will I offend my coworkers if I invite them to my religious wedding?

A reader writes:

I recently came across a letter you answered about 10 years ago, where a woman wanted to decline an invitation to a wedding because she was uncomfortable with it being gender segregated. Your response was unsurprising, but I was a bit taken aback that a number of commenters mentioned they would be offended even being invited to a gender-segregated wedding, which are common in my community.

I am a single Orthodox Jewish woman in my 20’s. My company is located near the large Orthodox Jewish community I am part of, so about half of my coworkers are from that community as well, and the other half are a mix of religious and secular non-Jews. We are a small office with just 35 employees. I have what I think is a normal relationship with all my coworkers: I am very close with three of them (think out of work friends as well), I am coworker-friendly with about 20 (chatting at work, asking after their kids/cats/significant other by name, sharing pictures of vacations, etc.), and the remaining 15 or so is just a polite, professional relationship (how are you, how was your weekend, and then straight into business).

Now, for some background on how weddings work in my community. I want to give a disclaimer that the Jewish world is very big, and there are many, many, communities and sub-communities. Whatever I describe here is how I plan to have my wedding, but this varies greatly so don’t take it as a general rule at all. Basically, add the words “In my community specifically,” before every sentence I write here.

Immediately after the proposal, there is a party called the L’chaim, which can be as small as the couple and their parents, but ranges to much bigger parties with relatives, close friends, and neighbors. Next is the engagement party, called the Vort, which is pretty soon after — within a day or two, or max up to two weeks later. This is a much larger party, with extended family, old classmates, friends of the parents/grandparents. It is often held in a small hall and lasts about three hours, with a light buffet of salads, cakes, and some hot food. There is often live music and sometimes dancing, but for the most part everyone stands around socializing.

Standard etiquette is that only a very close friend or relative stays the entire time, and an old classmate or the like might just stop in for five minutes to say Mazel Tov and then leave. Everyone else ranges in the middle, depending on how close their relationship is, whatever other commitments they have that night, and (let’s be real) how many other people they know at the Vort who they are enjoying schmoozing with. There is a mechitza (partition) down the center of the room for the entire event, and the men and women each stick to their side of the room (though there will always be an uncle or aunt who comes to the other side of the room to say Mazel Tov as well). Since it is planned so quickly, there are not really invitations sent out — it’s mostly passed through word of mouth.

Now, the wedding. We make large weddings, and we invite a lot of people. The local caterer’s minimum is 300 people at a wedding. The invitations have Hebrew on one side, and English on the reverse. The main invitation is for the ceremony, the reception, and dancing. Again, it is very normal to just stop in at any of those times and wish the couple or family members a quick Mazel Tov. An additional card is included with the invitation to extend the invitation to dinner as well. But the plates are not calculated exactly, whoever wants to eat is welcome to, and we’re not going to run out of food.

At the wedding, there are signs assigning each table to a category — Family of the Bride, Family of the Groom, Bride’s Friends, Bride’s Family Friends, etc. No one is monitoring where you sit, so everyone figures themselves out as they please. The entire wedding, from reception to dinner to dancing, is in one large room with a mechitza down the middle. During the ceremony, there is no mechitza but the men and women sit on separate sides of the aisle.

Okay, so that’s just the background. Here’s what I was planning to do when I get engaged. For the Vort, I would send an evite to all my coworkers. The ones from my community will try to stop in for a few minutes. If I’m at work the days between the engagement and the vort, I am planning on telling my non-Jewish coworkers that they should not feel any pressure to come since there is still a wedding coming up, but if they do want to come, they should try to come with some of the Jewish coworkers so they don’t feel out of place or unsure on the norms, and they definitely don’t need to stay longer than 30 minutes.

For the wedding, I would send out the full invitation, including the dinner invitation, addressed to the coworker and any significant others who I am aware of. I would then speak to my coworkers in person and explain: (1) the basic schedule of the wedding, (2) they are welcome to bring a plus-one (or plus-five) if they please, but if they are of the opposite gender they will not see each other the entire wedding, (3) for my male coworkers, I’m so happy for them to come, but … I won’t see them at all, so not really much of a point, and (4) again, if they would like to come they might be served best by coming with a Jewish coworker who could show them the ropes.

I am really not invested in whether anyone comes or declines, but I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to attend because they were invited (which members of my community would not assume,) or to feel offended because they’re invited to a gender-segregated wedding, or to feel left out if I invite only members from my community. Basically, I felt like the above was the best way to say, “I’d love to have you at my wedding, but no pressure either way.”

Is this wildly offensive? Is there a better way to go about it?

I think your plan is fine!

The non-Jewish coworkers in question work in an office where half their colleagues are Orthodox Jews, so they’re likely to already know that you follow different customs than they do.

One thing you could do is include a card in their invitations that spells out some of what you shared here, so they know what to expect. But I highly doubt this will be the first time they’re learning that Orthodox Jews in your community have traditions different than their own.

In the case with the 2014 letter you linked to, the set-up was very different: the letter-writer had been invited to (what sounds like) an Orthodox wedding where she would be the only woman from her team attending, so she would have needed to sit separately from all her colleagues (while they all got to sit together). She was frustrated that she would be the only one who didn’t get to sit with her peers, just because she was a woman. Most of the debate in the comments was about whether she was being elitist because, as a female physician, the women she was objecting to being seated with were support staff and her colleagues’ wives. (Personally, I think it was legitimate for her to worry about that, given that female doctors often already face an uphill battle to claim the same professional respect as their male peers.) But I didn’t see anyone saying they’d be offended to be invited, just that they might choose not to go. (And yes, there was a lot of discussion about the tradition itself being rooted in beliefs harmful to women — but there are many religions with practices that fall in that category.)

Ultimate verdict: inviting your coworkers isn’t offensive. Give them info about what to expect so they know how it works and also can decide if it’s for them or not. That’s it!

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