Adefunke Ogunnusi: Strictly By Invitation… Naija Flavour

These days, there is an increasing “strictly by invitations” trend. On a few occasions, I have personally experienced situations where invited guests randomly invite friends to a friend’s, sister’s, enemy’s party without prior consent of the celebrant. For this reason, I do not blame people who have taken the somewhat “brutal” necessary approach to restrict unwanted guests.
From discussions with people who have hosted strictly by invitation events, they noted the following reasons:

Intimacy
A lot of people complain that they don’t like the idea of not being able to recognise guests at their event. A friend of mine once told me that her sister’s wedding had over 2000 guests. (No joke, that’s like a proper big concert)

Personal preference
Some folks just want a small everything: small wedding, small party, small everything. They are not the LauLau people and that’s just it.

Saving
Some people can only afford to feed a certain number of people and they choose to stick to what they can afford, nothing wrong with that.

I have a few questions for both “Strictly by Invitation Host and Uninvited Guest”.

Host

How do you decide who is in your inner circle? Is it okay to exclude family?
Personally I don’t have a choice. Whatever ceremony I do especially my wedding must include family members + some friends turned family+ x.

X being the number of people I decide are in my inner circle. That is just the way it is. You don’t need to like or have a relationship with the family member. It is family courtesy/ tradition.

How do you decline people who assume they are invited to an event you are planning?
Someone once told me she assumed she was invited to a friend’s wedding only to be told that the wedding was really small. Guests included only family and really close friends. Ouch.

What sort of relationship do you expect to have with non – invited friends after the event?
Well, if my really close friend was getting married or celebrating a birthday party and I didn’t get an invite I’d be upset. Not because I am a party goer, but because I assumed I was in your inner circle.

Uninvited Guest?

Would you help out?
My Jesus mind which asks ‘what is the big deal about helping?’ is out –  if I knew I was not getting an invite for an event; but my natural mind screams ‘hell no’ Go and ask all the chosen ones.

Would you retaliate?
Kai this one is hard. If you did not invite me to your event, why should I invite you to mine?

It is that painful?
I have never found myself in this position before. I have always been in the chosen one crew.
Frankly I have nothing against anyone who decides not to invite me to an event, as I am not even outgoing in the first place. All I can say is that if the people in my inner circle “forget” to invite me to an event they are hosting, I shall invite myself. Shikena

Lastly, I think all hosts should be true to their list. If you really think someone is not close enough to be invited to your event that is perfectly fine, don’t invite the person. This should hold regardless of change in economic/social status. I tend to see that people become “invitable” (wrong English, good analogy), once social strata goes up the ladder – that famous social ladder.

Let me know if you have been the host/ uninvited guest and your thoughts.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime