<p>Do you receive wedding invitations of colleagues under your supervision?
Do you consider those invites as “courtesy” because you don’t socialize outside work?
For those who have attended, would you have gone if it was out of town?</p>
<p>If your children are married, did they invite their direct supervisors or head of their department?</p>
<p>If invited, I would go (and have gone), but if not invited, I wouldn’t feel slighted.</p>
<p>I would consider those invitations a “courtesy” to the supervisor or boss. Unless you have a close, personal relationship as a mentor or some history of socializing with the underling (as in academia), you should not feel a duty to attend. Especially if the wedding is out of town.</p>
<p>A gift and card will cover the “duty”.</p>
<p>A younger friend invited everyone in his department to his wedding…including his immediate supervisor and her supervisor. </p>
<p>No issues whatsover depending on the culture of the working environment and degree of positive relations between employee and supervisors. Granted, they were all within an hour or so drive of the wedding venues so the “out of town” aspect never came up.</p>
<p>I definitely wouldn’t go out of town to attend anyone’s wedding, unless they were a personal friend (or family, obviously).</p>
<p>Another thing to consider would be if I, as a supervisor, might put a damper on the party. People I supervise might feel less inclined to kick up their heels at the reception if I were there.</p>
<p>In the situation you describe, I’d give a nice gift and a card with a warm personal note.</p>
<p>My niece had an interesting situation. She invited quite a few people from her law firm. My dad (grandpa of the bride) invited a lot of the judiciary (including the Supreme Court Chief Justice–friends of his) & other luminaries. Niece’s friends were intimidated & wouldn’t dance until the partners & other luminaries left (fortunately not too late in the evening). </p>
<p>When I got married, I invited the entire law firm & most of the folks came–partners, secretaries, etc. Have NOT been invited to weddings of folks under my supervision but would go if I was available & wanted to attend–if not, would send a nice card and gift.</p>
<p>I got invited to a few weddings and went to most of them. In every case there was a personal relationship in addition to the business one. Courtesy invitation? No thank you.</p>
<p>FWIW it’s the same for extended family. If I don’t know the Bride or Groom, it’s a card and a small check. My wife’s cousin’s kid I never met? No thanks, I’ll use my miles for something else.</p>
<p>Yes, we usually attend. Sometimes Dh will go on his own if it is someone I don’t know at all or if he doesn’t want to stay long. Some are courtesy appearances, some are because we really like the employee and we will have fun at the reception.</p>
<p>We extended an invitation to dh’s boss. I didn’t care one way or another if she came. I didn’t care if she sent a gift or even a card, but I would have liked a response. C’mom people, it is not that hard to put a check mark on the card and drop it in the mail; it’s even stamped for you!</p>
<p>My two Ds who are married only invited those who were close to them, who had played an important role in their lives. That went for the friends of my H and me, too, only our friends who had known the girls since they were very young, some since they were born. And, no, grandparents didn’t get to submit names to the invitation list! One had a fellow teacher as a bridesmaid but no one else she works with was invited. The other was a law student when she married, so no ‘fellow employee or boss’ situation there. I have never been a believer of this courtesy invite situation. Why anyone would want to celebrate such a wonderful occasion with dozens of people who only know the couple tangentially, if at all, baffles me. </p>
<p>My H and I attended the wedding of a young woman who reported to him, whom he mentored, and who will eventually be his successor, but that was a unique situation and we knew her well.</p>
<p>For many years, my H and I have been the “employer” in a small business. Over the years we were invited to weddings of our employees, former employees, and children of employees. We went to almost all of them, but none were out of town. I always considered it a courtesy, albeit a nice one. None of the weddings was so small that it made a difference whether we were there or not, and I highly doubt that it made a difference.</p>
<p>In more recent years, the employees stopped doing this (other employees), and I have to admit, that I felt slighted, and a bit disrespected, although I do subscribe to the idea that a personal event is just that. Why? I am a person after all, and if you are going to talk about your plans day in and day out, and then not invite someone, it does feel like a snub (to me). DH did not feel the same way. These are also a different generation from those of 15-20 years ago.</p>
<p>When I got married, I invited the Senior Partner that I used to work for. I think he made it a practice not to come to weddings of associates (and I guess former associates), but he and his wife responded in a nice way to the invitation. I had other coworkers, and former coworkers (some of whom were more senior) at my wedding, including another Senior Partner from a different firm. I think the latter felt as I do that it was a nice courtesy to be invited. In both those firms it was not unheard of to socialize outside of work between partners and associates - although these were almost always group events.</p>
<p>My husband and I have been invited to the weddings of two women who worked for him. We went to both weddings. One of the woman only invited DH and me; the other woman invited us and all of the other employees (6 at the time) and their spouses. I don’t think my husband would have felt slighted if he hadn’t been invited.</p>
<p>I once worked with a woman who only invited the head of our non-profit organization to her wedding and then went around to every co-worker and explained that she couldn’t afford to invite them and she didn’t want them to feel badly. That seemed unnecessary to me, but it was a nice gesture.</p>
<p>When my D got married, she invited her immediate supervisor and several co-workers. All of them came–I think because the wedding was held in a really nice vacation spot. My son-in-law invited his boss, who didn’t attend, along with several co-workers.</p>
<p>We go to all the weddings of my husband’s grad students and have been to at least one reception of a student in his department. (We didn’t attend the wedding on that one because there was six hour delay between the wedding and reception.) We’ve gone out of town for one wedding - it was in Philadelphia and we used the opportunity to do a little sightseeing while we were there.</p>
<p>Also years ago, I went to the wedding of my boss. It was fun because it was held at the hotel where we’d designed all the rooms.</p>
<p>We invited our bosses to our wedding and as I recall some indeed traveled in from out of town. I would attend the wedding of an employee if invited and travel if it was feasible. I agree with the poster who said it’s generally considered bad form to talk about every aspect of a large affair in the presence of those not invited, but would not be personally offended in any case. Financial or logistical considerations can be limiting factors. The relationship and the type of office will vary as well. I don’t think there necessarily has to be an out of the office social connection, though. </p>
<p>I’ve never attended a wedding where the behavior would be anything different in front of a boss, than it would be in the presence of one’s parents and relatives. That may be a factor for those whose guests’ idea of fun, or their own, is to get rowdy and wasted. We were happy to allow parents to include some of their friends at our wedding and even as grandparents at our bar mitzvahs (that we hosted).</p>
<p>Judicial clerks who marry usually have their boss perform the ceremony, so it’s taken for granted within that group.</p>
<p>Usually we just send a gift and our regrets. When we have gone, we leave early so that people can “let their hair down.”</p>
<p>My dad has been a prof since 1965. Growing up, I remember going with my parents to the weddings of quite a few of his students. One was kind of a “hippie” wedding in a field. LOL, that groom ended up being one of my first bosses! </p>
<p>We asked lots of my profs to our wedding, but that was because they were also friends of my dad’s!</p>
<p>Our bosses came to our wedding. I don’t think anyone felt odd. We had dancing, drinking…but no one got drunk or anything like that.</p>
<p>I’m only about 5 yrs older than my junior most colleagues and I attend only if I am “friends” with them. I realize that I am giving them work to do and reviewing them so I’m not like their HS or college friends, but if we stop by each others’ offices just to chat or go to drinks/lunch/coffee somewhat regularly, then I’m more inclined to attend a wedding. I’m less inclined where the relationship is only professional and we never really talk about anything besides work, no matter how nice they may be, because I view those as courtesy invites and frankly I’d rather not be bothered dressing up, spending a whole day some place where I may only know 1-2 other people etc. </p>
<p>I wish my junior colleagues would be more mature about courtesy invites though. I was raised believing that you only invite someone to a party/wedding/event if you truly want them to come; if you don’t, don’t invite them but also don’t talk too much about the event in front of them or just downplay and say it’ll be a small family gathering. My junior colleagues will invite anyone and everyone at the company to their weddings – people who are the boss of their boss that they have met once, people that they worked with on one discrete project for a few days etc. Then when someone attends who they weren’t expecting, they are tacky enough to say to their work friends (and it gets around) – “it’s so awkward, why did X even come.” Probably because you invited him, he had no plans that weekend, and he thinks you guys are friendly.</p>
<p>When H and I were married, we just invited colleagues whom we saw socially outside of work. We didn’t invite any bosses,it was just close friends and family but we still had around 120 people. I have a lot of family.</p>
<p>Nowadays, weddings are so expensive, the guest list is one of the most difficult and contentious issue. For my daughter’s upcoming wedding, her fiance invited a few senior partners, one of whom is the head of the department. But he is also inviting colleagues who are his friends.All of them accepted and will be coming from NYC to my D’s home town which is a vacation spot in California. My daughter is only inviting one colleague who is also a close friend because she is inviting many friends from childhood, college and grad school.</p>
<p>We would usually go to colleagues or junior colleagues’ weddings if invited and if we knew the bride/groom well, such as interacting with her/him on a daily basis for a while.</p>