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My granddaughter is getting married next summer. She knows that my husband and I have many friends, and she wants us to invite some of them to the wedding. Her mother, my daughter, is divorced and has very few friends so I feel that we’re supposed to compensate for that. But most of our friends are members of our congregation and my granddaughter hasn’t participated in that and doesn’t really know most of our friends. It feels odd and uncomfortable for me to invite them. I’d appreciate your advice and opinion.

–Name and location withheld

It is incredibly thoughtful of your granddaughter to encourage you to invite your friends to her wedding. Most of the time relatives complain that they want to invite friends, but cannot.

On the other hand, just as you would not attend the funeral of someone you never knew, you wouldn’t attend the wedding of someone you don’t know. Set your criteria for which of your friends you feel comfortable about inviting. In other words, the criteria would be that your guests would have met your granddaughter before the wedding. That should narrow your contribution to the list down a bit.

Have a frank and clear discussion with your granddaughter. Tell her it would be awkward for you to invite friends who did not know her: people don’t go to weddings when they don’t know either the bride or the groom. Say you would not want your friends to think you are inviting them as a push to get more wedding presents for your granddaughter.

If she is old enough to get married, she is old enough to understand that people are wise to the fact that when being asked to attend a wedding of someone they do not really know, it is a push for a present.

~Didi