Guest List

The couple doesn't usually host their own engagement party. It is an announcement to everyone you want to share the news with. Most people know and understand that you haven't picked your guest list for the wedding itself yet so that isn't a deciding factor for engagement party invites.

As PP said, the couple usually doesn't host their own engagement parties. However, I have heard that typically only those invited to the wedding are invited to any pre-wedding events.

If that wedding reception is the only one stateside, and the people invited know they will be invited to that, then I see no reason not to invite them. When it comes, they have the opportunity.

Agree with the others. Hannah made an excellent point. I have heard the same thing about those you invite to the wedding typically get invited to the wedding.

View Quoted Comment When most weddings were hosted by parents, the parents or other friends usually hosted the engagement party. The exceptions were older couples who have lived (individually, not nec. as a couple) away from home, and will be hosting their own weddings, second weddings, weddings where there are no parents in the couple's lives due to death, distance, or disaproval.
Although many people are going back to parents' homes, the number never on their own between high school and marriage, is low now. Every 5-10 weddings I go to, the parents hosted the engagement party and paid for at least a third of the wedding. But engagement parties are often given by the couple, who have been on their own, often living together, and will be picking up half or all of their own weddings. Maybe that is in part because at 39, most of my peers are in that situation. But I have young cousins and students, and over about age 25, their parents have increasingly left it to the couple.

View Quoted Comment Yes. The only major exception is those with a long engagement. If you plan to marry in 2-7 years, no fixed day when you will marry, you still my share your excitement with an engagement party. But by the time you marry, years have passed, you may live in a different place, coworkers not schoolmates may be friends. So at the first announcement of your engagement, there is no wedding list, and you may invite anyone to your engagement party. But as you get to 9 months to a year, usually, before the actual date, you may have a second engagement party. This time to announce you are actively planning and have a date in mind. This time, you do only invite those you will invite to the wedding. And often, many or most of the people except relatives were not at the first party years back.
Once within this active planning, all parties initiated by you having to do with the wedding are invited guests only. That exception always seemed sensible to me. As does the guideline, prewedding parties are for guests.

I don’t see any issue in inviting the extended family to the reception if they’d be invited to the other events? At least that is what I would be doing.

I don't see a problem with inviting them all, especially if they will be invited to the reception.