Sims 4 Parties: Guest Sims only show up if they know all Sims in the household

Hi everyone,

I'm not really sure if this is the best place to ask this but considering I can't seem to make any posts on the Sims Forum website (despite being a member for over 5 years and making posts in the past - ugh) I thought I'd ask for help here. 🙂

I'm having some real issues with the party mechanics within the Sims 4 game. I've tried looking for help online with this and can't seem to understand why it's happening or if I'm just doing something wrong in my core gameplay. In the past year or so I have noticed that every time I throw a party there is a serious issue with the guests that show up and those that don't. If I have two Sims in my household and one of them throws a party, the only guests that show up will be those that are known to ALL members of my family.

For instance, my Sim - Casey - asked her new fiancee, Steve, to move in with her and the two now live together. Casey decides to throw a house party one night. She invites Jane, Bob, and Tyler over to her house and Steves. Now while Casey is good friends with all three guests, Steve only knows Jane. So therefore, when the party starts, Jane is the ONLY one that shows up. This is what always happens - whether it be on my home lot or a public lot, or whether it be a general house party, wedding, or birthday. A guest sim will ONLY show up if they know all the members in the household. 

I've been having this issue for months now and I've taken all my mods out - still an issue. I've tried to work around the issue by only inviting Sims to the party that are known by all household Sims, and then calling the others and asking them to come hang out at the current lot, but this doesn't work on community lots for me and they often leave halfway through the party because obviously, they're not considered to be 'guests' under the party time constraint.

This has been a massive hindrance on my gameplay as it means that weddings, for instance, that I wish to hold in the park or something results in one or two guests showing up - only those known to both the bride and the groom. I like to use parties for other members of my household to get to know a particular Sim's friends but I just can't do this. On top of that I can't ever get caterers or mixologists to show up to the party either - and if they do, they just watch TV or dance to the stereo - but that's an entirely different issue altogether.

Is anyone else having an issue like this? Am I doing something wrong? Am I cursed to never be able to throw a successful party? I'd be super thankful if anyone had a solution to this because it's getting in the way of my gameplay.

Thanks 🙂