you are not invited

Awkward doesn't even begin to describe it. There you are, freshly engaged and showing off the sparkling rock on your finger, when the questions begin, 'Oooh when's the Big Day?' 'Should I buy a new sari?'. You laugh and brush it off, but the questions don't go away.

How do you explain that actually, um. You're not invited.

  WORK MATES  
Work colleagues are easy to deal with. You see them in a professional context so simply say your wedding is for close friends and family. A work friend invited me to his wedding reception three month into a new job, uttering the invitation with a hushed plea; "I've been working here for two years and you're the only person I've invited, so... just don't mention it in front of anyone okay?" If you want to invite one or two friends from work, ask them to keep it under wraps to avoid offending anyone else.

  YOUR FRIENDS  
Actual friends are trickier. You could shift the blame onto the venue; "There's a limited capacity. We'd love so many of our friends to celebrate with us but we've really had to be strict with the guest list". Or if your parents are heavily involved in the wedding, try, "Mum and dad are inviting so many family that we can't invite as many of our friends as we'd like to".
Soften the blow by inviting them to a pre- or post-wedding event "I'm really sorry you won't be there for our special day, but we're going to have a huge party afterwards that I hope you can make."



  FAMILY  
The trickiest of them all. How do you you break it to actual blood relations that the invitation's not in the post. What makes your Big Day so special (apart from marrying the love of your life, of course) is that you're sharing it with all the people that you love and love you back the most. So do you really want your weird second cousin, who you haven't seen since Diwali '98, taking up valuable space on your precious guest list? One way is to pass the buck to your parents; let's face it, they've got years more experience of breaking bad news than you.
Or, come clean and say, "Of course I would love to have you there, but because both our families are so large we've had to compromise on the guest list and cut back on both sides. I'm so sorry, but I know you'll understand."