Didn't Make the Cut

“Don’t take it personally,” I find myself saying repeatedly – to myself, to friends, to family – when situations arise with friends that often lead someone to take it personally.

One of the more common and yet challenging scenarios that can be difficult to process involves wedding-related events.

A good friend talked with me this weekend about feeling hurt that she was excluded from a friend’s daughter’s upcoming wedding. She was able to talk herself through it and didn’t confront her friend despite wanting to, but she has lingering feelings about being left out, especially while she is still helping the mother-of-the-bride talk out the remaining details.

Last year, another friend told me that she was not included in a bridal shower for a friend’s daughter and she was deeply hurt, feeling that their closeness called for each other’s presence on such special occasions. In this case, she told her friend how she felt which initially caused uncomfortable feelings between them, but luckily the bond was strong enough to move forward.  

Being a host on three different occasions – as the mother of a son, a daughter, and a stepdaughter, all of whom had weddings – I can say that each celebration presented its own challenges when it came to the invitation list.

For starters, the guest numbers were determined in large part by the soon-to-be newlyweds and venue capacities. In each case, once the criteria was established, the total number of people allowed were divided among the various units involved: the bride and groom and all the parents (which were as many as 8).

This means that in the larger weddings, even though David and I were allotted about 50 invitees, once we included our families, we were only left with 15 or so couples which we then had to divide between us. Not all families have the second marriage reality to contend with, but it is an additional factor, as we had experienced our own lives and connections for some 40 years before beginning to merge them. Even in more conventional arrangements, circumstances arise that make list construction complicated.

The guest list dilemma is not an unusual position to be in for those of us in my generation, given how long we’ve been around and the wonderful friends we’ve accumulated along the way. In addition, there are friends who have invited us to their happy occasions, so we want to reciprocate and invite them to ours.

All this said, I completely understand how people could feel hurt if they are left out, and I too have felt this way numerous times. It wasn’t until I hosted parties and began to understand the quandary of having to limit invitations that I started to realize that not being included didn’t define or change the relationship.

It’s hard, but I have learned not to take these exclusions personally...or at least I have tried.