Guest Etiquette: When You're Not Invited to the Wedding
Wednesday March 1, 2006
Office politics can create some sticky situations, especially when you're not invited to a coworkers wedding. Weddings reader HelloThere06 writes in our forums:
I work with a group of 20 people.One of the female workers is getting married. I have (at least I thought I did) a good relationship with this person. She recently passed out invitations to everyone else (people that she is close with but also others that she doesn't really have any contact or relationship with) in the group except for me. All day, the group talks about it or I hear her making plans for the wedding as she sits in cubicle next to my cubicle. It is obvious to most that I am only one not invited. It is embarrassing and I don't understand it. Recently, we are in meeting where everyone is talking and debating about this event (including our bosses) and it is blatant and evident that I have been excluded. How do I handle this situation in a professional/best way? Am I required to participate in any events that relate to this event? Like a meeting that has been scheduled to have a work bridal shower?
How would you handle this situation? Ordinarily I'd say to accept the fact that you didn't get invited, but to try to put your best and most professional foot forward. Go to the bridal shower, wish her well, and try to forget about it. But it really does sound in this case like there might have been a mixup. Perhaps it would be best to find another coworker who can casually ask if everyone in the group is invited to the wedding. That way, if indeed the omission was intentional, a messy confrontation is avoided so that your working relationship can be preserved. What do you other readers think? Am I right or totally off base? Sound off in the weddings forums!
I work with a group of 20 people.One of the female workers is getting married. I have (at least I thought I did) a good relationship with this person. She recently passed out invitations to everyone else (people that she is close with but also others that she doesn't really have any contact or relationship with) in the group except for me. All day, the group talks about it or I hear her making plans for the wedding as she sits in cubicle next to my cubicle. It is obvious to most that I am only one not invited. It is embarrassing and I don't understand it. Recently, we are in meeting where everyone is talking and debating about this event (including our bosses) and it is blatant and evident that I have been excluded. How do I handle this situation in a professional/best way? Am I required to participate in any events that relate to this event? Like a meeting that has been scheduled to have a work bridal shower?
How would you handle this situation? Ordinarily I'd say to accept the fact that you didn't get invited, but to try to put your best and most professional foot forward. Go to the bridal shower, wish her well, and try to forget about it. But it really does sound in this case like there might have been a mixup. Perhaps it would be best to find another coworker who can casually ask if everyone in the group is invited to the wedding. That way, if indeed the omission was intentional, a messy confrontation is avoided so that your working relationship can be preserved. What do you other readers think? Am I right or totally off base? Sound off in the weddings forums!
Comments
I am currently haaving the same issue with a female coworker. People that don’t even know her got an invitation, and I did not. I thought we were friends and offered to help her plan her wedding and shower, and offered to dance at her wedding. It’s now 2 days before her wedding and I sent her an email explaining that I am disappointed and hurt, that I don’t want to attend the wedding, but that I wish her and her new life all the bleesings they deserve. She immediately walked over to my desk with an invitation, which I still don’t want. My mind ran across the possibility of attending, when I looked at the envelope only to see that my name was spelled incorrectly. I do know that I will not be going to that wedding.
I was in a similar situation. I was not invited to a friend’s, but many of our other friends were. I don’t know if I was forgotten, but I found out when the day of the wedding was after it had occured. I guess it really hit home when I saw many of our friends in a wedding picture together. I guess I was never a part of the group to begin with.
I wasn’t invited to a coworker’s wedding but all my other work friends were. They were not only invited but also asked to be in the wedding. Whenever we had lunch together everyone (except me) would talk about the wedding. I was excluded and felt hurt. I wasn’t close to her like the others but I did talk to her when she was around.
My brother and I designed an invitation (in our own time, for free) for a co-worker’s engagement party. We didn’t get invited the end, but we found the best way of ‘handling’ the ’situation’ was to complain to all the other co-workers, especially the ones that did get to go. It made my brother and I feel a little better about things. Me and my brother love karma.
My former coworker got engaged while we were working together, we were pretty good friends, after a few months of his new job he needed a favor from me and i did it promptly, also in that email he wrote that he would invite me to his wedding.
I still havent received an invite and I know other people who are part of their family have received them
Am I forgotten or do married people not invite friends to their wedding?
Hi webmaster!
a different thing with me im not invited to my uncles wedding yet and i dont know why. well we dont have the best relationship but my dad always talks to his brother about stuff and so forth. However we havent got the invited when everyone has/ i dont know what to do and despite our sour relationship i wish him and his wife all the best
Interesting facts.I have bookmarked this site. stephanazs
Wow, I’m sure it must be hard to go through, but I’m planning a wedding and I can tell you it is *really* hard to narrow down a guest list. Be professional, wish the couple the best and tell yourself you have better things to do anyway. In the end, not going to a wedding is a pretty small event in life.
And if you intentionally weren’t invited, remember that one person’s opinion of you is not representative of everyone, so it is probably akward for other people that were invited who wish you were going.
Althogth none of our plans are really underway, we will probably be married in the chapel at church which holds only about 60 to 75 people…before our big day, my fiance’s work facility will be closing and all will be unemployed… we may not have addresses for his friends for mailing, but as a job hunt courtesy, we already have email addresses for everyone (commiserating/job referral) so we may just email everyone, requesting a mailing addy so that we can invite them… those who WANT to come, will supply it, those who don’t or can’t, won’t. No one will be left out; as these posts indicate, there are hurt feelings otherwise… and if many come and it’s too crowded, well, there’ll be standing room for those who arrive late. It’s hard to really judge how “close” one is to co-workers in the best of situations. With the announced closing of the plant in a few months, it is sure to cause some to go their own way forevermore…
I understand completely… recently a friend of mine (not very close but still a part of a large group of friends) sent out her wedding invitations to everyone I know in the group and I did not get one. She even asked for my address a while back when she was making her list. I talked to a friend thinking just to find out what was going on and found out that the bride to be needed to make some cuts(I was one of them). I am fine with this.. but I feel so left out now. I don’t know if they didn’t want to hurt my feelings or what… but I haven’t been invited to anything surrounding the wedding- the bridal shower, bachelorette party, nothing. This hurts and I feel left out. I would have liked to celebrate with them, wish them well, and give my gift to the couple–even if I couldn’t come to the wedding.
With the expense of a wedding keeping a guest list to a financially manageable number is practically impossible to do without hurting someone’s feelings. As a recent mother of the bride and soon to be again on a lesser budgeted wedding people just have to realize that the list of who to invite has to stop somewhere. Every guest probably costs the bride and groom or their family $100!!! Try not to take not being on the guest list personal – trust me – the bride and groom probably already have beat themselves up about who they could not invite.
All my coworkers invitations are political. All the “important” people only. Everyone who can do her some “good.”
It was somewhat refreshing in a sick sort of way to read about everyone who has felt left out after not being invited to a co-worker’s wedding. I just found out today that in my department of 4 (a mother and daughter and the dept chair who was just layed off) and myself I was not invited but the former chair and another coworker from another dept were. I worried before this how are dept of now 3 was going to function. Now, I really worry. Any comments out there in google land?