How to respond to someone who asks if they will be invited to your wedding?

Question

I am in the midst of planning my wedding, which as most people know is a long, painstaking process. We've had a long engagement and fairly early on one of our friends began asking us if he would be invited to the wedding (usually after having a few drinks). He is in our circle of friends, but not someone either of us is particularly close to. This started well before we had made a guest list, but even then I knew he wouldn't make it. He'd probably end up on the C or D list.

My response was to never give an outright answer, but to say that the wedding won't be too big and both of us have large families (etc, etc). It was always very uncomfortable, and after this happened a few times things now feel awkward whenever we see each other. He hasn't asked about it in quite a while, but we also haven't seen each other much (for other benign reasons).

What is the best way to respond in a situation like this? I'm looking for a way to defuse the situation as non-painfully as possible, whether that means telling him "probably not", "definitely not", or just successfully deflecting.

Answer 1

However you word this, unfortunately, the person may choose to take offense. Just be as diplomatic as possible when letting them know they won't be invited, something along the lines of:

"I'm sorry, but we have a limited amount of space, and I can't invite everyone. I'd like to invite you, but we are looking at inviting family and our closest friends."

There is no really good way, and you do risk offense if he considers you a close friend when you obviously don't reciprocate the feeling. However, letting him know up front is much better than a vague "Well, we haven't finalized the list yet, so if you get an invite please RSVP". If he isn't invited, telling him up front is much better than a long wait with no invitation.

Answer 2

Answer: This depends on your priorities.

If you want to make sure you keep him as a friend then invite him to the party

If on the other hand you are ambivalent about his friendship, (you don't mind being his friend but are fine losing his friendship) then just keep saying what your are already saying, "We are keeping the party small."

Advice to make it less awkward.
When you tell him your keeping the party small add a "thank you" preferably genuine, and then change the subject quickly. Having a list of quick subject changes that he will be interested in may be helpful.

For example you could say something like this:

Actually we are having a smaller wedding, But thank you so much for caring! We wish we could invite more people. Have you seen the new star wars trailer?

Personal Suggestion: this doesn't really answer your question but I feel it is important. The fact that your friend has brought up the question multiple times usually after a few drink loosens him up, suggests that he is a bit insecure about his personal relationships with others. To me it appears that he is seeking for some sort of approval. He wants to know that he matter enough to you, or maybe just that he matters enough to any one to be invited to their wedding.

I would suggest considering inviting him to the wedding for his sake. It might not mean that much to him, but then again I just might make his life a little bit better. And I promise you the more kindness and service you give to others the more you will receive back in return. But of course it's your wedding your call.

Answer 3

I think that after having deflected him a few times, and that making the situation more awkward, it's now time to let him know in more explicit terms when he asks again.

Just be honest. You're probably not going to invite him. You have reasons for doing so:

• You've always seen your dream wedding as a family affair
• There is not a large amount of money to spend on giving a huge wedding party. And you don't want to start off your marriage with a huge debt

Of course, I'm speculating here, but these are the kinds of honest reasons you could present. Being honest and having a legitimate reason for not inviting him should be something a true friend should be able to understand.

If you're only going to invite family, and you and him have a mutual friend, it might be a good idea to point out that you're not inviting that mutual friend either, for exactly the same reasons. This might soften the blow a bit, and prevent him from feeling excluded.

Maybe it's an idea to invite him over for coffee (and cake?) after the honeymoon? It shows that you're willing to celebrate with him, even though he's not invited to the main party.

Answer 4

I had something very similar occur during my wedding. A friend who I am not overly close with asked if he was invited to the wedding after having a few drinks.

I originally was not planning on inviting him so I brushed it off and did not really give an answer. Eventually I decided to invite him and his girlfriend, because our venue had some room and he's a nice guy who is close with a lot of our good friends.

He came to the wedding, was one of the most fun guests at the dance, and even gave us a great gift. So I suggest maybe re-thinking inviting this person if your venue has room to accommodate. The more the merrier as they say.

Answer 5

Look. He knows. You know. What's making this an awkward situation is the unresolved truth that no-one will state.

At present, the question is eating at you -- that is, it's a problem for you. If you tell him, it ceases to be your problem, and becomes entirely his problem.

Politesse demands that you be nice about it. Much depends on how formal/friendly/teasing/etc your interactions with this guy are already. The Q suggests that the guy is a friend, but not a close friend. Were it me, I'd tell him, "Bro, in re wedding invites. I'm sorry, we couldn't make it work. We still love ya." Your precise words will vary, but you get the idea.

Answer 6

We just had almost the same situation and we decided to not give much space for bad interpretation. Our first idea was also to our friend that we only invite very close friends, but then i thought this is a bad idea. If we say "We invite only close friends." for our friend it will sound like "You are not a close friend, thats why we don't invite you." and that hurts pretty much.

If you can't invite everyone it often has a limiting factor (space, money, ...). It's important to tell your friend, why you can not invite so many guests.

When we had to explain why we didn't invite this specific friend, we said that we had to make the hard decision to invite only the few friends we spent most time with recently. This reason doesn't give a good opportunity to be misunderstood.

It worked pretty well for us and our friend accepted our decision without beeing mad.

Answer 7

I am currently in the same situation as OP, I am planning my wedding which will be in the next two weeks. My interactions with some of my friends and close colleagues are starting to be awkward with them reminding me that am getting married in the next two weeks and asking me why they have not received invitations yet, I usually just tell them "My fiance and I have big families and because of limited space in the venue where we getting married they will receive invites only if some of our family members decline or cannot make it, otherwise it is going to be a family affair.", that usually works for me.

Answer 8

You may come off clean by telling something like you are not sure about, who's going to be invited yourself(that is true), so you can't answer the question, because you don't know, so you don't want any misinformation to be told about the event, you are organizing. In my imagination, it'll sound like:

it's really hard to submit the final version of the list due to limited space, large families, etc. and i still don't know, who will actually be present there.

Answer 9

Are you asking what should be done, or are you asking how to respond to his request?
My suggestion varies for how much effort you wish to make helping the person.

I am caught on the “after having a few drinks” bit.

• Does he only ask this sort of thing from you, or does he ask it of others too? Would he?
• What is his status?
  Does he have a significant other? Is he legally bound in a marital union? What is his religion? Does he have a favorite writer or philosopher?
• How is he webbed in your “circle of friends”? Who is a better friend to him than you?

I would say that this guy has some semi-repressed emotional ‘anchors’ which are tugging at and urging him to ask for an invitation. It may be some wish to ‘hook–up with a drunk chick at a wedding’, or it may be some unprofessed sadness at the fact that he has not yet met The One and hopes to do so at your own event of sorts.

One more thing:

• There is obviously some incompatibility between you and him which results with him on your C list or worse. How does that play into all this? Do you know him and not like him, or is he simply difficult to know?
  Not expecting an answer to that one; it is something for you to consider.

Answer 10

You should really invite him to the wedding for one reason. He's interested in your wedding. If you choose to exile him from the situation you must be aware there could be a build up of negative energy from denial.

Don't still be friends if you don't invite him, it could end up being a messy situation between you two.

Tell him "I don't think so" when he says no tell him it's uncomfortable to be around you my wife is uncomfortable. We don't know you well enough.