Who from your Firm did you Invite to Your Wedding?

[Ramesses]

I am a junior associate in my practice group and surprisingly the first to have a wedding in years. Everyone in the group (especially the partners) are super excited and now I am trying to figure out who to invite and who not to invite.

My general inclination was the people I have personal conversations with or work closely with. This includes all but one associate and one partner but I was given advice that I should just include everyone if I was going to exclude two from the team.

There are also a couple staff members from the team (out of about eight) that I work very closely with and are friends with. I would like to invite them too but I do not want to upset anyone who I do not invite or have to cut.

To complicate things, I work very closely with another practice group and two of the three associates there have been very supportive and always look out for me. One of them is junior and we eat lunch often to discuss our "junior problems". Applying the previous advice I should invite the third associate too (no plans to invite the partners in that group since I usually just work with the associates).

Also, I was thinking of inviting just the people I work with and not their plus ones since they all know each other already. But I was also told I should invite everyone's plus ones since people would not want to come alone/they would need a designated driver. While I agree, this would double the number of people. 

All thoughts or advice are greatly appreciated! I have been trying to figure this out for months and have not nailed down a solution.

[GGrievous]

My feeling is that people generally understand that wedding's are expensive and that guest lists have to be limited. I would invite the people that you actually want there. I think if anyone actually does get butthurt they will get over it very quickly. If they do end up holding a grudge I think that's kind of their problem and not yours. Most people I know won't care. I mean how would you feel if someone you weren't that particularly close to didn't invite you? I imagine you wouldn't think much of it at all.

[chaboywb]

I started to type an answer about biting the bullet and inviting everyone, but that’d be hypocritical as I had a very small wedding and invited no work friends. And in your situation, it seems there are a lot of people who you’d only be inviting out of politeness. So I’d say to go with just the people you’re close with.

In any event, I think you need to include plus ones. I would find it very odd to be invited to a wedding and not be able to bring my wife.

[BlockedQuebecois]

I am neither married nor at a firm, but here is my two cents: 

1. If I worked in a relatively small group and was planning to invite all but two members of the group, I would personally bite the bullet and invite them all. 
    
2. I don't think inviting two staff members but not inviting the others would be problematic. 
    
3. I don't think inviting two associates in another group but not a third associate in the other group would be problematic. 
    
4. I think everyone should have plus ones to every wedding, although I know that's a very traditional view that has fallen out of favour with my contemporaries. 

[Mountebank]

On 8/29/2023 at 11:15 PM, BlockedQuebecois said:

I am neither married nor at a firm, but here is my two cents: 

1. If I worked in a relatively small group and was planning to invite all but two members of the group, I would personally bite the bullet and invite them all. 
    
2. I don't think inviting two staff members but not inviting the others would be problematic. 
    
3. I don't think inviting two associates in another group but not a third associate in the other group would be problematic. 
    
4. I think everyone should have plus ones to every wedding, although I know that's a very traditional view that has fallen out of favour with my contemporaries. 

I think this is the correct advice, except I wanted to add that the partner (and, really, the associate) should be paying for themselves in terms of gifts so inviting them shouldn't end up being a financial burden anyway.

Also, unless it's due to a cancellation or some last-minute thing, inviting guests to a wedding and denying them plus-ones is still atypical and, IMO, straight up bizarre.

[Apple]

Oddly enough, I am getting married too in the new year. Invite whoever you want. It's one day and you can be friends with them for literally every other day of the year. At the end of the day if people are gonna get offended because you didn't invite them to your wedding then let it be so. 

[canuckfanatic]

I got married right after being called to the bar, and it was during the earlier part of the pandemic. Our guest list was much more limited than we had planned, so we had our videographer set up a private livestream link which I shared with basically my whole firm. I also shared the link my favourite professors and with out-of-town relatives who couldn't travel.

Edited November 22, 2023 by canuckfanatic