pandabot's Profile

We invite friends to gatherings because we like these people. We don't invite people to show off, to plan a perfect "event" or fancy meal. Yes, it can hurt your feelings when people are not properly excited, grateful, or attentive to your party planning efforts, but from these comments it sounds like too many of you are planning these event primarily for your selfish enjoyment and giving little attention to how your friends and their guests may want to plan their life, spend their time, or interact with you. If you really like your invitees, you should cut them some slack and stop acting like the world revolves around you and your event. It's just as rude to invite people and then treat them like naughty children for not playing your party games exactly when and how you designed them (the turning people away at the door thing just blew my mind, it was so insufferably rude).

I can sympathize with the commenters lamenting wedding RSVPs, as everyone knows how expensive and stressful weddings can be for the host couple... but for parties in general? For holidays? Brunches with friends? Why the hell would you turn away a friend at the door because they failed to RSVP when the whole point of the party was to SPEND TIME VISITING WITH YOUR FRIENDS? Oh, I guess it's because too many people just want people they barely like to come to their beautiful house and "ooh" and "aah" over your lovely food and superior hostess/host abilities. With "friends" like that, no wonder so few people RSVP to your parties!

Seriously, learn how to throw a modern party: open house for the win. Only invite people you really LIKE so you will be genuinely happy whenever they show up. Have unprententious, plentiful food that can be multiplied with a quick store run if you're lucky enough to have more guests than you anticipated.

Stodgy invites, RSVPs, overbearing hosts, and over-planning in general are not fun. Everyone is not equally busy (people with kids have way more unexpected demands, from a sick child to parent-teacher conferences they don't mail you about until the weekend before) so please don't assume the world revolves around this event you had the priviledge of planning on a day/time that definitely works for you... not everyone else will be able to confidently block out that time very far in advance. If they are truly people you care about and want to spend time with, I just can't understand why you would hold that against them. Is the party about enjoying these friendships or is it about casting all of these people in some fantasy event where you are the star/host and everything revolves around your grand master plan?

Sorry, but aside from the very legit wedding complaints, everything else sounds like people are missing the point of inviting friends to your home. And if you can't scale up for an extra <5 people at a home-based party, then you definitely spent too much money, tried too hard to impress, and need to take the pomp down a notch and focus more on fun and abundance than having everything Martha Stewart perfect. ;p