So, as back story, my whole family is in CA and my fiance's are in NYC (and 99% of our friends are in NYC). We had an engagement party with my family back in California already when he was out here, but no one from the east coast side of things was able to attend. (Honestly, I'm sad things have to be so separate for cost reasons.)
I know that you're not supposed to host your engagement party, but we're trying to keep costs down, and the only cheap space, given how TINY apartments in NYC are, is to have it in my fiance's building's lounge. It has a TV, outdoor space, pool table, etc, and the building lets you rent it out for a couple hours with just a $200 deposit that you get back if nothing gets damaged. It's on an entirely different floor so it's not connected to his apartment at all except that it's in the same building.
I think it could be fun, but is it too weird? Would it look like we're hosting it even if it were his family and our friends who planned it? (We're a super casual group so I think it would be a FB invite for our friends and probably his mom would call the elderly relatives, so no paper invites with "so and so invites you to such and such.")
whatshouldwecallweddings.tumblr.com