Engagement Party Ettiquette?

[rockzilla]

My fiance''s family would like to throw us an engagement party this summer. They''ll have it at their home in San Diego (whereas we''re in LA/SF) and I''m sure will be inviting their family & friends.

The question is, we are hosting the wedding ourselves and will be determining the guest list (but probably not for some time...the wedding isn''t until next summer). I thought I read somewhere that you shouldn''t invite anyone to the engagement party that isn''t invited to the wedding - which sounds fine if (traditionally) the brides parents are hosting both.

What also complicates things is that it will be his dad & stepmom (his mom passed away when he was v. young, but he was moved out when his dad remarried) and so she will likely invite her family to the engagement party who will not be invited to the wedding.

We don''t want to tell them who they can and can''t invite to a party at their own home....would it be fine to just let them do the inviting and we''ll worry about our guest list separately? I don''t want to offend anyone, but I don''t think her family is really expecting to be invited to the wedding...

RZ

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Maybe you could offer to work on the guest list ahead of time and trying to iron it out that way? Hmm.

ETA: I mean work on the list together.

 

[neatfreak]

Could be wrong, but I believe that you''re off the hook if different people are hosting the party from the wedding, because one assumes that THEY are doing the inviting, not you.

 

[Haven]

I wouldn''t invite anyone to an engagement party if I didn''t plan on inviting them to the wedding. Talk to your FI''s family about it, as they probably know these people well enough to know how they''d respond to this particular situation.

 

[violet02]

The rule is to not invite anyone to the engagement party that isn't invited to your wedding... BUT... I have a 'man of honor' who hosted my party (my parents on are on the east coast, i'm on the west). We had a very informal party with TONS of our friends there and about a third of them or more aren't invited to the wedding. They do realize though that we have a small guest list due to budgetary constraints and family and no one has assumed they are being invited to the wedding... that's probably only because it was an informal party on a saturday night.

Had my parents hosted a more formal event I may have limited who I invited. And ditto what haven said basically.