Invites for Family Members

Engagement parties are optional. Are they common in your social circle? Many families don’t have engagement parties and they don’t base an invitation’s “worth” on the attendance or absence of the party.



Only you and fiancé decide who gets invited. If you are closer to your friends than relatives, invite the friends first and only those relatives you have a close relationship with. You and fiancé need to decide together if you want to stick with family traditions that you don’t want to continue or create your own. Set and maintain boundaries so they don’t pressure you into anything you are uncomfortable with. That also means that you and fiancé pay for the entire wedding yourselves without parents’ assistance.

If these family members are a few states over, like you’ve indicated, then it is not uncommon for them to decline an invitation to an engagement party. I don’t think that would in any way indicate whether they were planning to make the trip for the actual wedding. Personally, if it required me traveling several states, I would have declined an invitation to an engagement party (or any pre-wedding event, really) also. But I would make the trip for the wedding itself.

If you invite someone to a pre wedding party, you're supposed to invite them to the wedding, regardless of their attendance to said pre wedding party. The invites to such parties should also be limited local guests that are your nearest and dearest. You should not expect guests to travel out of state for an engagement party, which isn't even a thing in some circles.


If you don't want to invite someone to your wedding because they're flaky, or not close, or unlikely to attend, you don't have to invite them at all. But keep the exclusion across the board. An engagement party is a joyous occasion for which you should be grateful that guests are celebrating you more than once. It is not a litmus test for who is worthy to come to your wedding, which is the main event.

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Worthiness isn't quite the right word, apologies if it came off that way. I'm trying to have a very joyous occasion, definitely. For more context, the specific family members are my mom's aunts and uncles... and there are a bunch of them. The last time I saw them was at a funeral, and a funeral the time before, but the time before that was a wedding.

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On my partner's side, it's super common. And I think culturally expected. My family is the only meet-up for weddings and funerals, unless you're local, type.

My desire is to integrate the families, and these two events are pretty much the only time that will ever happen on an extended level.

View Quoted Comment In that case, start your own traditions. Have a family reunion picnic at a local park for both sides that is unrelated to the wedding. Those who want to be there will make the effort and those who don’t show their true colors. Also your wedding is not the only time in your marriage that you will host guests in your home or elsewhere at a party or get together. Many people don’t realize that.

For family members out of state I wouldn’t base inviting them to the wedding on if they come to an engagement party. I personally wouldn’t travel for an engagement party unless it coincided with breaks from school. But, I would travel/take off work for a wedding. Unless it was for close family/sibling.


I have a friend who used this rationale for friends though. I guess the friendships were fading anyway and she used the party as a “test”. They showed up for like 5 minutes and then left to go the movies or something. She cut ties with them then and there.

The rule is the opposite actually. People invited to pre-wedding events must be invited to the wedding. It's considered rude not to.

Sorry, but as previous posters said, you’re stuck with inviting them to the wedding per etiquette. Anyone invited to any pre-wedding event (this includes engagement parties) needs to be invited to the wedding. For this reason, it’s really best to wait on having your engagement party until you’ve decided on a guest list for the wedding.