One of the toughest decisions you’ll make when planning your wedding is who to invite. You want to have a good mix of people from all areas of your life, including childhood friends, friends from college, family and of course some of your colleagues too. Depending on your total guest list and budget, you may not have much room for colleagues in your guest list. Navigating the difficult task of choosing who to invite (or not) when you work for a small business can be tricky. You don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but you also want to make sure your favorite coworkers can be there on your special day. If you need a little help navigating this tricky gray area, keep reading to learn more about my wedding invite etiquette for small businesses.
Be Upfront
From the moment you send out your save the date invitations, it is a good idea just to be very upfront about who you can invite and who you can’t. I find that blaming the overall budget is a great way to diffuse the situation without causing anyone any harm or feelings of rejection. Because you’ll still have to work with these people, and some of them might have their feelings hurt, I think the best policy is just to be upfront from the beginning. Letting people you know you would have loved to have had them there, but can’t due to budget restrictions, helps ensure that they know you’re thinking of them, but can’t have them come. Being upfront will also prevent people feeling like you went behind their back to invite them. Once those save the date postcards are out the door, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that you’ve let everyone know ahead of time.
Don’t Forget Your Boss
If you work for a small company and only want to invite one person, the easiest way around this may be just inviting your boss. It’s a good sign of respect to invite them and assuming you get on with them fairly well, it can be a great way to strengthen your working relationship. Because your boss holds such a high position, most people will understand if you can only justify inviting them and not anyone else. Of course be sure to make sure that there’s a plus one for your boss so they can bring their partner or a close friend.
Avoid it All Together
If you’re really struggling to pick and choose who you can invite, it may be worth considering if it’s just better to not invite anyone at all from work. Because you don’t want to pick and choose favorites, you may find a bit of a relief with just not inviting anyone. Of course this depends on your working relationship with your coworkers and whether you can imagine yourself regretting it down the line. If your company is really small, you might find the inverse true – it may be nice to invite everyone if you have the spare numbers available.
Don’t add any more stress to your wedding planning than absolutely necessary. Have some flexibility with how you handle inviting coworkers to your wedding, and I’m sure you’ll be surprised by how much stress melts off your shoulders.