Well this happened early this morning and it’s now 5pm and I’m still annoyed.
I woke up this morning to a notification saying that I’d been invited to a friend’s birthday party. The party is two hours drive away, and would require an overnight stay. I was given four days notice.
My initial thought was, “Wow, they’ve left it last minute”. But then I had a closer look at the event chat. The Book of Faces event was created in March. Posts were made asking for addresses in September. I was being invited four days ahead of the party and oh look, there are some posts from the night before my invite from people pulling out at the last second.
It could not be more obvious that mine was a last minute invite to cover places already paid for because people had dropped out of the party. All of our mutual friends from the same friends group have been invited. It would have hurt to not be invited but somehow it’s more hurtful being the last ditch desperate attempt at filling a missing place. (I know I should never *expect* an invite, but in practice it hurts knowing you’re left out, especially when photos of everyone having fun without you will follow.)
This is a friend that I grew up with and we were close. Over the years we have drifted apart somewhat. She moved to a city four hours away and we just don’t see each other as often as we used to. I still consider her a good friend but this is making me reevaluate the situation.
Luckily I already had plans involving a very early start the next morning so I had an easy way to politely decline, but realistically as it was a milestone birthday had I received an invite at the beginning of the month I still would have been on the B list but would have moved things around and attended. It simply would not be possible to do so now and my plans for the weekend mean that a two hour trip each way is now three hours.
This all leads me to ask – what is the etiquette for last minute invites? Am I being unreasonable in thinking four days doesn’t cut it when others have clearly had six months or more to plan their attendance?
One last thing to add, because I know it will come up in the comments: where I am from it is expected that adults will organise their own birthday celebration. Normally this is picking a bar or restaurant and everyone pays their own way (including the birthday person). 1023-18
It stands to reason that if a person is so self-absorbed to plan their own birthday party for months, then that person is also too self-absorbed to care about the feeling of others when it comes to the execution of those party plans. Guests are just a means to an end. The fact that the birthday woman is also the one issuing the invitations makes this a distressing situation. She determined the guest list and you didn’t make the first, second or third cut.
In cases where someone else hosted the party, one could make the case that the host made a mistake or wasn’t aware of all of the birthday guest of honor’s good friends that should be invited. Something could have been lost in the communication between host and birthday person. However, that is not the case here. Bottom line, your old friend did not consider your friendship to be valuable and therefore you were not at the top of her guest list of must-have guests.
Me? I’d retain some personal dignity and decline the invitation. Nothing is as demeaning as appearing to be thrilled to be slighted.
OR perhaps she wasn’t initially invited because it was a long distance for her. I could see first prioritizing those who are likely to be able to come, and then finding space and figuring it’s worth a shot. If I were in that position (of the hostess) though, I’d include a personal msg explaining why I’d done it that way.
I was on an obvious B list for a wedding of co-workers. Worse, others at work were on an obvious C list. Bottom line is that more than one of us felt as though we were told where we stood socially.
The invitation is clearly last-minute and you are perfectly in the right to decline it even if you had no other plans. And you have just found out how close this friend feels to you — not very close at all.
I’d be embarrassed to give out a last minute invite. She just made it look so completely obvious – I would have been offended as well. I don’t have a problem with “someone” telling everyone that we are going to TJ’s Bar and Grill to celebrate Jane’s milestone birthday but I find it extremely tacky for the birthday girl to issue invitations via Facebook. And as this sounds very casual – frankly, I wouldn’t have invited the OP at all given that she has a two hour drive for one casual evening out and has to stay overnight. Frankly, I wouldn’t have even considered going.
It’s possible that this is why OP didn’t make first cut. (felt it would be an imposition to ask OP to travel all that way for a casual event, etc.) However, she should have stuck with that, rather than issue this last-minute, ham-handed, obviously-second-string invitation, where OP could easily see others had been invited months ago. It might have gone differently if the friend had called OP directly, explained that it was a terrible mistake/oversight, and kindly offered the invite personally. As it happened, the OP can only assume the worst about the friendship, since that didn’t happen.
Don’t go. Unfortunately, your friendship was not as close as you had thought, but you’re better off knowing that information.
“Thanks so much for the invite! I wish I had known about it earlier as I could have planned for it. As it is, I have an event early on Sat morning so unfortunately won’t be able to make it. Have a Happy Birthday!”
I have to wonder if inviting you last minute isn’t also a try for a gift. I know, it’s even more insulting. Maybe a good gift would be a used copy of Emily Post.
I don’t understand the issue. It’s a get-together, but it’s self funded. It’s not an appealing option in terms of “self hosting” while others pay. It’s not anything to be overly invested in. When it comes to invitations, it’s still the same old saw- not every person will be invited to every event. It doesn’t mean that you are on good terms or that you should throw the friendship away. It may mean that you reevaluate who you feel supported by in your friend group or it may cause you to step up your own game in terms of socializing intentionally and hosting events that you design. But if you’ve passed your teen years, you’ve passed the time of life when taking even a modicum of offense over not being included in a specific birthday party is unseemly. It connotes the idea that your own life is somehow not interesting or full enough and you are therefore able to notice these social “glitches” and create a narrative of having been slighted. While justified in some more extreme cases (your daughter declines to have you attend her wedding, for example)- it’s a bit over the top otherwise. I’m sorry that you’ve felt a bit excluded, but it’s in your own best interests to reduce the power of such minor incidents to impact your sense of equilibrium or your sense of self in connection to others.
Yes. This.
I think you might have misunderstood the intent of the post. OP is not offended that she wasn’t invited. She is, however, shocked that a friend she thought was still somewhat close is tacky enough to clearly disclose that she has A, B and C invitee lists to the people on those lists.
To play devils advocate, and from a personal experience, maybe your friend thought the 4 hour drive would preclude you from attending till another friend mentioned that you had made a similar trip for another event and might want come. In my experience though the party organizer called me directly, explained the situation and then was very gracious when I couldn’t attend due to a conflict.
You know these people better than I, and if you believe you were a last minute invite to boost numbers, then decline and don’t look back. Your friend is rude to only want your presence to fill out a reservation.
Unable to attend due to prior commitment, is what I would say.
When other guests starting dropping out, the “host” thought “Darn it. I need more bodies, bodies with $$. Going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel.” And that’s how the OP got put on the C List.
Decline, but there’s no need to give a reason. Just wish them a happy birthday and move on.
It does not seem that host needed bodies with $$, or at least I read in such way that host was paying, as OP said “It could not be more obvious that mine was a last minute invite to cover places already paid for because people had dropped out of the party.” It makes no indication that OP was expected to pay anyting back.
So more likely, host just needed bodies so that they already paid money did not go to waste. Not obviously too flattering but still hugely different than being invited for your money.
I would never want to be on a B or C list no matter how much fun the event would be. I don’t want to know that I’m thought of as substandard by a supposed friend.
Reminds me of couples who invite a C list of guests who didn’t make the reception invite list to have a drink with them at the bar instead.
Why, though?
I seem to be the odd one out, I wouldn’t mind. Unless it was my best friend or something, but presumably this happens with people one isn’t super close to. I mean, I know who I am not super close to… if the event would be fun, I would go.
I mean it is one thing if it is someone who you thought you were close to, but a more casual friend? Why not?
My then-husband and I were B-list invitees to a relative’s wedding many years ago. I would not have accepted, but I was invited via a phone call and the relative said “so uh, Husband and I got married and we want to celebrate, can you guys make it on X date?” it being a young couple, my mind immediately went to “they got married at a courthouse and now want to have a party” and said sure! Told my parents and my dad said, “oh yeah they already had a real wedding and are now doing a B-list one, didn’t you know?” At the party, the album from the real wedding came out and was passed around. It was a gorgeous wedding with close family at a destination spot. Pretty sure we were just there for our cash gifts.
“Oh, too bad, had I known about it in March when you were all planning it I could have arranged to be there. However, my weekend is booked now, so I will not be able to attend on such short notice. Best wishes for a happy birthday!”
I wouldn’t even bother responding to a non-invitation like this. It’s totally fine to invite whoever you want to any events you are hosting. It’s not so fine to make it clear to someone that they were an afterthought. If OP was left off by mistake and it was just noticed, or if they weren’t invited because of the geographical distance, or some other decent reason, the least Birthday Girl could have done was sent a personal message to OP explaining what happened. So I’d either decline without comment on the event page so you won’t get any notifications, or just don’t respond at all. In the strictest sense, I’m sure you should respond, but I don’t really apply strict etiquette to social media invitations.
It is also customary among my circle of friends to organize our own birthday activities, and normally we’d just meet somewhere and each pay our own way, no big deal. But I have to agree with Admin that someone who plans their own birthday events 6 months in advance is most likely pretty self-involved.
There is a more generous interpretation because I know I have done this before, when inviting people through facebook I thought I clicked on a name but it didn’t register so I didn’t realize the person wasn’t invited until much later when going through the list and I wondered why “Sue Smith” hadn’t responded. It has also happened to me when I notice I am added later but I know the person didn’t intentionally leave me off. Sometimes there is an email follow-up sometimes not, it all depends on the person and event.