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I 100% recognize that asking could be rude, but here's the situation:

My best friend since childhood is getting married soon. She's discussed some wedding planning with me, but has mentioned budget/space constraints. This is gonna be a fancy but smaller event (>40 people). She said in recent months that she was having to really cut down the guest list, and my parents were the only non-relative "adults" (kidding -- we're all adults now, but she means older generation folks) getting an invite, aside from her own parents.

Over the years, she has lived with me/my family for a short period of time between apartments, she's traveled with us & my parents have taken her to the hospital a few times during emergencies when her parents weren't nearby. Our parents are also close.

Anyways, this past week my sibling & I both got invitations in the mail. My parents have not.

My mom said she understands maybe she had to cut the guest list to just immediate family and very close friends, so she would be sad to miss it, but understands.

Now... under normal circumstances, I wouldn't say anything. If their invite did get lost in the mail, it would in theory get sorted out when it was time to RSVP? If she reached out because she hadn't heard back from my mom yet?

BUT! My parents were invited to an event honoring a deceased family member the same weekend, a plane ride away. This person was very important to my dad, so he wants to go. My mom would rather attend the wedding if she's invited, and my parents are okay with going to separate events.

Here's my dilemma -- is there any way to reach out to my friend and ask if my parents are/were invited, without being incredibly rude?

I'm wondering if I can phrase a text to explain the situation? I feel like that might be better than a phone call, because if they weren't invited, it doesn't put her on the spot. And I really don't want to make her feel uncomfortable if she had to cut the guest list and leave them off, but she did mention that she was planning on inviting them, but they didn't receive an invite (we all live in a few mile radius of each other, so if my sibling & I received then early this week, I don't see why theirs would arrive much later).

Lastly -- the RSVP date is in March, the wedding and deceased relative event are both in April, so my mom doesn't want to wait that long to make flight/hotel arrangements if they didn't get invited to the wedding & they're both flying to the memorial event instead.

Out here in the rural area of Virginia mail can dilly-dally for days or even a week to arrive...so don't rule that out, yet.

Maybe (who knows, this IS tricky!) Let your friend know via personal telephone call (don't text this kind of thing I would say) that your Dad has a real conflict due to a funeral at the same general time and what to do...then see what she says?

I have to agree with Superesse not to do this via text or email. On the phone. And yes, mail gets lost or delayed. We went to a posh wedding last summer on Martha's Vineyard where a large number of invites didn't make it to the intended party, so they (the printing company) had to send out a second batch a couple of weeks later. I think the second batch invite arrived a couple of days before the first invite. It was only when the missing invitations were made known to the bride did they realize there was a problem.

It sounds like your mom will be fine with the answer either way, so I would see no problem with asking your friend now. Think how awkward it would be if your mom decided to go with your dad, and then the bride discovered after the RSVP date that the only reason your mom wasn't there was because no one spoke up and just asked.

Honestly, if she's your best friend since childhood, I'd sort of wonder if she had changed her mind and had to cut the list, she would have said something to you so there'd be no surprises.

[This message edited by number4 at 11:49 PM, Saturday, January 17th]