Too late to invite?

You're essentially B-listing your guests that you didn't originally invite which is quite rude. I wouldn't extend an invite this late.

Hi date twin! Eh, I wouldn't invite this late. It would feel weird as they would know they didn't make the first cut.

I don't see a problem with inviting 2 other people if you are honest with them. Let them know that there was limited seating/tight budget and that 2 people had to back out and ask them if they would like to come.

Ugh. Caterer already paid. It just makes me sad because this invite was out of obligation, not truly a first choice. So now here we are. Empty seats and hurt feelings.

Well, normally I'd agree B-listing is in poor taste, however...

If it was a matter of your venue had very strict limitations on numbers, and there were obligations to invite certain people, then I'd extend the invite out to a laid-back couple that you WANTED to invite to begin with and approach it with a sense of humor. "Hey John and Jane, we have a couple back out of attending our wedding at the last minute. FH and I would have MUCH rather had you guys there, anyway, but the venue capped us very strictly and family obligations are a bitch, ya'know? We know it's short notice, but please let us know if you can attend, we'd love to have you!"

Normally I would also say b-listing is not great, however, we did do a bit of it for our wedding.

We invited exactly 3 people (and SO/guest) after the fact, and explained the situation to them. The only reason we hadn't invited these people in the first place was because we both decided not to invite anyone from work. I'm very much in the camp of invite one, invite all and we couldn't do that with work people. In the time we made our guest list, sent out invites, and got responses back all 3 of these people no longer worked with us. I felt really bad, like my stomach turned while telling 2 of them and was completely in knots. I didn't want to offend them at all, and in the end they weren't.

We actually had a lot of room to invite more people, 25 to meet our minimum and even more to reach capacity. I was hard core against b-listing people, and there were definitely people I wanted to invite but there was no other reason they didn't make the cut other than limits so we went without inviting them.

Personally, if you want to add in two more people, go for it. Just be honest with them. I think Abbie's wording is perfect!

I say why not? There's no sense of not inviting them just because you're worried about it being too late. Like others have said, just be honest with them about it. I think they would understand.

I would say no. That's a "we don't value you enough to reserve a seat in the first place." Regardless of numbers, you did at one point make a decision to not invite those "extra" people.

Understandable temptation, but unless you have just that perfect relationship where you can pull it off without it being rude then I'd skip it. I had a coworker a couple of weeks before her wedding walk around the office and say that she has extra invites, do we want to go (to a group of us). Clearly B list - she said people cancelled - but we went and had a great time at a super fancy wedding. She knew her crowd was people who liked to go out and it was logistically simple to get there...

I agree with @Redhead. and I did it. We have acquaintances we would have liked to invite, but at some point you have to draw the line. Some of FH's family waited until 2 weeks after RSVP deadline to finally tell us they weren't coming. That cleared up like 8 spots. We extended the invite to our distant friends and were honest about the situation. It's one of those things where we see each other 2 or 3 times a year, text every so often, but never hang out one on one, so I highly doubt they were expecting an invite in the first place.

I wouldn't

I don't think its B-Listing at alllll! My guest list is at 80 and I have cut it down from 125 people that I would have LOVED to invited, but it was literally more of a coin-toss kind of thing. I'd be mad too! My list is literally people I KNOW will come, so if one were to randomly be like 'can't come sorry,' for anything other than an emergency, i'd be so mad!

@Miranda I mean, it's definitely still B-listing. We've all had to cut our original lists of people we would have loved to invite.

I think it would be very obvious that this guest was B listed and they might not feel so great about that. It sucks that they didn't tell you sooner though, they'd have to tell you they couldn't make it eventually anyways

I don't think the rudeness of your guests is a free pass to B-list someone. Yes, it's beyond lame that they did that. However, two wrongs don't make a right.

If invited at this point, I'd still try my best to come if the situation were explained. I don't get bent out of shape about things like that.

There was a thread posted literally today about someone being B-listed. They were pissed.

I wouldn't invite anyone else this late in the game. Sorry your friends let you down. I'd be so frustrated with them.

I wouldn't invite this late.

People would know they were a second choice. Unfortunately that is money wasted, so if you do end up inviting other people, I'm with @Abbie in reiterating that "we'd love to have you!"