Hide birthday party guest list or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was previously firmly in the show-the-guestlist-camp but I kind of get why you might choose to hide now due to an awkward situation. DC's party invite list was a mix of kids from his class (less than half) and kids in other classes who were either in his class last year or from preschool that he's still friends with. Then I randomly met a parent of a classmate who was not on the guestlist. They were saying how much their DC likes mine and asked for my contact info for their birthday invite. Ack! Of course when I bring this kid up to DC he's like oh yeah they're my friend, can we invite them to the party? And when I asked why he hadn't brought them up before he said he forgot. It was still 3 weeks out and I was happy to include this friend so I sent this mom the evite but obviously it's weird because she can see a bunch of parents responded already. I sent her a follow up text to the tune of, "Just sent you an evite, Larlo would love it if Larla could come!" They haven't responded to my text or the evite so I'm worried she's offended or thinks it's a pity invite but it was really more of an oversight.

I can’t imagine any sane parent getting upset over this. Elementary school friendships evolve so quickly. If you send an evite out a month in advance they could have a new friend by party date. Not to mention perhaps cuts had to be made due to venue space and a few “nos” meant the birthday kid could expand on friends they’d like there. It’s just a kid’s party not a popularity contest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was previously firmly in the show-the-guestlist-camp but I kind of get why you might choose to hide now due to an awkward situation. DC's party invite list was a mix of kids from his class (less than half) and kids in other classes who were either in his class last year or from preschool that he's still friends with. Then I randomly met a parent of a classmate who was not on the guestlist. They were saying how much their DC likes mine and asked for my contact info for their birthday invite. Ack! Of course when I bring this kid up to DC he's like oh yeah they're my friend, can we invite them to the party? And when I asked why he hadn't brought them up before he said he forgot. It was still 3 weeks out and I was happy to include this friend so I sent this mom the evite but obviously it's weird because she can see a bunch of parents responded already. I sent her a follow up text to the tune of, "Just sent you an evite, Larlo would love it if Larla could come!" They haven't responded to my text or the evite so I'm worried she's offended or thinks it's a pity invite but it was really more of an oversight.

I can’t imagine any sane parent getting upset over this. Elementary school friendships evolve so quickly. If you send an evite out a month in advance they could have a new friend by party date. Not to mention perhaps cuts had to be made due to venue space and a few “nos” meant the birthday kid could expand on friends they’d like there. It’s just a kid’s party not a popularity contest.

Thanks- I've probably been overthinking it too much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

If you send the invite a week before the event, we know there's a B list. The "privacy" people are too much. You all really think you're fooling people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

If you send the invite a week before the event, we know there's a B list. The "privacy" people are too much. You all really think you're fooling people.

I sent out invites a week ahead one time since it was just a home party. Obviously there was no B list but I suppose people like you would have assumed you were part of a B list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

If you send the invite a week before the event, we know there's a B list. The "privacy" people are too much. You all really think you're fooling people.

I sent out invites a week ahead one time since it was just a home party. Obviously there was no B list but I suppose people like you would have assumed you were part of a B list

A week? Do many people actually attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

If you send the invite a week before the event, we know there's a B list. The "privacy" people are too much. You all really think you're fooling people.

I sent out invites a week ahead one time since it was just a home party. Obviously there was no B list but I suppose people like you would have assumed you were part of a B list

A week? Do many people actually attend?

Not PP, but last year we sent invites a week out because my kid’s activity of choice became available at the last minute. Virtually everyone showed.

I was kind of surprised.

[Anonymous]

We've gotten a few invites for parties only the week before and it's a public guest list so not a B list situation. They've had fairly good attendance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

If you send the invite a week before the event, we know there's a B list. The "privacy" people are too much. You all really think you're fooling people.

I sent out invites a week ahead one time since it was just a home party. Obviously there was no B list but I suppose people like you would have assumed you were part of a B list

A week? Do many people actually attend?

Surprisingly most kids showed up that year. I did the B list the year we sent out invite 6 weeks ahead and had the same number of kids.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. Now that I think about it, the 1 week ahead party had an open guest list but the 6 week ahead party had a closed guest list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t hide - we always try to coordinate carpooling. I really do not care if you didn’t invite the entire class or not. I don’t tell my kid who is or isn’t going or who is or isn’t invited (though I’m confident they talk about it at school). My DC either wants to go or doesn’t, it’s not dependent on the list. I need the list to juggle my ability to get DC there.

Just contact the host if you're too stretched. Geez! It's clear not everyone wants to share that kind of info and that's okay. You're private campaign to change other folks behavior won't work. Just adapt!

Your way doesn't even work. You look foolish for no reason.

To "look" foolish on an anonymous forum? Hmmm

NP. What? PP means you will look foolish to the host for reaching out to accommodate your kid…it makes absolutely no sense to ask the host to help you find a carpool arrangement for the party.

This. If you can’t get your kid to the party on your own, just decline please. Party planning is enough on its own, I don’t have time to coordinate parents too!

Nobody is talking about contacting the host for carpool info. Rather they'd like to know if their neighbor's kid was invited too so they can arrange it amongst themselves. Pretending its top secret who is going to Jimmy's party at Chuck e Cheese is ridiculous. You'll see who was invited when you get there anyway.

If I'm the host and I have a B-list, I'm not going to show the guest list to make your life easier. You can choose to come if you can drive your kid or not. I would rather do that than have the B listers be offended. Maybe my kid would invite people outside of school too.

If you send the invite a week before the event, we know there's a B list. The "privacy" people are too much. You all really think you're fooling people.

I sent out invites a week ahead one time since it was just a home party. Obviously there was no B list but I suppose people like you would have assumed you were part of a B list

If you hid the list, yes, but if you left it open it would be clear the invitation was just sent if nobody responded just yet. Do some of you not understand how this works? It's not that hard to figure out. You can tell if Jack RSVPd a 2 weeks ago when Ryan just got the invite now when there's a B list.

[Anonymous]

You should always hide the guest list To avoid B list drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was previously firmly in the show-the-guestlist-camp but I kind of get why you might choose to hide now due to an awkward situation. DC's party invite list was a mix of kids from his class (less than half) and kids in other classes who were either in his class last year or from preschool that he's still friends with. Then I randomly met a parent of a classmate who was not on the guestlist. They were saying how much their DC likes mine and asked for my contact info for their birthday invite. Ack! Of course when I bring this kid up to DC he's like oh yeah they're my friend, can we invite them to the party? And when I asked why he hadn't brought them up before he said he forgot. It was still 3 weeks out and I was happy to include this friend so I sent this mom the evite but obviously it's weird because she can see a bunch of parents responded already. I sent her a follow up text to the tune of, "Just sent you an evite, Larlo would love it if Larla could come!" They haven't responded to my text or the evite so I'm worried she's offended or thinks it's a pity invite but it was really more of an oversight.

I can’t imagine any sane parent getting upset over this. Elementary school friendships evolve so quickly. If you send an evite out a month in advance they could have a new friend by party date. Not to mention perhaps cuts had to be made due to venue space and a few “nos” meant the birthday kid could expand on friends they’d like there. It’s just a kid’s party not a popularity contest
.

You wouldn’t be saying this if your kid wasn’t getting invites… I know plenty of parents who are hurt when their kids don’t get invited to parties… I would rather them be invited on a B list than not invited at all… so in short… It is kind of like a popularity contest… Lucky for you and your little popular kid you have no idea!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only hide the guest list when I have to go to B list. So invite your 10 and let them rsvp. If you get nos and want to invite more, then huge the list so they don’t know they are b list.

Do you remove the "no" from the original list? I had that happen to me. I declined an invitation due to a conflict, but then plans changed and I wanted to change my RSVP but found I had been taken off the list because I could no longer access the invite. I thought that was odd. It wasn't like nothing better came along, it was along the lines of the sports game got rained out or something to that effect.

NP. I’m guessing people do this because they don’t want last minute rsvps after they’ve gotten goodie bags, etc.

+1 If you are ready RSVP No… I am removing you and replacing you with someone else… I don’t have time for your fickle back-and-forth for my Timmy’s party. I treat each gift special and send them home with very nice gifts, and I think it is rude if your kid does not go home with a gift basket. I would rather him not come then be excluded from the other kids playing with their gifts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should always hide the guest list To avoid B list drama.

Look, kids are already talking. If kids already know about a party, and whether or not they were invited, and several days later an invite arrives, it is known. If you're pulling B list shenanigans then just be honest about it instead of pretending people can't figure it out.