I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, what age range are you? In my undergrad (5 years ago), big events with 100s of people were just mass invites. I never had big events like that out of not wanting to trash our house. The parties we had were around 50ish people and the only convenience that Facebook provided was less clicks to invite everyone. It also had the benefit of reminding people continuously what their Friday night plans are. I'm just struggling to understand the host that is unwilling to invite you because of a text message requirement but still judiciously picks which friends to invite via Facebook.
Birthday parties are usually 10-30 people and invites are sent to, for example, school friends, many of whom you see maybe once a year if that much because you now live in different cities or even different countries.