A few years ago, a co-worker of my husband (then my boyfriend) invited him and a guest to her wedding.  She was a pretty good friend as well as a co-worker, but she also invited quite a few other co-workers — many of whom I don’t think were necessarily good friends.

On the other hand, when my husband and I got married, we had a pretty small wedding and didn’t invite anyone but family and our closest friends.  (For hubby, that did include one co-worker — the same one whose wedding we had attended a couple years previously.)

These different scenarios demonstrate a situation that many people aren’t sure to handle: Should you invite your co-workers to your wedding?

I don’t think it is expected in a work environment to send wedding invitations to your co-workers.  Wedding announcements — which are simply cards announcing your marriage, sent out on the day of the wedding — are adequate in most cases.  However, there are some cases where inviting your co-workers would be appropriate.  To decide if this is one of them, you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. How close are you to your co-workers?  If you work with people whom you would consider very close friends, then yes, you definitely should invite them.
2. How big of a wedding are you having?  If you are having a very large wedding, with acquaintances as well as close friends and family, you might want to invite the co-workers that you see every day or have closer working relationships to — your team members, for instance.  You don’t need to invite all your co-workers (some companies have hundreds of employees), though you should take care not to create a situation where someone would feel slighted.

Virtually any style of wedding invitation should be appropriate to give to your co-workers as well as friends and family.  Traditional wedding invitations are no longer the only formal choices — contemporary wedding invitations such as photo invitations are becoming popular, and DIY wedding invitations have become more common recently.

Technorati Tags: wedding etiquette, co-workers, small wedding, wedding invitations, wedding announcements, contemporary wedding invitations, DIY wedding invitations