Yeah, well given those numbers, your example has bupkis to do with the OP, doesn’t it?
Also, I disagree with everyone saying to invite the boss anyway – but also make your choice with your eyes open. She may (probably) retaliate. This retaliation may or may not include getting fired (or being made so miserable that you quit just to save your sanity).
If she does crash, and you have someone bounce her, you can have the bouncer tell her that the event is private and restricted to invited guests only. That would make it clear she’s not being singled out by you, but she’s in essence singling out herself by crashing in the first place (and honestly, who wouldn’t bounce any and every wedding crasher? it’s not like she would evict the boss and not others, it’s just that it’s unlikely that any others will crash). At the same time, regardless of logic, I’d expect the boss to take it personally no matter what you do, even though it isn’t. She obviously thinks the universe revolves around her; the fact that any other crasher would also get bounced, if there were other crashers, would be lost on her.
Finally, I also agree with everyone that you should be documenting everything. That way, if she does retaliate, you have your own ammunition to take to HR. If you start talking to them about “hostile work environments” they’ll do something, if only out of the desire to cover their own asses.
Is she allergic to anything? Have plenty of those things at the front door.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you. It sounds like some people in your social circle are (were?) clueless about how we stopped treating other people like that in grade school. Being a temp, I’ve had the opportunity to sample a lot of different work environments, and most of them are not cliquey, but you’ll run into the odd one that feels like it’s straight out of high school. When I end up in one of those, I do my damnedest to highlight their immature behaviour, by being the most inclusionary person they ever met (well, as much as a temp can, anyway).
Here’s the way I visualized it: OP brings her invitations to work, but doesn’t show them around, she just wants to work on the invitations while she’s on break. She does so. She assumes that being on break means that her time is her own, and that she will be left alone. Her boss, who cannot conceive of a situation where someone would not want to talk to her (boss) instead of enjoying her break, decides to stick her big nose into the OP’s business…which in this case, is her wedding invitations. Boss also can’t imagine why OP doesn’t want to have Boss at her (small, friends only) wedding and/or reception, as Boss is always welcome wherever she goes.
IMO, the OP might have made a very tiny mistake by bringing in the invitations to occupy her during her break. However, the Boss was rude for sticking her nose into the OP’s business while the OP was on break, and is now assuming that she’s welcome to come to the reception. Boss either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the OP doesn’t want to spend ANY time with her, and that is both clueless and rude. One can get away with inviting oneself over to a casual family get together. Something that’s so very formal as a wedding and reception (and the average person doesn’t attend anything more formal than a wedding) is not something to just casually invite oneself to. Even if the person who is getting married commits a teensy little slip, that doesn’t give anyone the right to assume that they are or that they should be invited to any part of the festivities.
And make sure that her being bounced gets videoed. Then if retaliation happens, it’s one more arrow in your quiver.
Plus the fact that you can put it up on YouTube later for laughs.
In that example, I would agree with you. But your example is not the case with the OP. If she had openly addressed invitations to half of her coworkers and not the other half, and then told everyone about it, then yeah, dick move. But that’s not what happened. She was doing something personal on her own personal time. Coworkers that found out about it were cool about it. No one’s feelings got hurt.
The boss didn’t feel rightfully hurt and slighted because everyone else in the office but her got invited. She made the unilateral decision to crash the reception. There is a HUGE difference there.
That’s exactly how it’s been going down. Thanks for the summary Lynn.
Well, the addressing of the invitations at work and the boss inviting herself are two separate issues in my mind. The boss strikes me as a narcissistic maniac, and there’s absolutely no excuse for her behavior. None. This is a primary reason why I don’t agree with the folks saying “Just invite her anyway.” The OP is not responsible for the boss’s hard feelings in this case, the boss is being overly presumptive and whatever hard feelings she experiences as a result are her own fault.
At the same time, unless the OP was addressing invitations in her own private office with the door closed where she could reasonably expect no one to wander by and see the invitations by accident, she should have left that for an at home project, not something for her work environment, even if she was on break. She pretty much has no way of knowing if what she did cause any hurt feelings among her co-workers; any adult with grace wouldn’t mention it if she felt left out.
I’m sorry, there is no way to not talk about an upcoming wedding. You can avoid bringing the subject up but people ask you about it CONSTANTLY – particularly if you are a woman and they are also a woman. The only way to keep it under the radar is to never wear an engagement ring in the workplace.
And everyone knows that invites to a wedding are not at all based on who you like best or who you’d prefer to spend time with. It is a formal occasion in which family normally comes first in terms of invitation priority; in fact some weddings have very few friends of the bride and groom in attendance.
My little problem kind of solved itself: the evil boss is being demoted and transferred… before the wedding! So she can’t intimidate, coerce and otherwise manipulate me into inviting her! At this point, I doubt she’ll show up (she doesn’t have a leg to stand on), but if for some crazy reason she does, I have no problem tossing her out on her ass. She has no more power over me!
It doesn’t mean she won’t show up. Now you can freely kick her ass out though.
Well, that is a VERY satisfactory outcome! Yeay!
Break out the champagne! Time to celebrate!
You’ll still post a video if your bouncers toss her out on her ass, right?
Heck, take it an extra step farther and have her bounced and arrested for trespassing. 
What a great wedding gift!
Oh, sure, for Serenata. What about those of us who are in it for the vicarious entertainment?
Ah, well, congratulations anyway, Serenata!
As I said in the other thread, yay!