Circle of friend issues

Re: Circle of friend issues

• mlg78 member

  

  January 2015

  Do you really want to be the one to break the trend of inviting all of this circle to a wedding?  250 is a lot.  There's nobody else that can be cut???

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• SP29 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  No you don't NEED to invite Molly and Jen- whom you invite is entirely up to you. However, realize that there may be some hurt feelings. And that is fine if you are fine with that. It's pretty reasonable to invite friends you are actually close with over friends whom you do not associate with one on one, but it still could be awkward for them if they view you all as "the group". Generally advised to invite in circles. 

  
  

  I would consider whether there are others whom you are not so close with that you would invite Molly and Jen instead. However, this is totally up to you and the stance you want to take on your friendship. 
  

  
  

  Myself- I can understand where you are coming from, as DH and I have people that we were good friends with in high school and undergrad that we drifted apart from when we moved out of province- we occasionally saw these people from time and time, and nothing bad happened to end the friendship, we just grew apart. We sort of made a "rule"- if we haven't seen or talked to someone (like at all) in a year, we weren't going to invite them. 

  
  

  I still have a group of friends from high school that I hang out with. Some that I am closer to than others. I think if someone whom I wasn't really close with (ie. we only saw each other in group settings) didn't invite me, that it wouldn't bother me. I would realize that we just aren't that close- and that's OK. However, if one of my friends who I *thought* I was close with didn't invite me, I wouldn't raise a stink about it, but I would be a bit hurt. Mostly because *I* thought we were good friends, but the other person obviously didn't. 

  
  

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• saric83 member

  

  January 2015

  You certainly don't have to invite them, but then you have to accept and deal with any hurt feelings and know that it can bust up the overall group.  

  
  

  But honestly, my first thought was more about why are you still emailing with these women about your life if you would consider 250 other people before them?

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• esstee33 member

  

  January 2015

  No, you don't have to invite them. BUT -- you're the one who's going to have to deal with the backlash when you all get together as a group and they're hurt and reminded over and over that you invited everyone but them. 

  
  

  250 is a ton of people. I'm sure you can find room for them somewhere. Your future self will probably be super grateful to not have to deal with the resentment likely to result in not doing so. 

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• JCbride2015 member

  

  January 2015

  chloe97 said:

  I have a circle of about 7 college friends that have kept in touch for the last 15 years. We all live in different cities and get together every 1-3 years and will regularly send group emails to give updates about life off facebook. Of those 7 friends, 5 of those girls I consider to be my nearest, dearest and oldest friends. The other 2 girls, I will call Molly and Jen, I see only when the entire group gets together and we have never gone out of way to get together when the whole group wasn't getting together. 

  
  

  The first wedding in the group happened about 12 years ago and she invited the entire group of friends, most of whom were single at the time. Since that time, everyone has always gotten an invite to each other's wedding- I am the 6th out of the 7 of us getting married. Though she can be fun in a group, Molly has a very biting personality and has made some very rude comments to me. I was invited to her wedding, but could not attend. Jen is sweet, but I've just never been close to her. I really do not feel the need to invite them to my wedding. I've run this by 3 of my other girlfriends from the group that are married and they all say that they had similar thoughts about members of the group, but ultimately all decided that they needed to invite them to their weddings because feelings would be hurt.       

  
  

  Our venue has a max 250 capacity and we are forced with having to make hard decisions about who or who not to invite. Inviting Molly and Jen means that I can't invite 2 of my guy friends associated with this college group who I have been much closer to and would much rather attend my wedding, but certainly would understand if they were not on the list. Do I need to invite Molly and Jen?    

  
  

  ETA- I should note that all of these people are either married or in serious relationships so they will be invited with guests.

  You don't HAVE to invite them, no.  But wow, 250 is a lot and it seems like there should be wiggle room for 2 (or 4) guests somewhere in there.  These are literally the last two on your list and the college guy friends are the next last two?  Well, I suppose if you are really up to the limit somebody's got to be on the border...

  
  

  Honestly, I would invite the two who are part of the same friend circle.  It would spare their hurt feelings and avoid any awkward conversations with the other friends.

  
  

  Speaking of, it was probably a really bad idea to ask your other friends about inviting these two women.  Hopefully they will have the tact not to mention that you were considering not inviting them because it would be really hurtful if they found out you discussed this.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  "I'm not a rude bitch.  I'm ten rude bitches in a large coat."

  
  

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• chloe97 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  Thanks for the insight! The 2 friends I talked to totally understand my position since they were in the same position with their weddings and I completely trust their discretion. It is crazy to think that these are last "4 spots" but I have 85+ family members on the list and FI has around the same, by the time you add in our close friends, our parents friends, coworkers, etc it's getting up there. My FI has never met Jen and Molly and dislikes Molly based on some rude things she's said to me, which is why I originally had left her off the list. FI loves my 2 guy friends which is why they are on the list. I know In the long run it is better to suck it up and invite them, but it just sucks knowing there are people who we would rather have there.

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• huskypuppy14 member

  

  January 2015

  I am going against what everyone else said. From your post, it doesn't sound like you are that good friends with these two ladies, so I wouldn't invite them. 

  
  

  I wasn't invited to a friends wedding, when pretty much our entire friend's group (that I see multiple times a year, we all live nearby) was invited. It didn't bother me, and I still invited her and her husband to my wedding. 

  
  

  People should act like adults and realize they are not invited to everything. Especially to people's weddings that you only see every other year or so.

  
  

  My youngest sister and I invited the same family members to our respective weddings. Our other sister is not inviting everyone that we invited (she's also having a smaller wedding, though). 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• WhatawagSBNy member

  

  January 2015

  chloe97 said:

  I have a circle of about 7 college friends that have kept in touch for the last 15 years. We all live in different cities and get together every 1-3 years and will regularly send group emails to give updates about life off facebook. Of those 7 friends, 5 of those girls I consider to be my nearest, dearest and oldest friends. The other 2 girls, I will call Molly and Jen, I see only when the entire group gets together and we have never gone out of way to get together when the whole group wasn't getting together. 

  
  

  The first wedding in the group happened about 12 years ago and she invited the entire group of friends, most of whom were single at the time. Since that time, everyone has always gotten an invite to each other's wedding- I am the 6th out of the 7 of us getting married. Though she can be fun in a group, Molly has a very biting personality and has made some very rude comments to me. I was invited to her wedding, but could not attend. Jen is sweet, but I've just never been close to her. I really do not feel the need to invite them to my wedding. I've run this by 3 of my other girlfriends from the group that are married and they all say that they had similar thoughts about members of the group, but ultimately all decided that they needed to invite them to their weddings because feelings would be hurt.       

  
  

  Our venue has a max 250 capacity and we are forced with having to make hard decisions about who or who not to invite. Inviting Molly and Jen means that I can't invite 2 of my guy friends associated with this college group who I have been much closer to and would much rather attend my wedding, but certainly would understand if they were not on the list. Do I need to invite Molly and Jen?    

  
  

  ETA- I should note that all of these people are either married or in serious relationships so they will be invited with guests.

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  Time passes and with it any obligation to invite all members af a small group to avoid the feeling you excluded one or two.
  
  If your only actual contact with people you do not feel close to is group e mails, face book etc. and meeting at other peoples' weddings and parties, these women are former friends now acquaintances. The traditional etiquette test is, if you have not invited them to your home or gone to theirs for three years, not because of obstacles like distance but because you don't enjoy each others company enough to go out of your way as individuals, separate from the group, then there is no social obligation to invite them. Anyone who questions it is a trouble making gossip.
  
  If you had to invite every member of every small group you are in forever, not just those who stay good friends, by the time you are forty five you will have to have 850 people to dinner in order to have a party for the thirty you are genuinely fond of.
  
  Etiquette is not supposed to defy common sense. Invite the two guys and SO you really want.

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• Jen4948 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  Just invite the ones you want to invite and their SOs. If Molly's and Jen's feelings, or anyone else's feelings, are hurt that they aren't invited, they need to grow up and get over it.

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• Fran1985 member

  

  January 2015

  You are inviting coworkers over your two close guy friends and these two?
  
  I am usually big on only inviting who you want to invite, but this seems like its going to cause problems if you don't invite them. But I would def find a way to get your guy friends in there too.
  

  
  
  

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• thisismynickname2 member

  

  January 2015

  huskypuppy14 said:

  I am going against what everyone else said. From your post, it doesn't sound like you are that good friends with these two ladies, so I wouldn't invite them. 

  
  

  I wasn't invited to a friends wedding, when pretty much our entire friend's group (that I see multiple times a year, we all live nearby) was invited. It didn't bother me, and I still invited her and her husband to my wedding. 

  
  

  People should act like adults and realize they are not invited to everything. Especially to people's weddings that you only see every other year or so.

  
  

  My youngest sister and I invited the same family members to our respective weddings. Our other sister is not inviting everyone that we invited (she's also having a smaller wedding, though). 

  I agree with this. At my husband's request we didn't invite two couples we see fairly frequently in his circle. I like them, but he doesn't really. If they were hurt, they were adults and still act normally in gatherings. A third couple in the distant circle that we didn't inivite? Just invited us to theirs.
  I felt extremely awkward, for the record. But DH's friends, his call.
  We figure if we don't see you socially on our own within the last few years we're not close enough to invite to a wedding, circle or no circle.

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• RebeccaFlower member

  

  January 2015

  This is hard. Reading this, I totally get it. However, there's a reason why your already married didn't rock the boat. I think that if you do it now, there's bound to be lots of hurt feelings. You just have to gauge how much you care, I suppose. If I were you, I would invite them because I'd feel bad.

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• WhatawagSBNy member

  

  January 2015

  Part of the social contract, the spirit of the rules of etiquette, is understanding that things change in relationships over time.
  One's closest friends now may seem a forever thing, but in a few years things change, and people cannot be expected to always reciprocate after a long period of time, or in very different circumstances.

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• chloe97 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  WhatawagSBNy said:

  ------ Time passes and with it any obligation to invite all members af a small group to avoid the feeling you excluded one or two. If your only actual contact with people you do not feel close to is group e mails, face book etc. and meeting at other peoples' weddings and parties, these women are former friends now acquaintances. The traditional etiquette test is, if you have not invited them to your home or gone to theirs for three years, not because of obstacles like distance but because you don't enjoy each others company enough to go out of your way as individuals, separate from the group, then there is no social obligation to invite them. Anyone who questions it is a trouble making gossip. If you had to invite every member of every small group you are in forever, not just those who stay good friends, by the time you are forty five you will have to have 850 people to dinner in order to have a party for the thirty you are genuinely fond of. Etiquette is not supposed to defy common sense. Invite the two guys and SO you really want.
  

  I like this. It's very helpful to explain to people if we decide not to invite Jen and Molly. I think that we will probably in the end invite them rather than rock the boat, but it's tough. I've worked with my 5 coworkers for 9-10 years or more than a 1/4 of my life. I see them every day and they are important people in my life. Even though we don't hang out socially, I could not imagine not inviting them. 5 of the 250 are very young family members, so I am going to talk to our wedding coordinator about whether we can squeeze in high chairs next to their parents and invite 254, in case all 254 do RSVP "yes".   

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• badbnagdway member

  

  January 2015

  chloe97 said:

  WhatawagSBNy said:

  ------ Time passes and with it any obligation to invite all members af a small group to avoid the feeling you excluded one or two. If your only actual contact with people you do not feel close to is group e mails, face book etc. and meeting at other peoples' weddings and parties, these women are former friends now acquaintances. The traditional etiquette test is, if you have not invited them to your home or gone to theirs for three years, not because of obstacles like distance but because you don't enjoy each others company enough to go out of your way as individuals, separate from the group, then there is no social obligation to invite them. Anyone who questions it is a trouble making gossip. If you had to invite every member of every small group you are in forever, not just those who stay good friends, by the time you are forty five you will have to have 850 people to dinner in order to have a party for the thirty you are genuinely fond of. Etiquette is not supposed to defy common sense. Invite the two guys and SO you really want.
  

  I like this. It's very helpful to explain to people if we decide not to invite Jen and Molly. I think that we will probably in the end invite them rather than rock the boat, but it's tough. I've worked with my 5 coworkers for 9-10 years or more than a 1/4 of my life. I see them every day and they are important people in my life. Even though we don't hang out socially, I could not imagine not inviting them. 5 of the 250 are very young family members, so I am going to talk to our wedding coordinator about whether we can squeeze in high chairs next to their parents and invite 254, in case all 254 do RSVP "yes".   

  Do not explain to people why they were not invited. If they ask, or if one of the other friends ask, you just say, "Unfortunately, we couldn't invite everyone." Leave it at that. It is not very nice to explain, eh, I don't like you that much anymore. 

  
  

  Also do not invite over capacity, even if it is 4 children. Find out what your venue's actual capacity is. This means the number of people who can be in the space under the fire code, not the number of chairs in the room. Vendors count towards capacity too -- so people like servers, your photographer and dj are all people who are in the room and who count against the fire code capacity. Whatever your capacity is you should take that into account and not invite more people like that including the vendors. 

  
  

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• [Deleted User] member

  

  January 2015

  I also have a college group of 7 girls who were all close back in the day.  At A's wedding a few years back, J and I realized that we don't really like each other.  We are, of course, cordial in group settings and were awesome co-bridesmaids at A's wedding.  I'd been invited to J's house with the group and we got along just fine.  But we have very similar personalities and find each other jarring.  I would never invite J to my wedding and she would never feel insulted about it.  But we know we're not friends.  If Molly and Jen think they're closer to you than you are to them, you may have problems in the future.  But then, if you're okay with that...

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• WhatawagSBNy member

  

  January 2015

  Mom told me a story. She and one of the six women who shared a house for five years of college and grad school never got along, never liked each other. And were always polite enough to not drag down the other ladies. Years of meeting at the group members weddings, then their kids weddings.
  After seeing all the others at least once or twice a year, separately and not just in a group, MOM ran into this woman at a professional. Meeting, and on front of a group of people said, Jana, all our friends have invited me to their kids parties and weddings, but I hear the last of your brood of 8 is married and I have never had a single invitation from you.
  
  Of course onlookers are watching, conversation around them has stopped.
  
  So Mom said, we never were the best of friends.
  
  And Elizabet said, well luckily, I won' need an invitation to go to your funeral. And believe you me, I'm going to be there.
  Then she did a little fingerwave. And walked away.
  

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• thisismynickname2 member

  

  January 2015

   So Mom said, we never were the best of friends. And Elizabet said, well luckily, I won' need an invitation to go to your funeral. And believe you me, I'm going to be there. Then she did a little fingerwave. And walked away.
  

  WTF????? Gosh!

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• WhatawagSBNy member

  

  January 2015

  My mother always said her dislike was because Elizabet was always, deliberately and often hurtfully confrontational. The others all thought it was just an odd sense of humor.
  I've met the woman briefly a hundred times when younger and never realized the level of animosity.
  

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• huskypuppy14 member

  

  January 2015

  WhatawagSBNy said:

  Mom told me a story. She and one of the six women who shared a house for five years of college and grad school never got along, never liked each other. And were always polite enough to not drag down the other ladies. Years of meeting at the group members weddings, then their kids weddings. After seeing all the others at least once or twice a year, separately and not just in a group, MOM ran into this woman at a professional. Meeting, and on front of a group of people said, Jana, all our friends have invited me to their kids parties and weddings, but I hear the last of your brood of 8 is married and I have never had a single invitation from you. Of course onlookers are watching, conversation around them has stopped. So Mom said, we never were the best of friends. And Elizabet said, well luckily, I won' need an invitation to go to your funeral. And believe you me, I'm going to be there. Then she did a little fingerwave. And walked away.

  I know this is beside the point of this story, but FFS some people don't invite their parent's best friends to their wedding, why would they invite someone their Mom doesn't even like. So stupid.

  
  

   Elizabeth needs to get over herself.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• WhatawagSBNy member

  

  January 2015

  Like the original poster. I don' t see why she worries about not inviting someone she does not like and never has, who does not like her. Or why she would invite her instead of someone she really wants. But clear lots of people think she should , because of what they think other people will say. It is beyond my understanding.

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