I have a group of girlfriends that get together every couple of months. We are all either current or former co-workers. I'm co-hosting the next party at my house in a couple of weeks. Everyone invited is pretty close, and we have a good time catching up on work gossip and each other life's.
Yesterday 4 of us met for lunch, and one of the girls,A, mentions that she invited another former co-worker, M, to the party.
Now I didn't intentionally leave M off the invite list. Truthfully, it never occurred to me to invite her. She left the company over 3 years ago, so more than half of the guests do not really know her and I personally do not keep in touch with her. She's also more than a little flighty, and has been a no-show in the past. If A had said something to me about it, I probably would have sent M an invite after discussing with my co-host. I'm just really irked that A would do this. I wouldn't say our group is exclusive, but we don't invite every single female co-worker or former co-worker. The group has just gradually developed over the last couple of years, and we've stopped inviting those who just never seemed interested.
A pulled this trick on my one time before. At our first party, she took it upon herself to invite a male co-workers wife and another former co-worker. Now I know both of them, because I've been at the company longer than anyone else in our group. However, besides A, nobody else really knew these two. They ended up not coming, and A never pulled that stunt again, so I thought I was safe. I talked this over with the co-host, and we decided that next time we'll say in our invite to let us know if you think anyone is missing from the invite list and we'll contact them.
The other issue is M was recently diagnosed with Celiac disease. Our menu has already been decided and announced to the group, and it is not gluten-free. So now I'm stuck trying to figure out if I should change my menu in the off chance M does show, or just let her select what she can eat from what's already available.