Engagement Party - Invite guests not invited to wedding?

BethHeppert · March 11, 2010

I know that the etiquette indicates that no one should be invited to an engagement party that is not invited to the wedding. However, etiquette (according to my mother) also indicates you should get married in a church and not in a (beautiful) gazebo in Cancun, so I'm going on a limb here.

I am having a small wedding but have a lot of friends and family who I would like to celebrate with at an engagement party. I have asked around to my wedding party (friends) and they think that everyone will understand that it is a small destination wedding and that it's fine. Of course, my mom thinks it is bad etiquette (etiquette smediquette) ..but I really do not want to be rude and offend anyone.

Would it be okay to invite others (we want a rather large engagement party) if we included a separate note with the invitation indicating something along the lines that we will be having a small destination wedding in Cancun on November 27th, etc. and to not bring gifts..?

Please advise if you have had similar parties/invitations and suggestions of the wording of the note! Thank you!

Diva · March 11, 2010

Hello there,

We had a large engagement party (100 people) in his hometown simply because we knew that his friends and family would not be able to come to the wedding. So far our confirmed guests are pretty much all my friends and family, but we knew that would be the case from jump.

I do not think it would be bad to have an engagement party and not invite all of the guests to your wedding. We let them all know up front that we were having a small wedding, and that is why we decided on the larger engagement soiree.

You do not really need to put all of the wedding information in the engagement party invitation. Only the basics about the engagement party need to go in there, ESPECIALLY if you are not inviting some of them to the wedding! Since the whole purpose for the party is your pending nuptials, you will get plenty of questions about the wedding and proposal, so use that time to answer questions about wedding details. That also serves dual purpose, because those people who you are inviting to the wedding can be told about it in more detail, while those "engagement party only" guests can be given the "small wedding in Cancun" spiel.

I don't think you will offend anyone at all! People will be more understanding than you think!

let me know if you have more questions