invitations, realpolitik
thank you all for the lovely and insightful things you said about event invitations, both in the comments on my last post and offline. Much appreciated. Some guidelines I took away from these discussions:
- no one "deserves" to be invited to parties; as a host it's fine to choose a smaller guest list to suit a particular event.
- as a guest I don't need to take it personally if someone else doesn't include me in their dinner party or games night.
- I may not be obligated to invite someone's partners to an event I host, but it's the graceful thing to do.
- people care a lot about feeling included in community; if I'm hosting a large party or a community event, I need to be mindful to include people I'm not close to who may have strong connections to mutual friends.
- it's OK to ask to bring my partner(s) or kids to an event if the invite hasn't specified that it's a no-kids or no-SO kind of thing.
- as a host, it's OK to politely decline those requests, but it's best to be gracious and flexible about including my guests' loved ones.
Those seem like good guidelines. Armed with them, I talked to my co-host about the next big event I'm planning. We agreed on the right size (30~ish people), the tone of the evening, and how we want to handle kids being there. I drafted a guest list by running through my address book and adding anyone I felt would be nice to share that evening with.
My first draft was 94 people. Closing the gap between 94 desired guests and the 30-40 people I can actually invite is, I'm pretty sure, going to force me to hurt some feelings. Meh.
- no one "deserves" to be invited to parties; as a host it's fine to choose a smaller guest list to suit a particular event.
- as a guest I don't need to take it personally if someone else doesn't include me in their dinner party or games night.
- I may not be obligated to invite someone's partners to an event I host, but it's the graceful thing to do.
- people care a lot about feeling included in community; if I'm hosting a large party or a community event, I need to be mindful to include people I'm not close to who may have strong connections to mutual friends.
- it's OK to ask to bring my partner(s) or kids to an event if the invite hasn't specified that it's a no-kids or no-SO kind of thing.
- as a host, it's OK to politely decline those requests, but it's best to be gracious and flexible about including my guests' loved ones.
Those seem like good guidelines. Armed with them, I talked to my co-host about the next big event I'm planning. We agreed on the right size (30~ish people), the tone of the evening, and how we want to handle kids being there. I drafted a guest list by running through my address book and adding anyone I felt would be nice to share that evening with.
My first draft was 94 people. Closing the gap between 94 desired guests and the 30-40 people I can actually invite is, I'm pretty sure, going to force me to hurt some feelings. Meh.