Wedding Etiquette Forum

What, if anything, do we do about this?

Background: FH's groomsman cc'd me on the email he sent out to all the guys announcing the plan for his bachelor party. I have no need to know the details of his bachelor party, but the groomsman's decision to include me makes some sense. Since FH lives out of state now, the guys decided to plan his bachelor party around the day we had already set aside for him to fly in so we could get together with friends to brew beer for our wedding. (Several friends who are brewers are giving us that as a wedding gift. They offered to do the brewing with us at one of their houses, and suggested that maybe FH and I could provide lunch during the process.) So the day will now have guy stuff in the morning, then the previously planned co-ed get-together while we brew beer and I feed people lunch, then more guy stuff in the evening. The groomsman planning the bachelor party is not one of the brewers, but he invited the guys to the entire day's worth of events. I think the groomsman included me so I would know when they'd be back after the morning stuff and would be ready for brewing/lunch with the larger group.
 
Problem: In trying to determine how much lunch to make, I was looking at the to-line for the email for the bachelor party, and I noticed the groomsman included several guys who are not invited to our wedding. After asking FH, it appears the groomsman guessed at who all to invite without checking with him. I'm normally a pretty easy-going person, but I'm pretty grumpy about this. Our wedding invitations have already gone out, our hall is at capacity, so we can't fit six more people (it's a space issue, not a money issue). Even if it were possible to include these guys and their SOs after the fact (which would be rude in itself I think, because it's B-listing), both sets of parents would be pissed that they were invited instead of family/family friends we had to cut from the guest list early on. 
 
Now what?: Were this just his bachelor party, I would be telling myself not to care, because it's not my party, so I'm not the one being rude by inviting people not invited to the wedding. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't expect to give input on who got invited to FH's bachelor party. But the middle of the day is not his bachelor party, it's people actively helping us brew beer for our wedding. Granted, most of the people who aren't experienced brewers will likely just hang out and eat/drink, but I would never have invited someone to that who wouldn't get a chance to drink the result and celebrate at our wedding. I don't know if there's anything we can do about it, though. I'm not even sure it's worth informing the groomsman of his mistake, since he can't uninvite people. Is there a solution I'm not seeing? If not, what do we say to these people if they show up to brewing and ask where their invitation is?
 
Sorry this is terribly long and convoluted. I am not a succint explainer when I'm grumpy.

Re: What, if anything, do we do about this?

  • If it were me, I wouldn't stress over this.  It was your FI's friends fault, not yours.  So if anyone that comes who isn't invited to the wedding says anything about looking forward to it, just send them over the person in charge of inviting them to clear things up.  But I doubt they will ask.

  • If it were me, I wouldn't stress over this.  It was your FI's friends fault, not yours.  So if anyone that comes who isn't invited to the wedding says anything about looking forward to it, just send them over the person in charge of inviting them to clear things up.  But I doubt they will ask.
    Yeah, just because the person organizing the bach party committed a faux pas and invite ppl along that you aren't inviting to the wedding, doesn't mean you actually have to invite them to the wedding now.

    This seems to be a very common thing with guys though. . . my FI and some of his friends have been invited along to bach parties many times w/o being invited to the actual weddings.  Sure, it kind of rubbed FI the wrong way, but he didn't really care all that much at the time.

    "Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."


  • FI's BM invited his adult son to join them on his OOT bachelor party. His son is not invited to the wedding and BM said he knew that, but his son wanted to come. I let it go because it's not my party and I didn't issue the invites. I would just let it go if I were you. Hopefully they already know they aren't invited and they just want to come to party with your FI.
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  • Thanks! I think I just needed someone objective to tell me this one's out of my hands. I suppose that would happen pretty regularly among guys, and I shouldn't worried about the part I'm involved with getting caught in the middle.
  • usually anyone can attend those parties those not invited to the wedding can come and party as a way to celebrate the bride/groom last night of freedom
  • I'm going to say something sexist here, but men just don't always follow the same etiquette rules that women do. They might just enjoy hanging out and brewing beer and I can see why it would be awkward for the gm to ditch them for the bp after they helped with the beer.

    Too bad you asked for the list of names, instead of a number for the lunch headcount. I'd just let it go, since there's nothing you can really do about it. By the way, that was a great wedding gift from the guys.
                       
  • I'm going to say something sexist here, but men just don't always follow the same etiquette rules that women do. They might just enjoy hanging out and brewing beer and I can see why it would be awkward for the gm to ditch them for the bp after they helped with the beer.

    Too bad you asked for the list of names, instead of a number for the lunch headcount. I'd just let it go, since there's nothing you can really do about it. By the way, that was a great wedding gift from the guys.

    At this point I think I'm willing to chalk it up to guys following different etiquette rules. To be clear, the brewers were always expected to be invited to the bachelor parter afterwards. It was some other additions the GM made to the bachelor party, and thus the brewing too, that had me worried, since they're not on the wedding guest list. Oh well.....

    Yeah, I didn't ask for a name list. GM just happened to include me on the email about the bachelor party, so when I emailed him to ask for numbers for lunch and didn't get a response right away, I went to look at the to-line of that email to start getting an idea of how many to expect. I totally wish I was oblivious on this.

    The beer brewing is definitely an awesome gift. We have some amazing friends! (Including the non-brewing, bachelor-party-planning GM, who was probably just distracted and/or excited and didn't think it through).

  • phiraphira member
    5000 Comments 500 Love Its Second Anniversary 5 Answers
    I'm going to say something sexist here, but men just don't always follow the same etiquette rules that women do. They might just enjoy hanging out and brewing beer and I can see why it would be awkward for the gm to ditch them for the bp after they helped with the beer.

    Too bad you asked for the list of names, instead of a number for the lunch headcount. I'd just let it go, since there's nothing you can really do about it. By the way, that was a great wedding gift from the guys.
    I mean, it's not sexist to say that men are not socialized to follow etiquette the same way women are socialized to follow etiquette.
    Anniversary
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  • guys do not understand how it all works and that it is "rude." My husband is going to a guys bachelor party this weekend and we are not invited to their wedding.  The groom is a friend of H's brother (best man for this wedding) H knows the guy so it is not totally random and the groom told BIL to invite H if he wants. It is just a bunch of guys going camping for the weekend.  If it were H spending a crapload of money I would say hey pre-wedding parties are technically for guests of the wedding, but I know my H, BIL and their friends could care less and will not take it personal that he is not invited to the actual wedding, so I just said ok have fun! 
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    Anniversary

  • anjuli116 said:
    I'm going to say something sexist here, but men just don't always follow the same etiquette rules that women do. They might just enjoy hanging out and brewing beer and I can see why it would be awkward for the gm to ditch them for the bp after they helped with the beer.

    Too bad you asked for the list of names, instead of a number for the lunch headcount. I'd just let it go, since there's nothing you can really do about it. By the way, that was a great wedding gift from the guys.

    At this point I think I'm willing to chalk it up to guys following different etiquette rules. To be clear, the brewers were always expected to be invited to the bachelor parter afterwards. It was some other additions the GM made to the bachelor party, and thus the brewing too, that had me worried, since they're not on the wedding guest list. Oh well.....

    Yeah, I didn't ask for a name list. GM just happened to include me on the email about the bachelor party, so when I emailed him to ask for numbers for lunch and didn't get a response right away, I went to look at the to-line of that email to start getting an idea of how many to expect. I totally wish I was oblivious on this.

    The beer brewing is definitely an awesome gift. We have some amazing friends! (Including the non-brewing, bachelor-party-planning GM, who was probably just distracted and/or excited and didn't think it through).

    I'll be glass-half-full on this, I guess because I'm just having that kind of day… 

    If you're anything like me (and your worry about this says maybe you are), you would have probably had this freakout when these men showed up at your house and you wouldn't have had anyone to talk to and (if you're a LOT like me) maybe said something awkward to them. So, at least now you'll be prepared. And, if it were me, I would *pretend* to be oblivious because, after all, it's still not your fault!
  • @SarahRN87 You're right. That's precisely how it would go down. If I was oblivious, they would show up to brew without me knowing, and I would immediately exude awkwardness. In my surprise, I'd probably spit out something like "Oh!... Hi!.... You're here!" followed by a possibly audible "dangit" (meant as "dangit, this is a terrible etiquette situation", but perceive as "dangit, why am I forced to look at your face?"). It's probably better that I have the opportunity to prepare.

    Thanks for the glass-half-full! I needed some of that today. :-)
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