Work Invite Etiquette

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

I work in a small office. We have 7 employees in the branch I work at including myself. I was not planning on inviting any of my co-workers. We all get along but rarely do we do things outside of the office as friends. If I invited anyone it would be my boss (the owner) and his wife. Maybe one other co-worker that I am friendly with and his live in girlfriend. What is the etiquette on this? If I invite one do I have to invite all?

monkeysip · June 2014

Etiquette does not require you to invite any or all of them. It would be perfectly fine just to invite one or two of them. At the same time, however, you have to judge what kinds of problems it could cause in your working dynamic. Would any of them get their feelings hurt? You'll just have to think about how badly you want to invite them and what problems it could cause, if any. For the record, I think it'd ridiculous when any adult gets their feelings hurt over not receiving a wedding invitation. BUT... some do, so you just have to keep that in mind.

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

Ok I didn't know if there was specific rules regarding this. I would never be offended if someone didn't invite me, but invited others. I honestly don't have the room to add 14 additional people. Maybe for the 4 I mentioned, but not two tables more.

Jen4948 · June 2014

The only rules of etiquette are: 1) Everyone in a relationship has to be invited with their partner 2) No discussing the wedding in the presence of those not invited You could invite just the boss and his wife, plus your friend and his wife. If you were going to invite all your co-workers except one or two, I think the vast majority of people here would suggest you also invite those one or two other co-workers in order to avoid hurt feelings. And @monkeysip is correct that leaving anyone out could have a negative effect on your relationships with your co-workers and work situation in general. I personally would probably not invite anyone from my office.

melbenso · June 2014

Nope. I also work in a small office (10 employees other than me). Originally, I intended to invite all of my coworkers, but our budget wouldn't allow it. I only ended up inviting those coworkers that I spend time with outside of work (one from my office and one from another one of our offices). Rather than coworkers, I just mentally categorized them friends as I happen to work with.

I second PPs suggestions re: not talking about the wedding at work if you go this route. I never bring up my wedding. When other people ask, I give simple, polite answers to their questions and move on. I don't think anyone in my office other than the invited coworker knew the exact date of my wedding until last week, when saying "I'm getting married in June" no longer worked since it already was June.

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

Well two of them I definitely don't talk to. One because we just don't work in the same area. And the other, well because other than work related stuff I can't stand having a conversation with. I usually don't say anything about the wedding as I'm usually in my office and go out to run errands at lunch.

princessleia22 · June 2014

I think it would be fine to invite just your boss. I work in an office with 7 other people. I invited 3 of them to my wedding, since they are the ones I would actually consider friends... even though we really don't do anything outside of work. The others are people I have very little contact with, so I wouldn't think it would bother them since we aren't close anyway. But, I agree that you should avoid discussing wedding stuff at work around non-invited guests.

If you were planning to invite all but one or two, it may be a bit of a sticky situation, since it would look like you are singling people out to leave off list. But, if you plan to just invite one or two people, that shouldn't be a problem at all. And I would completely understand if a coworker just invited the boss, since that is often the most important work relationship, and wouldn't feel left out of weird about it at all.

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

Were the people you didn't invite offended? I think if I do it will only be my boss and his wife, who happens to be one of the 7 people we work with and the one I consider a friend.

melbenso · June 2014

To the best of my knowledge, no, they weren't offended. I actually think my boss is relieved (he doesn't really like social situations). I did have one coworker from another office, who have socialized with a little in the past but not recently, mention it at a recent larger work gathering. She's the only person from work who brought up the "I didn't get invited" thing.

I just explained to her that we couldn't afford to invite all the people from my job that we wanted to. Between my in-office coworkers and coworkers I know from other offices, it would have added on about 50 people. (20 from my office alone if you count their SOs.) I think she was disappointed, but she said she understood.

Pretty much everyone else has just wished me well or asked if I was going on a honeymoon right after the wedding.

ETA paragraphs

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

My plan is to just quietly mail the invitations when the time comes and not bring it up or discuss it at all at work. My FI on the other hand...Ay ye ye...He told all of them when he was getting ready to propose to me. Blabbed about it to the older ladies he works with. I think it's adorable that he is excited, but he works in a large office...I am not having a work wedding! I sent him a finalized rough draft of the invitation today and before I could even get a response he had already showed it to one of the ladies he works with.

stepslh · June 2014

I would just invite your boss and your one other work friend (because those are the people you truly want to spend your special day with). Just ask them not to talk about it with the other people.

Also, as far as the other people, you could tell them you'll bring them some wedding cake or photos so they see that you care. I'm sure the other people won't be offended, because they probably know they aren't close with you either.

I think people only get offended at not being invited if they feel like they are close to you.

downtondiva · June 2014

I think your plan to invite just your boss and one co-worker your close with is fine. In any office (big or small), the key thing is to be discreet when it comes to discussing the wedding while at work. Even if people aren't offended at not being invited, it's still kind of rude to discuss a big event they're not invited to in front of them.

The other thing I'd say when it comes to inviting people from work (to a wedding or anything else) is that you should never exclude only one or two people from your team, especially at a very small workplace. That is a situation that could end up causing serious problems.

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

Yes well I had a conversation this weekend with my FBIL and I'm seriously about ready to throw this whole wedding down the tubes! We are already at 100 people which is where we wanted to be. And that only includes family and close/wedding party friends friends. My FI has one older woman at work that he speaks with regarding our engagement and wedding. He has one guy that use to work in the same department with FI but has been promoted and is still close with FI. I said that we would probably be inviting those two people. FBIL then informed me that we would need to invite everyone that FI works with. FI & FBIL work for the same company. I don't have the room or the money to do that. It's about 15-20 more people. We made the plans to host what we could afford. Nice, but not lavish catered food, open bar but not top shelf/premium. I really wanted to say that if HE wants to invite those co-workers then HE needs to come up with the funds for it. I've already trimmed people that I would have liked to invite to keep it in line, I'm not trimming family for co-workers.

melbenso · June 2014

onlyjamielynn said:

FBIL then informed me that we would need to invite everyone that FI works with. FI & FBIL work for the same company. I don't have the room or the money to do that. It's about 15-20 more people.

I'd be tempted to ask FBIL when you can expect his monetary contribution to your wedding planning fund if he thinks he gets a say in who you invite.

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

Trust me I had to bite my tongue real real REAL hard on that one. Although I'm thinking the look of shock on my face could not have been mistaken!

peachy13 · June 2014

I have a similar situation, working with seven others on my team at work in a large office. I was thinking of just inviting my two bosses as a courtesy. But, then I would have to invite their dates (a husband and a boyfriend), not to mention how uncomfortable I know I would feel if either of them were to mention my wedding in front of the rest of five other people on our team. So do I invite all seven of them with dates, bringing up my guest list to 14 people I hadn't intended to invite (including their dates who I don't even know)? Unfortunately I'm not going to invite any of them, it makes things easier in my case. Go ahead and invite your boss if you want but just remember that word WILL get out to the rest of your office that only your boss was invited, and it might cause your co-workers to have a bad taste in their mouths.

onlyjamielynn · June 2014

I'm not even worried about it at my work. It's mostly engineering guys that could care less. We are at our limit of hosting people and doing it properly. I just didn't like the comment from my FBIL about how we "have" to invite all the people my FI works with. Unless FBIL is paying that tab do not tell me who we must invite.

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