening months, the wedding plans are scaled down to have a fairly intimate, small guest list wedding.

In this poster's situation, I would certainly not rely on that logic, as it seems there is a strong likelihood many of the 'graduation celebration' invitees will *not* be invited to the wedding, and she already knows this.

LeiselEB · May 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_rules-of-invites-for-a-combined-engagement-graduation-going-away-party?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:b8be2a27-b8fd-4e27-84c6-d191601113c2Post:1dbfa9f5-f863-4669-83be-39cac5639ad3">Re: Rules of invites for a combined engagement, graduation, going away party</a>:
[QUOTE]Midge - The reasoning is generally that for all other pre-wedding parties, <strong>they are planned after or as the guest list is being set for the wedding</strong>, or at the very least, after you know how big the wedding is going to be, and therefore you have no excuse for not limiting the guest list to wedding invitees. Situations where it's most understandable to have a guest list difference are ones where there's a large, informal engagement party almost immediately following the engagement, the engagement is a relatively long one, and sometime in the intervening months, the wedding plans are scaled down to have a fairly intimate, small guest list wedding. In this poster's situation, I would certainly not rely on that logic, as it seems there is a strong likelihood many of the 'graduation celebration' invitees will *not* be invited to the wedding, and she already knows this.
Posted by Sephiroth[/QUOTE]

<div>
</div><div>This applies to engagement parties, as well.</div>

Sephiroth · May 2012

LeiselEB -

That's sometimes true, but not always. If a couple gets engaged with no specific wedding date in mind, for instance, only 'sometime in 2014', and an engagement party gets thrown a month after they get engaged, there's every possibility that no major planning decisions have been made for the wedding. People are sometimes engaged for months before they even determine a budget for their own wedding, or decide how big it's going to be.

mbody · May 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_rules-of-invites-for-a-combined-engagement-graduation-going-away-party?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:b8be2a27-b8fd-4e27-84c6-d191601113c2Post:9154512d-a060-4f7a-8378-4cdc3092d26f">Re: Rules of invites for a combined engagement, graduation, going away party</a>:
[QUOTE]LeiselEB - That's sometimes true, but not always. <strong>If a couple gets engaged with no specific wedding date in mind, for instance, only 'sometime in 2014', and an engagement party gets thrown a month after they get engaged</strong>, <strong>there's every possibility that no major planning decisions have been made for the wedding</strong>. People are sometimes engaged for months before they even determine a budget for their own wedding, or decide how big it's going to be.
Posted by Sephiroth[/QUOTE]
Ok that's fine and dandy, but it doesn't change the fact that it's rude to invite someone to an engagement party and not to the wedding. Anyone invited to any pre-wedding parties, including engagement parties, must be invited to the wedding.

OP, just call it a graduation/going away party and you can invite anyone.

specialk84 · May 2012

This is why I don't like e-parties. Besides, in my experience, they're usually pretty small, and the guests are people who would be invited to even a tiny wedding.

Plus, OP, you aren't supposed to throw yourself an e-party. I suggest you skip it.

midgetthemighty · May 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_rules-of-invites-for-a-combined-engagement-graduation-going-away-party?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:b8be2a27-b8fd-4e27-84c6-d191601113c2Post:d0deefd1-75e1-4a5a-bd42-552f3c00bf74">Re: Rules of invites for a combined engagement, graduation, going away party</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Rules of invites for a combined engagement, graduation, going away party : Ok that's fine and dandy, but it doesn't change the fact that it's rude to invite someone to an engagement party and not to the wedding. Anyone invited to any pre-wedding parties, including engagement parties, must be invited to the wedding. OP, just call it a graduation/going away party and you can invite anyone.
Posted by mbody[/QUOTE]

Exactly. We didn't have an engagement party. Not the end of the world.

MrsKigerToBe · May 2012

Actually my family considers engagement parties themselves to be rude partially because none of the ones they attended had a guest list that consistent from engagement to wedding. They think they look gift grabby.

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