If you haven’t received an invitation, you're not invited.

I go to a lot of events. LOTS. Birthdays, baby showers, graduations, weddings, wedding showers, christenings/dedications… the list goes on and on. And while my pocketbook is cringing a little with each gift, I am happy to attend these events in support of my friends, family, co-workers, etc. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, though, that warrants some discussion: the assumption that one is on the guest list.

It is at the discretion of the guest of honor and/or the host of an event to determine the guest list. There are a lot of factors that go into this list: cost (and who is providing the funds), size, location, type of event, venue, who the guest of honor/host wants to share in the event and how the guests will interact with each other. You should never make the assumption that you are on the guest list.

• Who is on the guest list isn’t necessarily an indication of those guests’ level of closeness to the guest of honor, although it may be.
• Every person has their own level of inclusion; some people don’t invite co-workers to personal events, period. You shouldn’t take it personally.
• Often times it is difficult to include one person from a group, for example your favorite cousin, without extending to a much larger group, say all seven of your cousins and their spouses. Including part of a category of guests can be tricky to pull off (especially with family). Including the full category, though, can really screw with your guest total.
• Invitations to events are not reciprocal. Having invited someone to your birthday party does not guarantee an invite to theirs.
  
  

If you haven’t received an invitation, you’re not invited. And it is not appropriate to solicit an invitation from the guest of honor. Inserting yourself into an event is presumptuous, no matter how entitled you feel to an invitation or how close you think you are to the guest of honor.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, but I really AM on the invitation list! Something terrible must have happened to your invitation, like an accident at the printers or a typo in your address. You’re thinking it would be rude of you not to follow up with the guest of honor to make sure he/she knows that you aren’t deliberately failing to RSVP, but that you had no idea you were even invited to the special event!

That’s certainly a possibility; sometimes your invitation IS actually lost in the mail. It happened to me last fall and I was only officially invited to a friend’s baby shower when I got the dreaded email stating the hostesses hadn’t received my RSVP. I’ll get a post out about the right way to inquire for the rare occurrence of a missing invitation– along with a guideline as to the likelihood you’re actually on the guest list – soon.

For now, trust me that if you’re meant to be invited someone will contact you when they haven’t heard back with your RSVP. That’s the nature of hosted events.

If someone doesn’t get in touch with you, then you aren’t invited. Don’t take it too personally and don’t let it define your relationship with the guest of honor. If you care about that person more than a slice of bakery cake you’ll find a way to support and celebrate the event on your own. Ultimately that will mean more than your participation in a game of toilet-paper-the-bride.