Engagement Party Invites

I still find it really inappropriate. Everyone has people that they have to cut from their guest list. It’s incredibly rare to have the budget and capacity to invite every single person you want to your wedding, that’s just the way things go. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to invite those that you can’t afford to host, to your engagement party. I would be very hurt if a friend invited me to their engagement party and then my wedding invite never showed up.

"I've read that it's incredibly rude to invite people to an engagement party, but not the wedding."

Yes, you are right, it definitely is. You have included a lot of details but none of those details make your situation unique or a reason to invite people to celebrate your wedding but not to your actual wedding.

But here's the thing, you and your partner can absolutely throw a party at any time and invite your friends. People like parties. There's no reason to make it wedding related, just serve food and drink and have fun with your friends.

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Agreed with everything Caytlyn said, and to add: though not everyone does, many people still bring gifts to engagement parties, and I'd feel doubly disrespected as a friend if I attended an engagement party, brought a gift, and then wasn't invited to the wedding.

I understand the predicament you're in (though I myself am in the opposite position, as the friends I've surrounded myself with over the years and talk to on a daily or weekly basis are getting priority over extended family members) but I'd re-evaluate this plan.

Additionally, though this is changing in modern day, traditionally, another person throws you an engagement party. If a friend offered to throw you one (after you explained your predicament and that they would, unfortunately, not be invited to the wedding for capacity reasons) and they were still down to throw you a party to celebrate, that's another story. But in the case you're throwing your own engagement party, I would highly recommend against inviting people you're not going to be inviting to your wedding.

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Dear Megan,

Thank you for your response! Our engagement party will be hosted by family friends of my fiancé's family. I was also in the same friend group as their oldest daughter in high school. I ended up attending college in NY with Campbell, while she went to school with most of our other friends from high school. I consider us close, we just haven't made it a priority to visit with each other and have been busy focusing on our education. It's been the same with most of my friends back home... Campbell is older (he waited to go to college), so his friends are more established and able to travel and take the time away from their everyday lives. She and her family are invited to the wedding, but we don't have any room in the venue for other friends of ours. If her family is throwing the engagement party would it be appropriate for me to say "invite who you want as well, nothing is expected of them!" Maybe then, I would be able to celebrate with some close friends that I'm quite literally not able to fit inside of our venue.

Again, thank you so much for your response! I didn't think about mentioning that we're not hosting the engagement party and how that might change the dynamic.

Aubrianna Abbema

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Dear Caytlyn,

Thank you for your response! I haven't done this before, so I wouldn't know... Personally, I think that I would be more disappointed if I wasn't invited to any event. I would much rather be included somewhere along the line, especially if the reason I wouldn't be able to attend the wedding/reception were size restrictions. Does the fact that we're not requesting or expecting gifts change things?

I wouldn't have thought of it from this perspective and thank you for your input!

Aubrianna Abbema

As others have said, it's really best to not invite anyone to pre-wedding events who is not invited to the wedding itself. Not every gathering has to be wedding related. Why don't you and your fiance host a casual "we moved back and missed you guys" gathering. This way you get to see and reconnect with you friends from HS without really running into this not invited to the wedding issue.

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Dear Maggie,

Thank you so much for your response! I wish you the best with planning and look forward to reading other replies as well.

Aubrianna Abbema

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Dear Hannah,

Thank you for your reply! I'm sure that we'll see our friends quite a bit in between the time we return and the time we finally have our engagement party, including parties and gatherings. I guess that's another reason that I'm a bit worried about not extending any kind of invitation to them regarding the wedding festivities. Our family, including extended, just takes priority and we don't have enough space... In addition, the host's daughter is very close with these people and (I don't know, but would assume), that she would want to invite them to the party she and her mother are throwing as they essentially do everything together.

Maybe it's too early for me to even be thinking about it! Who knows, by the time the engagement party and wedding comes we may have a reason not to include some of our family and I'll have no dilemma in regards to having room for friends.

Again, thank you so much for your reply and we'll definitely think about throwing a "we're back," party, haha!

Aubrianna Abbema

View Quoted Comment Requesting or expecting gifts at an engagement party should never be a thing in the first place.

View Quoted Comment Dear Caytlyn,


We weren’t planning on requesting anything of our guests. Megan had brought up a hypothetical situation in which she would disappointed after bringing a gift to the engagement party and not being invited a wedding so I thought to mention it.
Thank you again for your input.
Aubrianna Abbema

If I was invited to an engagement party which is usually a smaller sized party, I’d be pretty upset if i then didn’t get invited to the wedding. I don’t find 75-90 people to be a small wedding. I’d rather not be invited to any part of it and just offer my congratulations next time I saw someone or on social media than be included in a pre-wedding event and not the wedding.

People in my social group kind of treat engagement parties as couple's showers almost. So unless I am traveling across the country for it, I bring a sizeable gift. And even if I am traveling across the country, I give something since a lot of times engagement parties are used in lieu of showers. <--- to clear the gift thing up.

Anyway, if I was invited to an engagement party, I'd be expecting an invite to your wedding. And I feel like there is going to be a lot of wedding talk at your engagement party about the wedding. It would be really awkward for me to tell someone at my engagement party about the wedding plans and then not invite them especially since you're having a decent sized wedding. What do you think?

75 to 90 people is not exactly a small wedding...If you were having a destination micro-wedding of 20 people, then it would certainly be appropriate to have a larger engagement party and invite people who are not on your guest list for the wedding. But what you are proposing is very rude...I would be offended if I were invited to someone's engagement party and not their wedding, especially knowing that 90 wedding invites went out. I would suggest simply having a get-together if you want to see these friends, and not calling it an engagement party. I would rethink your plan

Especially if a concern is that you want to reconnect with these people, the plan to invite them to an engagement party but not the wedding could potentially backfire. Regardless of how close the party hosts are to these people, it's rude to invite people to any prewedding event but not invite them to the wedding. This could easily backfire on your desire to rekindle old friendships, and leave people not invited to the wedding with a really bad taste and it will not reflect well on you and your fiance as you start your lives together. (Even if you aren't issuing the engagement party invitations, the assumption will be that you were in charge of the wedding invitations.) I would only include those who will be invited to the wedding. Like several others have mentioned, you can rebuild these friendships outside of the wedding. Most people understand that weddings are expensive and guests lists are often more limited than the B&G would have preferred -- that's not being rude, just realistic.

We aren't having an engagement party, but we are having a very small wedding (2nd for each of us) and only inviting immediate family and our very best friend each. The plan is to have a huge cookout in the summer and invite everyone then. One of the determining factors for us is that we and 95% of our family live on one side of the state but our wedding is on the opposite side in February, which could mean difficult weather here in Ohio 😏