I work in a large office with approximately 65 people.. We decided to keep our wedding small with only our close friends and family invited to the ceremony and reception. Less than 60 people have been invited this includes our attendants. I have said from the beginning of planning I do not want to invite my co workers to wedding because I don’t want to invite one person and not another so that no ones feelings get hurt. My wedding party happens to work with me they are the only people from my job that I have invited.

It is time to plan the bridal shower and my MOH would like to invite some people from our work. I feel weird about it because I am not inviting them to the wedding or reception. It has been suggested to me to invite them to the reception after a formal dinner has been served for cocktails and dancing. I also feel weird about this as we are having a cash bar, I don’t think its appropriate to invite them to the reception after dinner is served with no snack food and expect them to buy their own drinks.

Do I opt out of having a bridal shower all together?

Donna, Wedding Queen, President; Top Wedding Sites

Cash bar? [:)]

Only those invited to the wedding should be invited to the shower.
Your work friends could suggest a workplace shower to include t5hose working with you who are not invited to the wedding. This is the only exception to the rule.

Brandi Hamerstone,
Owner/Senior Wedding Planner All Events Planned

I’m going to have to agree 100% with the previous answer to this. You should only have those at your shower that are coming to your wedding.
Your best option is to have a workplace friend organize a small luncheon or event that will include all of your coworkers so that no one feels excluded from the event. If you have close friends at work, then they should be invited to both, but don’t just invite anyone to half of the event.

Rebecca Black, Etiquette By Rebecca

Whoa baby pull over; we have quite a few etiquette violations going on here.

With a wedding this small, there should be no shower. This is because so many of your guests would be giving you two gifts. It just appears that you want to make sure you receive those two gifts–not pretty.

No guest should ever be invited to just a portion of the reception. All guests are invited to the entire event. Can you imagine being invited to the end of the reception knowing that many of the other, special guests, attended the entire event? This is classifying your guests are special and second class–also not pretty.

And, then we have something we have ranted about many, many times: the cash bar. It is viewed as very negative to include a cash bar at a reception. Guest should never, ever have to open their wallets at an event for which they have been invited. This is also why the money dance and wishing wells are also viewed so poorly these days.

I think you realize that some of this is questionable behavior and planning already. Always consider how others will feel before making your plans. If the plan doesn’t feel right, then don’t do it.

Donna, Wedding Queen, President; Top Wedding Sites

Well, you did say cash bar… [:/]

In any event, no, it is not polite to invite anyone, co-workers including, to a shower if they are not invited to the wedding. However, your coworkers could decide to host a workplace shower for you and that would be fine. Those are usually done on the lunch hour, very informally, with maybe one group gift given. Those people do not have to be wedding guests.
I hope that answer clears the water for you.

Rebecca Black, Etiquette By Rebecca

Only those invited to the wedding may be invited to the shower. The one exception is the “work shower” which is what the Wedding Queen was describing.

It is better not to offer mixed drinks if you are not paying for them. It just isn’t polite to offer something that isn’t covered by you. But, it is very positive to be offering all you are offering. Very good indeed.

There is no magic number of people invited to a wedding that relates to appropriateness of accepting a bridal shower. It is more of a common sense matter–no wonder it is confusing. We should ask ourselves if it is appropriate for a large number of our wedding guest to be obligated to give two wedding gifts, one for the shower and one for the wedding. Consider that you have 60 some odd wedding guests, 30 to 35 are invited and attend a shower hosted for you. That is about half of your guests giving you two more than one wedding gift. A lot of this has to do with appearances. It could appear that your focus is on gifts, when in actuality it is not. You clearly do not feel this way. So, be very careful in your planning and accepting a shower. Perhaps if you do accept, your shower could be a giftless affair. That would be positive.

dzd&confus

Thank you this does clear up quite a few things. I will mention the gift less shower idea to my bridesmaids. As well as if they want to host a co worker event to do in the work place.

the only last thing I can mention is that our venue has a full bar its at a nice restaurant so I can’t stop people from wanting to order mixed drinks and cocktails.. But I have made clear to the venue that we are on a budget and that I would like my guests to have a few drinks on us as it is a celebration but we will only provide the beer and wine and if they ask for a cocktail to please advise that the bride and groom will not be paying for those before they serve them.