I'm looking for some insight on culture clashing etiquette. I've mentioned before that my FI is Dutch and we're getting married in Holland, and there have been some interesting culture snafus in the planning process, namely the etiquette portion.
We are, for the most part, following a pretty typical American (okay, Canadian) style wedding. Early into the planning phase we had a grueling guest list discussion where it was uncovered that tiered wedding receptions are the norm and expectation here. Basically every Dutch wedding website and venue referenced having a day-list (i.e. Invited to everything) and a party-list (i.e. Invited after the dinner portion of the reception). I told FI it was considered very rude in my culture, and we weren't going to treat my guests or our mutual friends that way. He agreed, and asked about his colleagues, who would typically be invited as party guests. To play Devil's Advocate, I asked him which colleagues he didn't want as day guests, and when he could only come up with 2 or 3 names, he conceded that having a party guest list consisting of two would make those individuals feel singled out. FI has been working in the same team for about a decade now, is extremely close to many members on his team, and I figured our hypothetical party list wasn't going to be very long.
Fast forward a couple months and FI's position is disappearing within the organization due to cutbacks. As a shot in the dark he applied for a different position and we were very surprised that he actually got it. Now he's managing a team of 30, and he comes to me again suggesting a tiered guest list for his new team. He still wants his old team invited to the whole thing, but feels that the new team -- now that there's 30 of them -- should receive an invite to the party. I've tasked him with research, and so far the unanimous response is that it's considered acceptable here, but I still feel icky about it. There's no way to invite an additional 30 people including SOs to the whole thing. So, here are the scenarios I'm tossing around in my head:
-They're his guests, his culture, and he can make the call. I trust him to understand that to be effective in his job he needs to have the respect from his team, and therefore trust him not to jeopardize that.
-Tell him no (not that this actually works, as evidenced by the PS4 sitting in our living room), and that we are following Canadian wedding etiquette.
-Give it time, and maybe find a way to squeeze in some extra colleagues should he become particularly close to anyone on his new team.
Oh, as one last aside apparently inviting to SOs of colleagues isn't necessary either, and he's started hinting he doesn't want to invite all SOs. My research into this isn't as thorough, but I know the one wedding website I reference has a section on how to address invitations, and gives examples of addressing them to colleagues when you don't want to invite their partner.