Wedding invitation advice

[hayz_baby]

Posting here due to higher traffic

Our wedding is 6 months away so we are gearing up to sending invitations. Our wedding is small about 30-35 guests due to budget which enivitabley means some people don't have day invitations. Mainly family we don't see very often but they would still love to come. As you can imagine we are about to enter a minefield.

At the end of last year my oh fell out with one of his close friends. Called r. There's a lot of back story and tbh hasn't been that good a friend in a long time. Oh has a very small circle of friends, his best mate being r's brother w. Also best man. Now w asked oh after a couple of months to try and sort as he didn't want to be stuck in the middle and r is extremely stubborn. So oh did, we went round not long after their lo was born. Thinking everything had been sorted I gave them a save the date. Since then we have barely heard from him, a few days after we went round oh sent him a text asking how everything is going. A reply of yeah great. That's it. Still nothing. He hasn't said anything more to us. A few weeks ago we bumped into them, he said alrite? And spent the rest of the time looking at his phone. It's intentional he isn't interested.
I have since questioned if we should invite him his partner (who I have got on well with in the past but not heard much) and baby to our wedding. And tbh, I don't want him there. Why should we invite someone who is not interested at all to our small wedding with a tight budget and people who want to come we can't stretch. But I have them a save the date.
Oh doesn't want him there. Any advice?

 

[d_b]

Maybe you could text him and say that the plan changed and now it's going to be a very small wedding and unfortunately you can only invite your family members and a few others?

Normally I would say you're kind of stuck, if you sent the save the date you have to send an invitation. But if you really don't want him there then maybe try to talk to him about it so he won't feel slighted.

 

[catty]

Id probably say just invite him if it was a big wedding but due to the fact its a small wedding and hes clearly not making any effort id maybe just send an evening invite saying plans have changed etc. Or you could maybe get his brother to explain but seems like he doesnt want to be caught in the middle

 

[smileyfaces]

Erm no, defo don't invite. With such a small wedding those places will fill quickly with friends and family that you actually WANT there. Neither of you want R there so to me that's simple enough to say no invite!

Save the date situation....invite them to the evening reception (assuming you are inviting more in the evening?) If not then just don't mention anything to them. If they question it just say that since there has been a clear lack of interest in the friendship then you assumed they wouldn't want to share your big day.

 

[MindUtopia]

More than likely, especially with a small baby, they are unlikely to attend. I personally would just send a card that says you hope they are doing well and just to let them know you've had to make some changes to the guest list due to budget and needing to make more space for family and you aren't able to invite them as you'd hoped and that you hope they understand. If your OH genuinely wants to repair the friendship one day, perhaps invite them all around for lunch or a playdate and maybe that will take the tension off of it. Otherwise, no, your wedding, you do what you want and no one gets to have an opinion about it. More than likely, they wouldn't come anyway, but if you don't want it hanging over you, just be up front about not being able to invite them anymore but leave the door open if they ever do what to re-connect. If you feel awkward doing that, then maybe just invite them to the evening do. With a small baby, they're very unlikely to come anyway.

 

[maryp0ppins]

Ive had save the dates just for the evening before, are you having evening only guests? If so I would just invite them to that.

 

[CookieCupcake]

If you don't want him there and your OH doesn't want him there I just wouldn't invite him.

As for explaining, if he isn't interested in the friendship I doubt he would be interested in the invitation not being extended to him so I wouldn't offer him an upfront explanation. If in the future he asked you why he wasn't invited I would explain it then.