Maybe your college roommate just got engaged, but you find out a few months down the line that you’re not invited to the wedding. Maybe you’re the bride making terribly tough calls to shorten the guest list for the sake of your budget. You may have valid reasons not to invite someone to a wedding, but crafting your guest list is no easy feat. Perhaps the most difficult part is knowing that you’ll have to leave some people off, no matter how much you’d love to have them there. But what’s even more difficult is when a person who’s not invited to the wedding brings it up.
Etiquette demands that you be honest, straightforward, and mindful of their feelings, according to Lizzie Post (great-great-granddaughter of etiquette extraordinaire Emily Post) and Marcy Blum, world-famous wedding planner of over 35 years. The two share some of their personal etiquette tips for handling potentially awkward situations on either side of the invitation.
1. Your friends know not everyone can be invited to a wedding.
“We are all adults and we should know that we can’t all be invited to every single wedding of our friends or family members. I think when it comes to weddings, you absolutely have to consider the fact that the bride and groom are dealing with vendor capacity limits, they’re dealing with their parents’ requests—and the parents are paying—so sometimes, they may have to invite a blood relative they don’t see so often over you simply because they are obligated by their family,” says Post.
2. Be open and honest with friends you didn't invite.
“Like most things in life, you have to try to be as graceful as possible and decide, is this a friendship destroyer? Or can you find it in your heart to understand and let it go? And that is a case-by-case decision,” says Blum about not being invited. “But as you get older and smarter, you realize nothing makes it worse than not facing it. Take the friend out to lunch and say, ‘Listen, I know this really sucks. I’m sorry. I don’t want a gift from you. I don’t want anything. I just want to make sure that we’re still friends.’”
Says Post: “I really encourage guests and those who know friends who are not invited to the wedding to remember that this decision probably had very little to do with how much the bride or groom wanted you there and that it was probably a matter of logistics.”
3. Budget and space issues are valid reasons.
“I always tell my clients at the end of the day, assuming it’s not a budget issue, it’s not a space issue, then it’s just a who-you-want-there issue. People who are not invited are going to remember much, much longer that they weren't invited than you'll remember who was or wasn’t at your wedding. However, if it is, which often it is a budget or space issue, just be very honest,” says Blum.
“If you try to take the emotions out of it, it’s much more about being practical—they only have so many seats to work with, they have a small budget, et cetera. Don’t take it too personally if you weren’t invited,” says Post.
4. Thank the uninvited guest for the wedding gift, but don’t feel pressure to address the non-invitation.
“If the uninvited friend or family member sends a gift, you should definitely thank them, and the non-invite might be something that the bride or groom and friend may talk about, but there’s no obligation. It depends on your relationship with that person. As a bride or groom, you really should think about your relationship with that person but really at the end of the day, it’s your guest list, you are hosting, and it’s ultimately up to you and you don’t have to explain yourself,” says Post. “If you assess the situation and realize that person is particularly sensitive or it seems confusing, all you have to say is something like, ‘I really love you and wanted you to be there but, unfortunately, we had to make some really tough decisions and not being able to invite you was one of them and I hope you understand that.’”
5. It’s important to stand your ground.
“What we see happening all the time is people saying, ‘Oh, I’ve been going out with this guy for a month and you didn’t give me a plus-one, that must have been a mistake, right?’ And you respond with ‘No, that was on purpose, because unless you’re living with someone or you’re engaged, we're not giving plus-ones.’ You can’t be intimidated, because if you are, you’re going to wind up with another 400 guests that you didn’t have in mind,” says Blum.
6. Think of other ways to include the non-invited guests in your celebration.
“If you had something like 30 people that you weren’t able to invite to your wedding and you feel like you really want to celebrate with them and you feel bad, throw a second reception! That can mean a potluck, it can mean a backyard barbecue, it can mean a co*cktail party—it’s whatever you want it to be. If it’s a small amount of uninvited friends or family members, just have a lovely, intimate dinner all together a month or two after the wedding,” says Post.
7. Be gentle with people’s feelings, whether you're the bride or a guest.
“[As a guest], I think it's better to reach out and go ‘Look, I know you’re getting married. I’m so happy for you. I understand I’m not invited and I assume there are all sorts of reasons and it’s fine. And I just want you to know, I don’t want it to be weird,'" says Blum. “There’s very little to be lost by taking the high road.”
