Invite one co-worker or all!?

JmeJoLee83

I have invited my teaching partner to my shower in April. There are some other teachers I would
Like to invite but cannot accommodate them all given the space of the shower. Is it ok to invite some but not all? Or should I just stick with my original plan and invite my partner? She made a comment today how she won't know anyone there and asked who else from work was going. I'm sure word will get around if I invited more people.. Any suggestions?

Valie18

Is there a way to "group" the other teachers you would like to invite? Like... do you always eat lunch together, coach together, belong to the same department?

I think that is the safest way to do it. At my work I share an office with four others. It is easy to invite only them to a party. I have meetings with seven others because we do similar work and it is easy to invite only them. Any more than that and I don't see a way around inviting the whole group of ~20.

VOR

You don't have to invite all but you so need to be careful. Are there people you're obviously friends with? If so, invite them. But if it's murky, it might be best to leave it at just your partner.

SingleMom31

I agree with the PPs.  I don't think that you could (for example) say that you had room for 9 of 12, and just leave 3 out... I think that it could lead to a lot of hard feelings.  But, if there was some logical division (only the people that you hang out with outside of work, only the teachers in your immediate department, only the 2nd grade teachers, etc.), I think that it's okay to not invite everyone.  Otherwise, do you have a friend that'll be there that you could introduce your teaching partner to? -- I've done that before where one person wouldn't know anyone else, so I pick a friend that I think s/he would get along with, and introduce them.... At least then she'd have someone to sit down at a table with. 

ArgyleBride

VioletteGrayskies said:

I'm of the opinion that you can either invite fewer than half of your work team/department, or you can invite them all.  (Same rule for classmates at a kid's birthday.) 

If space is limited, I think it's fine to just invite the one person you're close to. That's why people do shower games - so guests who don't know your other friends/family have a way to engage with the party.

What does the host think about the size of the guest list? They get the final say.

Was going to say the bolded.