Inviting Just to Be Polite

Some people send ALL their invites at the last minute, so I don't see how you could know or speculate one way or another.
Just be gracious in either accepting or declining the invitation and don't give it another thought. Not everyone has an ulterior motive!

I'm assuming this is for a child's birthday party. Some parties have limits, either set by the family or by the facility where it's being held, so there may be a list of children invited first and a second list that includes kids the child also wants to come but may not be in the first 8. I don't think it's a sign they don't want the child to actually come, just that they may not have initially had enough room to include all friends.

You are way overthinking this... It could be all of the above or they may be "last minute" people. We have friends who plan things months in advance (us too) and other friends who don't. I got a text today from a girlfriend inviting us over for pizza after trick-or-treating. I didn't think twice about it- this is just how she is!

If you don't want the person to show then don't invite them.

If you have received a last minute invitation and want to go then go.

I gave out last minute invitations to DD's birthday party: we had the party at a venue and since she just changed school we invited the whole class. After I knew who was coming from her class I sent out more invitations to our other friends - we had to stay within a predetermined limit of people...
It's not like our other friends were less important or less liked or that we hoped they didn't show... but this party was specifically for us to meet some of the other parents in her class, so we only knew how many of our friends we could invite after I received the first rounds of RSVP's. The timing of the invitation may mean NOTHING, so if you are invited, assume that people would be happy if you come.
Good luck.

I think you may be WAY over thinking this. If I did this, I would certainly hope that the recipient wasn't agonizing over all the reasons why she did not get her invitation sooner. Bottom line, you got an invitation so go if you want to and enjoy yourself!!

I think you need to define last minute. Someone's last minute may be a procrastinator's early planning.

There have been times where i've been restricted to a certain number of kids at a venue (say 12 kids) and the child has given me a list of 15 he wants there. I'll invite 12 and then as I get some "no" rsvp's, I'll invite the others. It's not meant to be a slight, or a ranking, or even hoping they won't come. It was the only way to make sure a 200 dollar birthday party didn't suddenly jump to 400.

there is no way to know, and speculating will just make you crazy, that's my thought lol. maybe they truly forgot. maybe they can't stand the person and were talked into sending the invitation. who knows? it really could be either.

I am always game for a party, so I would go-- nomatter last minute or not!

It depends. This year I sent out invites for my son's birthday 4 days notice (so sent out invites on Monday for a Thurs. dinnertime party) because that is when he changed his mind and said he DID want a party.

Last week for my daughter's party, I gave 1 week notice, because I was waiting to see the weather report.

I have also done last minute (2-3 days notice) get togethers because my kids said 'hey, can we ...' and I said sure.

Sometimes it's one of those. Sometimes it's just an oversight. Or it could be a last minute function.

Sounds like a lot of assuming going on... there could be many reasons for a late invitation to something. It could be as simple as having a "set" number of available slots, and someone already RSVP'd that they can't come, opening up another slot.

Or perhaps it took longer to get an address to mail the invite to. Or perhaps the child in question(?) decided they wanted to also invite ___ at the last minute.

I'm guessing from your question, that your child was invited to something later than you would have expected to receive an invitation to said event... ?

It may be that they realize you'll hear about the event from the circle of friends, or they may have realized they forgot to invite you, or they may have set a limit to the amount of guests, and when they got a certain amount of declines, they invited more people.
If you feel resentful of the last minute invitation, don't go to the event. I think a host should only invite a guest if they are prepared for the guest to attend!

Maybe that person is just spontaneous and doesn't think to invite people over till the last minute. That's how we are sometimes. Hey! Want to come over tonight for dinner...let's hang out! Of course many friends are usually busy at the last minute but sometimes not. Or are you saying this person invited a bunch of people to a birthday party and then at the last minute invited more people. If it were me that meant our child wanted to invite those friends but I gave them a limit. For example I'll say you can invite over 3 friends for your sleepover...I give my child a number. Of course they both usually have a hard time picking just that number of friends. Then if someone rsvps that they cannot come we might invite another child to take their place. Did that help?

i have to say i am a disorganized mess, and am trying to host a home party and had my list of guests, 4 of which are close friends and probbly sick of hearing of it, and then 4 at work and 4 at my volunteer agency that i just handed postcards to 5 days before the event becuase there was a mix up in getting them from the rep, and then my poor planning on sending them out. I feel awful and to be honest i don't care a ton one way or the other if they come, but when i went back and forth on inviting i figured what they heck maybe they will be free.

So long story short if you are one of my last min invites i feel bad, sorry i hope you don't assume i ddidn't want you.

And lesson to take from my situation that ti's hard to ever really know what people are thinking.

I agree with Veronica. This child sounds like she was on the "B list". My daughter has never experienced a last minute invitation, but I would probably be a little offended if she was. But if she really wanted to go, I'd still send her with a gift and hope she has a great time.

Could be what you say. Or they may have forgotten until last minute. I just invited a friend and her granddaughter at the last minute (same day) to my art opening and I really wanted them to come, and I couldn't believe I forgot. And they came. Yay!

Personally, I think that people read way too much into other people's actions.

Don't worry about why you were invited.

If you get an invite and you want to go to the party, then go. If you don't want to do, don't go.

Last minute invites can go mean two things and usually the person invited knows. A true oversight is given with a true apology. A last minute invite is given without any explanation. One can ususally can tell.

That is definitely the cynical view, but maybe it's true?? If you and your child are the recipient of the late invitation and there is some conflict with the hosting parents, then you may be right on. If you feel this way about an invitation you received, then you are probably right to feel they are just being polite or sending the invitation to avoid any drama in a group. There must be a reason you are feeling this way. Of course, I'm assuming you are the recipient of the invitation and not the sender here.

I've sent late birthday party invitations to members of my extended family (a cousin and her terribly behaved daughter and loud, obnoxious b/f) in the hopes that they don't come....

No I don't think what you are thinking is necessarily true with most people. Just the other day I invited guests over, since we had a cousin pop into town, and I am getting the cold shoulder over it. I should have called them earlier. How long have you known.....etc. Well maybe I would have called them earlier if I hadn't been at the hospital with my mom and taking care of her. So see, things happen and sometimes people might not be getting to the invites as quick as you think they should. But that doesn't mean they intended hurt feelings. I say if this happened to you, just go to the party and put on a happy face. I bet you'd be glad you did.

I don't read that much into it. There could be a hundred different reasons, and I don't always think to look at it as a negative.

Not sure which side of the coin you are on here.

I guess I'll say that if I knew that the invitation wasn't in good faith, or that I was an afterthought, or that I wasn't really wanted, I would not attend. I'd rather not get an invitation than get one in the circumstances described.

If I were the hostess, I guess that if it had to do with family that I might invite them in order to keep the peace, but hope that they wouldn't show. I would not really invite someone who was not family because they might hear about it - for heavens sake, I can't invite everybody I know just because they might hear I had a gathering and have their feelings hurt that they weren't invited.

Does this help?
Dawn

I agree with M. L. Don't read to much into it. I have invited people last minute and never have invited ANYONE that I wouldn't want to. A good example is my granddaughter's birthday party. I am busy with the getting things together. Her mom sent out invites, got the party decorations and such, but it was at my house. A couple days before the party, I thought about a good friend of mine who loves my granddaughter. She has no grandchildren of her own and she and her husband enjoy being involved so I called her to come over. It wasn't meant as a slight in anyway and perhaps it would have been better to think of it early enough to send out the invites, but as it is, we wanted them there and hoped they would come.

In order to get an accurate answer, you would need to ask the individual. There is no formula to this when it comes to people with lives to lead. Everything you said could apply. Sometimes I just plain forget obvious choices and hope that they don't catch it. Sometimes I am late sending out invitations for a number of reasons. When the invitations are less formal, I might hold off on sending to a close friend because I want to wait until I have time to say all the other stuff that I want to say to them AND extend the invitation.

If it means that much to you, just ask. Otherwise, go or don't go, based on YOUR schedule.

They could have truly forgotten to send the invitation, hence the last minute invite. Sometimes they have invite list A and invite list B because they are unable to invite everyone (thus, you can't please everybody). I gave my daughter an 8th grade graduation party in May and invited 25 of her friends. I was certain all 25 would not come and didn't even consider parents, who I had not invited to stay (not enough room). All but 1 kid showed up to my surprise and as for adults, I basically had to contend with family and maybe 3 sets of parents, who were stopping by on their way out for an afternoon without their kids. And yes, I did have last minute invites. However, there were kids in my daughter's 8th grade class that she didn't like (and they didn't like her), so they were not invited and no concern was given to whether or not they heard about the party or if their feelings were hurt. I understand that when the kids are younger that you might feel more compelled to invite "everyone in the class or in teh circle of friends," but at age 14..we had enough of doing that over the years. I want my daughter to be around her friends and people she enjoys and who enjoy her. I recognize this is not the same situation that you describe per say. Not having enough room for everyone is always a good answer to why someone was not invited.

I have my daughter's bday invites in my purse. Half have stamps and the other half do not. I simply ran out. I've been tempted to mail the ones with stamps to get them out of my purse. That would leave some that would go out later.

Granted my invites are for family, but things happen that postpone invites that aren't malicious in nature.

I personally do not invite people to my child's party that she doesn't want to be there.
But, I try to keep it fair. She had a falling out with her bully friend in her class, so I won't ruin my kids party with an obligatory invite, we are just going to invite a few friends outside of school instead. She won't even know, and won't feel left out if we invited other girls from the class. And to be honest with you, I am over inviting children that i do not know. I am sick of getting literally interviewed by parents.

A couple of times I have received an invite that gave me like a day or two notice and I don't even respond to those.

I could careless the reasoning behind it, but I just assume its poor planning. And even if we were "B" list (sorry, that made me laugh), I don't have time for that either.