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Wedding Etiquette Forum
Guest List Crisis
Thank you everyone for the good advice.
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Re: Guest List Crisis
1. Pair down your wedding so you can afford to have all those people you invited, whatever that means. And don't give us the BS about how you can't afford that. Get married at 2pm, get some veggie trays and cake from Publix, and call it a day.
2. Cancel the wedding, send out mailings to that effect, then replan with a significantly paired down guest list at a later time. If you are going to go that route, then you are going to have to deal with people asking questions, and you are going to come off as super rude if that replanning doesn't cut down the guest list significantly.
And just as an FYI, if you think that you are never going to see or hear from those former coworkers and that makes it okay to burn bridges, you are dead wrong. If you plan on working ever again, you are going to learn that it is a small, small world and whatever you do is going to come back to bite you in the butt.
Also, off topic, why did you quit your job without the prospect of a new one and then fix to burning bridges with the very people who could serve as references? You don't have to answer, but I'm genuinely curious when people do stuff like that.
You invited 30+ coworkers to your bridal shower?
You canceled the entire shower because your coworkers didn't respond? What about the other guests?
You sent STDs to a large number of people and then never send them wedding invites?
You quit your job without having any prospects on the horizon and now can't afford to host people you already invited?
This!!!
The person who's calling to ask for the info - likely cares in real world terms what happens to you (and probably wishes they had the gonzos to do what you did but can't). Yes, give them the details and ask if they're bringing a SO. As others have said, be careful when burning bridges, "It's a small world" really is the case in far too many industries! Even if the quitting of that job went down like the Titanic, things have a crazy way of coming around.
Unless someone else contacts you, I'd just leave the sleeping dog lie here after this person. I'm going to assume that the 30 STD/invites were "Courtesy Invites" as per office norm for that company/business decorum and since you've cut ties, it means you're no longer obligated if that was in fact the case. If you were inviting them because of legit "I'd love them there" and not "unwritten office policy", get the invites out ASAP.
P.S. The best baby shower I ever attended had four of us in attendance, it's not how many attend it's your attitude...
Cancel the wedding and send out notices. Elope, or postpone. Focus on getting a new job, and then plan something you can completely afford up-front so you're not in the position to make the same mistake again.
Apologize to them, and ask if they were planning on coming to your wedding. (I wouldn't. I would have written you off as a self centered, bad mannered girl.) If they say that they were planning on coming, you need to make a place for them, and welcome them.
is it just me or does it sound like she (or maybe someone else) planned a coworker shower for her? because otherwise I don't see why you would cancel just because those people couldn't make it and presumably others could. and especially if you don't really care if they come anyway. so weird.
another reason why you only invite coworkers you truly care about and are friends with outside of work
As I read it, my first thought was "Noooooo, right when you are looking for work (and should be working your network, hard) is the absolute last time you'd want to start burning bridges." Not even burning, more like blowing those bridges up.
Maybe I'm just tired this morning, but none of this makes any sense. Were the coworkers the only people invited to the shower? Why did you quit your job if you couldn't afford the wedding without it? Like, were you in danger of being indicted or something, and you couldn't hang on a couple more months until the expenses were covered?
Maybe it's just me, but this is like the M.C. Escher of posts: the closer I look, the less sense it all makes.
If you want to thank subsequent posters for good advice, just do it in another post in the same thread.
If it's still a ways off and there's time to invite people, I would.
If these people really have written you off and don't care about you anymore, they will either decline or not respond to your wedding invitation either. And that means you won't have to pay for them anyway.
If some do respond yes, then it means there were still bridges there you don't want to burn.