Inviting people to pre-wedding events who aren't invited to the wedding
Pre-wedding events like engagement parties are traditionally meant only for wedding guests, leaving hosts struggling to celebrate with coworkers or friends without causing social friction or making uninvited guests feel secondary. Trying to navigate this creates awkward assumptions about who will receive a wedding invite, and people feel there is no classy way to handle the overlap.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Renaming the event to avoid engagement or wedding terminologyDid this help you?
- 2Hosting a casual, no-gifts happy hour instead of an official partyDid this help you?
- 3Waiting to celebrate with coworkers or uninvited people in a low-key way after the wedding has already occurredDid this help you?
- 4Trimming the event guest list down to only include people who will receive wedding invitationsDid this help you?
- 5planning casual alternative events like bowling and pizzaDid this help you?
- 6consulting family members for consensusDid this help you?
- 7researching pricing for restaurants and alternative venuesDid this help you?
- 8Clarifying dress codes or themes explicitlyDid this help you?
- 9Accepting that etiquette has shifted to only reserve white for the wedding dayDid this help you?
- 10Refusing to attend these eventsDid this help you?
- 11Complaining online or discussing differing cultural normsDid this help you?
- 12Keeping the wedding guest list extremely small and skipping all pre-wedding events for uninvited guestsDid this help you?
- 13Having close friends throw a casual girls' night out where costs are covered individually without gift expectationsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Maybe I’m tripping but isn’t it kind of rude to invite someone to your jack and Jill but not wedding? Like I’m invited to raise money for your wedding but not the wedding???”source ↗
“Also jack and Jill is not a thing in my culture so maybe that’s why I find that rude ?????”source ↗
“I guess I am not sure what is considered a “normal” price for this dinner to know what is too outrageous?”source ↗
“There’s not really a classy way to do this. Engagement parties should only be for people invited to the wedding.”source ↗
“Just attended my friend engagement party yesterday and three guest wore white dresses, theme was 60s”source ↗
“Just had my wedding shower and 4 out of 20ish people showed up in white.”source ↗
“I just had my wedding and the amount of people who wore white just because we had a theme was staggering.”source ↗
“And yes it’s rude to invite people who won’t be invited to the wedding”source ↗
“If you are having that small of a wedding you have small celebrations or none at all.”source ↗
“an invite to a shower but not the wedding means you expect a gift but they’re not good enough for the actual event”source ↗
“I would be sad if my friend thought I was good for a night on the town but not good enough to witness her wedding.”source ↗
“I was using it as a way to celebrate the engagement with people that wouldn’t be invited to the wedding like coworkers.”source ↗
“Maybe I can change the name to something else so the assumption isn’t there that there will be additional invites.”source ↗
“I'm feeling very torn as I feel like it's rude to invite invite people to the peripheral parties without extending an invite to the wedding.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3How to schedule a legal marriage before a destination wedding
- 6Am I being too bold by changing traditional wedding traditions?
- 8What do grooms do to fill time before the wedding?
- 12How to have a wedding without a formal ceremony
- 9How to plan a post wedding brunch people actually attend
- 5Fiancé and family booking wedding vendors behind my back