The last thing you want is a messy confrontation with your boss, either at work or at your wedding. These things need to be handled discreetly and with great tact.
Thus, you should hire a drifter to kill her.
Give her the invitation that she wants. Just give her directions to some local place that is known for doing wedding receptions, preferably across town from where you will actually be. If she calls you out on it later, just claim it was a typo/printing error.
That sounds good. I would add, next time she talks about crashing your wedding, I’d have a camera ready to take a picture of her, and if she asks why, tell her that you’re giving her picture to the security for your wedding since you under no circumstances want her there (especially if you have one foot out the door already).
ETA: I’m getting all exciting about this scenario - you wave your hand grandly at the rest of the office and say, “THEY are not invited to my wedding. YOU ESPECIALLY are not invited to my wedding. YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”
If she does show up, be sure to get pictures. This could prove her stalking you and be an enormous help in the overall conflict.
This is the attitude you should maintain. Your wedding is your once-in-a-lifetime event, and you don’t want to look back at it with bad memories of an unruly non-guest. If this woman is so rude and inconsiderate on a daily basis, I guarantee she’ll be even more rude and inconsiderate with “unlimited beers” in her. She has the power to ruin your day; don’t let her do it.
Oh, and your coworkers are going to love it when they hear how this bitch was thrown out on her ass. You’re gonna be their hero.
I was toying with the idea of saying something like, “My fiance and I thought of inviting co-workers, but then we thought it would be awkward to obligate our colleagues to buying us wedding gifts… you know how uncomfortable it would be if everyone invited to our wedding gave us large, expensive gifts, only to find that one or two colleagues were so stingy in the wedding presents they gave us! So we decided just to avoid the problem and only invite our richest family members and our most wealthy friends! Isn’t that a great idea?”
But the advice most people are giving about being increasingly firm about who is actually invited is much more sensible.
not just any third party but HR. Tell them you feel there may be retaliation, and her insistence at inviting herself to your wedding is putting serious strain on your work and personal life, and it is verging on harassment. Emphasize that your wedding is personal and nobody from work is being invited, so it is in no way considered an extension of your work.
Maybe this has been suggested already in the thread (I’ve read it all but I might have missed a post), but I would approach her like this:
“I’m not sure if you’re joking or not, but could you please do me a favour and not crash the reception? I had to cut some family members from the guest list, and if someone from work shows up, there will be no end of trouble from relatives wondering why great-aunt Hilda was not invited when people from work were. This would make my wedding day very miserable and I would really appreciate it if I didn’t have to go through this.” If you have any close friends at work willing to help you with this, say it out loud in front of a group of supportive colleagues who can reinforce this with the boss at the same time: “Ooh been there done that! I hope you don’t have people getting mad at you on your wedding day.”
P.S. Pay one of your loud-mouthed obnoxious relatives to pretend to be drunk and shout very loudly as she comes in “What is this rhymes-with-witch doing here? You said that you weren’t inviting anyone from work! You didn’t even have room for Cousin Jeff!” At this point, maybe your boss’s husband will drag her out of there.
Or have two people at the door greeting people. When she shows up, one of the greeters asks her “Who are you?” She says “I’m Serenata67’s boss from work.” Then the other greeter says “What?!? I thought no one from work was invited becuase she didn’t even have enough room for my uncle!” The two greeters start yelling at each other while blocking the entrance and the angry one aks her “do you have an invitation with you? Were your really officially invited?” When she says no he can kick her out. The your greeter is the bad guy, not you.
She may be doing this just to mess with you. Maybe if you did invite her, she then wouldn’t show up.
This was going to be my suggestion. If your reception is at the Elks Lodge, tell her it’s at the Moose Lodge across town. If it’s at the Sunset Inn, tell her it’s at the Sunrise Hotel…
You brought the invitations to work and flaunted them in front of people who would not be invited–a big etiquette no-no. And you have been scheduling your work around your bridal plans, and not the other way around, as most workplaces would expect. Your boss has done you the favor of allowing this. I’m guessing she expects an invite in exchange.
Actually, you both sound rude and entitled to me. Too late to fix that now. But you need to consider what the ramifications will be to you if you do “toss her out on her ass” should she try to crash your wedding. Do you really think your boss will just let that pass by? Compared to the hell she can put you through at work, you might consider letting her attend just for the peace of mind. Try being gracious about it and not only will it save you trouble at work, but you might feel good about yourself for having taken the high road.
If it makes you feel any better, your problem is very common, almost traditional, at weddings. But usually, your boss’ role is taken by an estranged parent or in-law.
Purely to satisfy my own curiosity, have you read the thread the OP linked to in her first post?
Yup. The boss sounds like the far bigger offender to me, but that doesn’t mean the OP didn’t make mistakes as well.
Well, that’s not how wedding invitations work, so if the boss expects that, then the boss is an idiot. Of course, we already know that the boss is an idiot from all the other information the OP has provided. This is just the icing on the cake.
A slightly different perspective:
Mr. Wonderland and I were married just over 2 months ago. We had quite a small wedding - about 50 people, and we had wedding crashers! One woman neither of us had ever met and she wasn’t even introduced to us! They wore jeans and uggs!!! They didn’t even give us a card, or sign the card of someone else! They complained about the food and where we were able to seat them! I mean it was quite farcical! They were buffoons! Born in a barn! Emily Post would spin in her grave!
Honestly, everything else went so well that we kind of enjoyed that crashers showed up. We’ve had a really good time cutting them up with other invited guests and it gave us something to grouse about. Really, when people ask about your wedding after the fact it’s kind of fun to have a “You have GOT to be kidding me!!” type story to add to all the 'It was so lovely, we’re so happy, blah, blah, blah." type stories.
Anyway - I don’t know what you should do, but having someone you don’t like show up doesn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen at your wedding. She’ll look like a twat and you can be gracious and look like the star. Or you can have a large scary man or two boot her out which would be pretty entertaining too.
This is actually a good point - in spite of the OP thinking they did everything right, I’d agree that this is a cautionary tale, for why you keep your wedding stuff completely separate from work stuff. I don’t recall needing to do anything for my wedding during work hours, or have my co-workers see any of my preparations (not even during my lunch hour).
Just out of curiosity, who was she?
Actually, it is how etiquette works, for weddings and other occasions. You do not bring invitations into a workplace unless you plan to invite your co-workers. You do not discuss a part in front of someone unless you intend to invite them. You can look it up in Miss Manner or Emily Post or wherever else.
Cat Whisperer is right–this is a cautionary tale. Boss is nuts. Everyone who’s ever had an insane boss knows you have to manage the crazy.