Help I am not sure what to do?

Go on with your already planned bbq, and let your nieces and nephews go to the estate jubilee for an hour or so (you or an other adult can bring them by car (or walking if it is close by), that way you, or the other adult, can also show your face yourself there for a minute).

Are you comfortable asking others on your estate if they will have open spots in their allocated 4 extras they would be ok extending to you for your extra guests? There’s no harm in asking.

Thanks guys, but I get the impression they want to keep it just for the people on the estate, we got a letter for the “organisers” That states, they only want 4 extra people, for safety and privacy! To me safety? They would be playing on the estate if it was an ordinary bank holiday, plus privacy? Do they think my family or reporters/rumour/gossip mongerers? I just don’t understand!

It is a small estate, with a small patch of land right in front of my house!

You have two choices. Reschedule your BBQ and go to the party on your own or with the limited number of guests, or skip the party all together.
This sounds like someone being invited to a wedding and then bringing uninvited guests along. Pretty tacky. The hosts of the party get to set the rules and the guests get to accept on the hosts terms or decline.

I’m all for keeping peace with the neighbors, and I’m not sure exactly what kind of community this is, but my house and yard are my private property and the streets are owned by the county. Do the “organizers” even have the authority to tell you how many people you can invite onto your own property or who can walk in streets that, I am assuming, are public property?

As @rebbel suggested I think you should go ahead and have your planned BBQ at your house, it’s your house after all, and your family can hang out there, at your house and in your little yard, under the gazebo, and the kids can run around with their friends at the street party.

It’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee for goodness’ sake. That doesn’t happen every day.

Before you give up, why not just call the organizers and see if they might make an exception.

I agree with @6rant6. Call and ask. The worst thing that can happen is they say no. If they do say no then ask if you could ask your neighbours for their unused spots as @Neizvestnaya has pointed out. If they still say no then go ahead with your own BBQ.

I read the question earlier and I didn’t have an answer then. You want to be a good neighbor, but you don’t want to forget your family!

But… I wouldn’t “ask”. You’ll be shot down, more than likely, or be reduced to ridiculous propitiation and bargaining. And if you’re shot down, then what?

Use the motto that we often use in business: “It’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.”

Invite the family – but – don’t be moochers. Contribute more than your share to the party, whether it’s food, contributions to the party fund (pay the price of the tickets that you would have bought, if this is a “ticketed” event, or bring enough food and drinks for two families) and be as accommodating and gracious as possible to everyone else who attends the party, whether they think you’ve “overstepped your bounds” or not.

It seems pretty ridiculous to me that you’re going to throw a block party and not try to rock the block. Do make sure that your guests are the best behaved ones there, and aren’t the last to leave, too.

If it causes a scene, or you get somehow ostracized from the “regular folks” at the party (not the organizers, who will probably want to skewer you for not groveling to them), then at least you’ll know that you’ll want to have the next jubilee at another venue. And you have another – what? – fifty years? to plan for that.

Have a ball. Help others to have a ball, too.

I’m not familiar with the kinds of covenants you have with estates. Can the estate council tell you who you can have at your house and when? Can they evict people or have you arrested for breaking their rules? Do you vote for the council or is it a private entity?

I’m not exactly sure what the analogous situation is in the US. We do have housing developments that can control the color you paint the house and what you are allowed to have in the front yard and that sort of thing. I think that they might even control the number of guests you are allowed to have a parties, but I’m not sure. Elderly communities might have rules saying you can’t have anyone under the age of fifty living at the house, nor can they visit for longer than a week, or something.

I guess these covenants are enforceable somehow since you sign them as a condition of purchasing the property.

SO my question is about the power the estate has over you. If they have formal power and can evict you, then I’d say ditch your family on that day. But if the power is informal, then you could have your family, although you’d make some people angry. That probably won’t have long term consequences, or change the feelings people have about you, anyway. So I’d just have everyone you want to have, but make sure you behave well and are generous to a fault.

Is the estate paying for the food? If so, I’d contribute food for your people, or note even have your family eat at the estate table. Just make separate food.

But I don’t know the rules, so it’s hard to give good advice.

So I posted a note through one of the organisers doors, that was very polite saying I was upset and explaining that I have more than 4 people in my family and that we would hold our own bbq, but if anyone needed to use it they were welcome. They came over asap and apologised, apparantly it was one woman on the “committee” that did not want the numbers esculating! and not everyone was aware of the notice that went out. After we had explained that it was family and we were not just inviting people for the sake of inviting people. So crisis averted. I still think it may be a bit awkward on the day but we’ll give it a go.

THANK YOU once again, sometimes you just need to sound off and listen to some voices of reason!

@sakura Great! That can happen in a neighborhood. There was a short while, when some very prissy people somehow got control of our civic association and the rest of the neighborhood made pretty quick work of them. The people who had somehow gained influence didn’t seem to know or understand that ours is a pretty nice neighborhood, not a lot goes on or goes wrong here, and we are very much about live and let live. We just don’t want prissy people, fussing over every little rule and every little issue, running things here.

Unless someone is doing something that is really excessive; we live essentially this way: I will not fuss and fret and get all bent out of shape about your minor infraction, or your little bit of business, if you don’t fuss and fret and get all bent out of shape about my minor infraction, or my little bit of business. Then we all get along. It works out fine.

Anyway, have fun! I hope you and your family and all of your neighbors have a wonderful celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee!