I’m having a party at a hotel. There is a minimum head count in the room I booked. I made my guest list, which came to about 20% more than the minimum number for the room.
The problem- I got more rejections than I expected; in fact, now I’m below the room minimum. If I don’t fill the spaces, I’ll be paying for people that aren’t there. I don’t mind paying for them, since I planned to pay for all guests anyway, I’d just feel better about it if someone was actually going to eat the dinners I’m buying. Also, I think it will be nicer for the guest of honor to have more people there.
The party is in two weeks, and I’m considering asking a few of the people that didn’t make it onto the initial invitation list, in order to fill up a few empty seats.
Is it rude? They’ll know they didn’t make the first cut since it’s just a couple weeks away and I expect that through word-of-mouth they’ll find out that the initial invitations went out almost two months ago.
Am I stuck now with a smaller-than-intended party, or is there any way to politely ask others to join us- after all, it’s an evening of entertainment for them which will cost them absolutely nothing.
My mother’s in the B-list for a local political party. She doesn’t have anything at all against free dinners, no sir. Sometimes she’s been asked to bring “someone” and brought people who wouldn’t even be C-list (that’s how she got into the B-list herself, a B-lister invited her).
Of course YMMV etc etc. Mom’s agenda is quite busy but she can always make room for food.
Call these people now and tell them that you relized that you inadvertantly left them off the list. Apoligise and tell them you really would love to have them attend, and an invitaion will be going out today in the mail.
Do not mention to anybody that you were short people, or it could end up reaching these people in the end. Espesicaly when some load mouth in the know, gets drunk at the party.
And remember this - you cannot, under any circumstances, un-invite the b-list. So if all of the a-list calls at the last second or shows up at the door, you had better be prepared to feed them all.
I thought the OP referred to rejections. Should it not be true that once RSVP’d in the negative, the invitation no longer stands? Especially for a sit-down dinner.
Usually I put deadlines on my invitations, so I can get an accurate idea of how many people I have attending and prepare accordingly.
Proper etiquette requires you to respond to an invitation as soon as you know when you can attend, and if you’re unsure, you let the host know that you have a prior commitment and see if you can work around things from there.