Who to invite to bachelorette party?

I personally wouldn't be offended by it. Especially since your wedding will basically be family only.

I would probably decline to be honest.

Nope. Not okay. This has happened to me twice and I’m still salty about it. They wanted me help pay for their party bus and bring a gift, but I wasn’t good enough to be invited to the wedding.

I would keep the bachelorette party to only the close friends who will be invited to the wedding. No, I don't think there is a good way to include in a bachelorette party invite an explanation that a particular guest won't be invited to the wedding. It's actually quite rude to state that someone won't be invited to the wedding. I would not risk offending someone by inviting them to a pre-wedding party and not also inviting them to the actual wedding.

Etiquette dictates that anyone invited to a pre-wedding event gets an invite to the wedding... but perhaps in your situation with truly having a small, mostly family, wedding, this could be okay. I think it's a know-your-people situation. Especially since your friend wants to host this for you and you didn't ask her for it.

When my former manager was getting married, we threw her bach party and the whole team came (probably 15 people, this was when I was working retail) and not everyone was invited to the wedding. Everyone knew this was going to be the situation and no one was offended, they were happy to celebrate with her.

As for the phrasing: for one, hopefully your people already know that you will be having an intimate wedding that you will not be able to invite everyone to? I would make sure they do ahead of time and not leave that to be stated on an invitation to a party (I would find it weird, and some may find it offensive, to essentially be non-invited to one event on the same piece of paper as being invited to another event). Your friend who wants to host this for you should be the one to send invites, and I would say to have them just be like any normal invitation, and leave the other details to word-of-mouth. You can ask her to spread the word that you would feel uncomfortable accepting gifts since you are having a small ceremony etc, but that she still wants you to be able to feel like a bride so she wanted to put this on for you.

It would be really bad etiquette to invite people to the bachelorette that isnt invited to the wedding.

I think that it is bad etiquette to not invite those that go to a bachelorette party to the wedding. However since your affair is basically only family you might have some wiggle room.... just tread very lightly, some acquaintances may get very offended.

That's the trade off for having a small or private wedding. You don't get the big pre wedding parties. I probably wouldn't be offended though if I was invited to a bachelorette without being invited to the wedding. I just wouldn't attend.

I have to admit that a friend had an "after wedding party" for guests who weren't invited to her wedding and it made me feel bad lol! sounds silly but people do take it personally. This is ONLY because it was later found out that she invited some friends (not strictly family as she said)

If you are really only having the family I think as long as your friends know exactly what's up they shouldn't get mad. Just be completely transparent about it and do what you feel is right.

I’d be fine with it especially since it’s a family only wedding. I’ve sent gifts for weddings I wasn’t invited to because of the same circumstances and I think it’s the only polite thing to do