Who to invite?

People have no need to be offended - nobody has an automatic right for an invitation to any part of your special day.

We have invited everyone to the ceremony and evening reception, but only 60 to the wedding breakfast purely because we simply cannot justify an extra £3-4000 on our budget to feed all and sundry, including distant relatives you never hear from year to year but feel you have to invite, and people you work with and can't leave out if you're inviting everyone else.

We have a minimum of 40 required for the WB and 100 for the evening reception, in the hotel's contract. What we are hoping is that if enough people we invited to the evening reception can't come, there will be money left in the budget to "upgrade" those we aren't inviting to the wedding breakfast. We're simply working on the basis of if we are important enough to people to actually come along for the day, then the fact they have a couple of hours of 'dead time' in the middle of the day to amuse themselves shouldn't be enough to prevent them coming. In our information pack that went with the invitations we supplied details of loads of places to go and things to do within the local area, and of course the hotel bar/lounge will be open anyway, so we don't think anyone really has an excuse that boredom will prevent them from coming.

We'd have quite happily gone without a wedding breakfast, had a later ceremony and meal and then not needed to provide an evening buffet, but as we absolutely knew that otherwise this was the venue we wanted, we have little choice but to work within their guidelines.

It is somewhat unfortunate that so many things - hotel requirements, budget etc - conspire together as we would have been quite happy to have everyone there together all day but the reality is that it's not as easy as people think - especially if they haven't been involved with wedding arrangements themselves in recent years and they don't realise food and drink per head at the WB can be £50 easily.

Obviously everyone's arrangements and situations are different so what we have chosen to do may not be the best solution for yours - but really only you can really ultimately answer that.

We spent a lot of time ourselves wondering who to invite to what - but thankfully as pretty much everyone is going to have a 2 hour minimum drive to our big day, that's enough to put a few off anyway, and if the numbers are significant of people we actually really want there then we have a backup plan of giving everyone - whether they came or not - a copy of our wedding dvd, or throwing a small party locally.

My best suggestion is if there are a few really close people that you get on well with that you'd like to invite, have a quiet word with them when you give them their invitations, and ask them not to mention it generally as you aren't in a position to invite everyone. They should understand. We've only invited about a quarter of the people I work with simply because I don't spend a significant amount of time with them or necessarily regard them as 'friends'.

Work people is a bit of a hot topic with me and my OH as we both work at the same place infact in the same department so our wedding is turning into a bit of a department outing! Having said that we arent inviting the whole department so some people may be offended we just can't invite everyone and in fact wouldnt want to as as in every work place we dont get on with everyone above the usual work/professional level relationship.

We think that those not invited will understand but we will find out I suppose when the invites go out. We made the decision not to invite anyone from work for the day so there wasnt that conflict too. If they do feel a little bit put out then thats down to them but it is your day and you should have who you want there and not just have people you worry will be put out. I think you should think about you and who you want to share your day with and not what the others will think about it ?

I only invited some work people to the evening (none to the day!). I invited those I am friends with or have worked closely with. Most of them can't come as it is a long way away just for an evening (and is a week day) - I am not upset by that, I just wanted them to know they are welcome.

Those I haven't invited hopefully are not offended, I either, hardly know them or haven't worked closely with them for quite a while.

Forgot to add - OH isn't inviting ANY work people. He said he doesn't want to "talk shop" at his wedding day. His mum and dad said he should invite his boss to look good, but I have told him not to if he doesn't want. I think it is a good point, on your wedding day you want just to enjoy yourself.

Our evening list is made up mainly of work colleagues and old school friends of OH (those he keeps in touch with via Facebook).

I'm only inviting one work colleague to the ceremony and out of an office of 30, I'm only inviting about 10 to the reception. OH is inviting his immediate work colleagues to the evening do

I'm going to put a note into the evening invites explaining not everyone will be invited and if they could be discreet. There are some people I work with who I can't abide and quite frankly if I saw them on the day, I'd most likely run amok with the cake knife.

I have mentioned on a couple of occasions in work that the venue isn't huge, so therefore numbers are restricted, which sounds better than "I don't like you, so you're not coming".

There are 40 people in my department, out of an office of 750. I am inviting 6 workmates/friends and their partners, but they are only on the list if I actually socialise with them outside of work as friends.

As for everyone else in the dept - if they have a problem with it, I simply don't care!

Ahhh you got engaged on my birthday!!! ?

im not much help im afraid, our venue is about 20 mins away so we are having an intimate ceremony and a big party as people we work with (who are also very close friends of ours, a couple are comming to the whole day) and other friends can easily get a taxi to and from the venue!

We havnt invited anyone to the evening. Its a gd distance like urs, London to Taunton so a 3 hour drive and we didnt feel right asking people to come that far for the evening specially when they would have to find somewhere to stay as well. There are a few people im sure are a little hurt they didnt get invited and maybe I cud invite them just to the evening, I think i'd just feel worse for all the expense they would have to go to for just 3 or 4 hours.

I live in Plymouth (south Devon) and grew up in Kent so my family and old friends will be travelling a long way to attend. We knew we didnt want a huge wedding so teh guest list from our point of view was quite easy (although am guessing both mothers would disagree!). I have not invited anyone I work with to the day instead I put an open invite in the staff room (along with all the biscuits, jams etc that went with the day invites) and said that whoever wants to come is more than welcome but they will have to rsvp like everyone else. As they will have to travel quite a distance and pay to stay at a hotel I am guessing that only the ones who are really my mates will be bothered to do so. My OH isn't inviting anyone he works with and if he is happy with that then so am i.

Im struggling with this as well at the moment Day is ok and only inviting 1 person and partner from work but night is going to be hard as I work for the one of the big supermarkets so there is 500 off us and at least 50 on my department who are my staff and everyone is chatting to me about the wedding what is harder is someone else is getting married before us and I dont want to be expected to invite the same people!!! Arrrrr