“Do We Have to Invite Plus Ones To Our Wedding?”
Since you’re newly engaged (congrats, by the way), I’m going to cut you a little slack and assume you haven’t delved too far into the world of wedding planning yet. Surely if you had — if you’d perused even a few wedding blogs, magazines, and guidebooks — two things would be abundantly clear by now: 1) while the rules of etiquette are slightly flexible on inviting “plus ones” for single friends who aren’t in serious relationships, they are rigid when it comes to inviting the spouses and live-in partners of guests; and 2) sometimes the venue/dress/cake/ring/DJ/etc. that you love, love, love simply won’t work out for a variety of reasons (price, size, availability) and you have to make a few compromises.
The fact of the matter is, you cannot — CANNOT — get away with inviting people to your wedding without extending an invitation to their spouses or long-term partners. It simply isn’t done. Not only will some people assume your invitation was improperly addressed and bring their S.O.s anyway, they’ll think you’re a giant turd if they figure out your invitation was properly addressed and you really did mean to exclude the very people they’re married to/live with/have been dating for an eternity. This is doubly true for any guests you may invite who live out of town or don’t know your other guests very well (if at all). Can you imagine having to travel out of town and not being able to have your spouse come with you because he or she isn’t invited? To pay for travel expenses, wedding attire, and a gift, and not have the privilege of bringing your significant other along for the ride is going to make your once-close friends a tad resentful, and who wants to start a marriage with that kind of baggage?
As hard as it may be to accept that you’ll need to make room at your wedding for people you may not know well — if only because they are closest to the people you do know well — if you can’t trim your guest list down to include all significant “plus ones” at your preferred venue of choice, you’re going to have to pick another venue. It’s early in your planning and this is likely just one of many compromises you’ll have to make to have the perfect wedding because, as you’ll soon learn, a perfect wedding isn’t about having your preferred everything; it’s about creating a space where love can be celebrated. And trust me, it will be much easier for your friends to celebrate your love if the love they have for their significant others is shown a little respect.
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Absolutely, 100% agree. Wendy made a really great point about this affecting the whole tone of your wedding – how much fun is your wedding going to be if the majority of the people there are annoyed that you were so thoughtless of their significant others? Who are they going to sit with at dinner? Dance with? Talk to if they dont’ know anyone?? Your wedding would be a big, giant AWKWARD event…not something fun, memorable, or enjoyable.
If you absolutely will not compromise this venue, then you need to settle for an extremely intimate event – only direct family and best friends. But like Wendy said, some things can and should be compromised. In 10 years, the venue won’t matter…what WILL matter is that everyone had an awesome time at you’re wedding, and the tone of the event was joyous. You don’t want to look back and think “Well, it was gorgeous…but everyone looked like they were in pain.”
I basically just wrote the same thing 🙂
“Who are they going to sit with at dinner? Dance with? Talk to if they dont’ know anyone?? Your wedding would be a big, giant AWKWARD event…not something fun, memorable, or enjoyable.”
I agree with you and Wendy- you’ve got to invite significant others to a wedding. BUT I couldn’t help but think of all the weddings I attended as a single gal. It was kind of awkward, especially if I was the only single at the table. But I didn’t die.
I can definitely chime in here. Wendy is absolutely right that 1) you NEED to invite spouses and long-term partners, and 2) the answer is to either invite fewer people (WITH their plus-ones), or change your venue.
I changed my wedding venue to accommodate more guests, from one that sat 60 to one that sat 80. I really wanted a small wedding (in fact, I wanted to elope… badly… but I did not get my way). It was absolutely worth the hassle of changing venues to have everyone happy and in attendance. You don’t want to blow all this money on a party just for your friends to have a crappy time, right? After all the stress and hassle of planning a wedding, you’re going to want to see shining happy faces telling you it was the best wedding they’ve ever been to and they had SO much fun. You will definitely not want to see pinched, tense smiles… you will believe that’s it’s because they’re pissed at you for being at a wedding alone, or that they hate your dress, or they’re taking bets on how long the marriage will last, and you will not be happy. Happy guests = happy wedding = happy bride. Share the love and invite plus-ones.
I changed my wedding venue too… well, kind of. I changed to a bigger (and ultimately MUCH better) room at the same location. My family is huge and we are all very close, so there wasn’t much trimming to do on my side. My husband’s side wasn’t as big, so it was kind of lopsided, but we managed to get our list down to about 175 (135 came) total. Plus side was that we went from an interior room to a room with a huge wall of windows overlooking one of the lakes here in town. And not only did I invite all the plus ones, we also invited tons of kids (about 35 of the guests were kids) and had special tables set up for our wedding party so they could sit with their SO’s.
LW, its VERY important to remember that your friends and family have SO’s and spouses and long-term relationships and whatnot and they mean as much to them as your new fiance means to you. Put yourself in their shoes and figure out how you would feel if you weren’t invited to a wedding but your fiance was because the bride wanted a specific venue.
How’s that saying go? “If your friend had his wife at his own wedding, then he must have her at your wedding.”
If that’s not enough to convince you, think about it if the positions were reversed. What if you were invited to the wedding of a friend and your fiance/husband was intentionally left off the invitation? Would you go? I’m thinking no.
Overall, I agree with Wendy’s advice. It is considered a tad rude to not allow friends to bring their spouse to a wedding. If a good friend explained her circumstances to me, I wouldn’t be offended and would understand not being able to bring my boyfriend along, but that’s just me.
However, I have alternative. You mentioned the venue you have your heart set on is simply too small to hold everyone. In this case, have you considered trimming your list so you can invite a smaller number of people, including their significant others?
For example, let’s say the venue holds 50 people. The way your list stands now, if you invited 50 friends, when they brought their significant others, the list would jump to 100. But if you only invited 25 friends, they could bring their significant others, and you wouldn’t be offending them. Sure, you’d have to exclude some people from your list, but if you let them know it’s only close family and a few friends, they have no reason to be offended.
Also, keep in mind, not everyone you invite will end up coming.
My boyfriend is a groomsman in a wedding and they are not inviting any plus ones. He pretty much said that I’m coming whether they like it or not. Otherwise he wasn’t coming. So I think if you don’t invite the plus ones that you won’t get very many people at your wedding because they may decide not to come.
Not inviting spouses and long term partners of your guests will definitely shorten the guest list….mostly because no one will come.
When I saw the title of your letter I was going to say that no, you don’t have to. But then I read your letter, as well as Wendy’s advice, and I changed my mind. If you want to invite those friends, you have to invite their SOs.
I would like to add this though: if you’ve only met the SO of a particular person one or two times, then how often have you seen that particular person during the course of their relationship? I’m assuming that for something to qualify as a long term relationship, they have to have been together at least a year. If you’ve seen the person more often than once or twice during that year, how come you haven’t seen their SO more often?
And if you haven’t seen them more than once or twice in the past year, barring special circumstances ofcourse, are you really sure you want them at your wedding?
Now, I don’t really understand weddings, as I’m sure I’ve said before, but to me a small wedding is really small. Like, 30-40 of my absolutely closest friends and family, and I would have to think really hard about inviting someone that I had only seen about once or twice in the last year.
Just put yourself in one of your guest shoes. You just got invited to a wedding, but, sorry, your fiance has to stay at home. Speaking for myself, if I were invited to a wedding but had to leave my wife behind, I’d either not go, or go and feel really awkward the whole time.
You’re probably better off putting together the guest list and then picking a venue. Remember, you want to share the day with all the people you love… not just the ones who fit in the room.
Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine that a year from now one of your friends is getting married to one of these long term SOs you don’t want to invite to your wedding. You hear of the engagement and are happy for them. You get an invite and it has only your name on it, not Mr. and Mrs. So and So. Just you.
How would that make you feel? Would you be sad that your friend didn’t invite the man you love? Would you be happy to go to a wedding dateless, knowing that your husband was excluded? Would you be glad to celebrate the love of your friend and her new husband by arriving alone, sitting alone, dancing alone? These are people that your friends have chosen to spend their lives with, just like you are choosing to spend you life with your fiance. Even if you don’t love them, don’t like them, or don’t even know them, you do know your friends and you want them to feel happy, loved, and included, right?
If small/intimate is non-negotiable, then you’re going to have to trim your guest list. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s going to fly if your guests aren’t allowed to bring spouses. What really makes a wedding are the people that are there, not the view from the venue or even the decorations.
Since you are newly engaged, maybe you can push back the wedding date a bit to save more so you can accommodate more people?
I just got married two months ago and had plenty of “plus one” drama, so I am so excited to throw my hat in this ring. My husband and I found the perfect location and knowing that we had to pay per head, we worked the guest list like nobody’s business: no plus ones to singles, inviting relatives first who we guessed wouldn’t travel to the wedding but were happy to have the invite, etc. Well, I had a single guy friend I’d know for over five years and his invitation got lost in the mail, so he emailed me and asked for the info (he knew he was invited from the save the date card). I sent him the info and asked what he would like for the dinner. He then emailed back saying he wanted the chicken and his girlfriend would have the vegetarian but she was allergic to soy, dairy, air, etc. I had never even heard about a girlfriend and he had never had a girlfriend more than four months. I told him that since it was small wedding and we weren’t comfortable having people we didn’t know there and either he had to introduce her before the wedding (two months out) or he shouldn’t bring her. He told me there was no time before the wedding to do an intro but she wasn’t uncomfortable with not knowing anyone. I then flat out told him not to bring her and he refused to come to the wedding.
My point is 1) There are tricks to working a guest list so you can compromise and get what you want. 2) Some guests will cause problems no matter what, no matter how careful you are. 3) Good friends will not cause you drama. They will understand how stressful planning a wedding is and they will cut you some slack. As weird as it sounds, planning a wedding will teach you a lot about yourself and the people around you.
I’m going to counter what everyone, including Wendy, is saying. During my last long term relationship, my boyfriend, who was three years older than me, went through a couple of months where it seemed like EVERYONE he knew was getting married, I swear there were like 10 weddings within a couple of months, and I’d met most of the couples, I actually went to high school school with some of them, and I was totally okay with not being invited. I understood that they were tight on space and since I’d only met them a few times in social situations, it made logical sense that my boyfriend would be invited and I wouldn’t. If we were married, I might see a problem with it, but I didn’t.
I might be in the minority here (the same boyfriend was really upset when he wasn’t invited with me to my Uncle’s destination wedding, but a) it was just family (her brother didn’t bring his significant other) and b) they paid for everything), but this is how my family does their invites. It’s very “nothing is official until you’re engaged” so that’s how I’ve been raised.
But back to the problem at hand. If these are really close friends and you are really, really set on this venue (either because you’re more in love with it than your fiance or for financial reasons) talk to them and see if they would have a huge problem with it. My guess is that as long as they know other people there, who are not you, they’ll have a blast either way.
I’m trying to figure out my guest list as we speak. I never once thought of not inviting my friends SO’s! I plan on inviting them to the showers too. I do not want to make anyone feel excluded or uncomfortable. The guest list can add up quick.. I know for sure but if you’re heart is set on this venue… you’re going to have to keep it really intimate.
Congrats & Best Wishes.
I have been invited to a wedding – that I had to fly for – without my boyfriend, who I lived with at the time.
It was for one of my former college teammates, and truthfully, she was one of the few people’s weddings I would have attended under those circumstances. I had to do the awkward “was anyone else’s boyfriend not invited? no? is anyone else going alone?” I had to share a room with another couple – who had JUST started dating. Please tell me how he was invited as a plus-one and my boyfriend was not? It’s not his fault, and he certainly was not the only one.
Anyway, yes … It seems petty, and I wish I was not the type of person who was bothered by things like this, but it was hugely awkward for me to be there. Not because I was the only one without a date (I certainly wasn’t – I thankfully had a group of college classmates who had chosen to come stag) but partially because of all the reasons I just mentioned AND I had to explain all night where my boyfriend was. Totally ruined the vibe of the night for me, which was a shame because it was otherwise a beautiful affair.
I’m going to a close friend’s wedding in 2 months and we got an e-mail right before invitations were sent out telling us we cannot bring significant others, no matter how long we’ve been together. Only one friend can bring a date and they’ve been together for 10 years (though aren’t engaged yet). I understand the desire to have your wedding in a particular venue or to keep your budget under a certain amount (my friend’s concern), but a lot of people are unhappy about having to leave their long-term significant others home. Like as been said, people will not be pleased with it. Especially those people who you might be close with but who may not be all that close with other guests, because they won’t have anyone to talk to and might not be inclined to go.
Agree with Wendy! I had a super intimate wedding (22 people) but I did not exclude the plus ones for those that wanted/needed them. The trick is narrowing it down to the bare minimum! I had immediate family, a representative of each extended family (my aunt and uncle, his cousin and her husband) and our very closest friends only. It was tricky, but we didn’t have a lot of money or time, and I think in the end it worked out. Everyone that wasn’t there understood that we were working with limited funds and a health insurance deadline, and I’m sure your friends will understand if you need to do it too. Just take the time to call (or have a close relative call if there are too many) those that are getting cut and explain the situation (that’s what I did).
This is good to hear – I was just invited to a wedding of a friend from high school, and while we have kept in touch for years I don’t know her circle of friends well, or at all. Also, her wedding is very far away and would cost me significantly in plane, ferry, hotel, gift and I am still in grad school. Despite all this I was still planning on attending, she is one of my closest friends after all. Then I doubled checked whether it would be alright to bring my long term boyfriend along as well and she replied No because she didn’t know him and was trying to keep the wedding relatively small (it is still going to be 50-100 or so people so it is not super intimate). Now I don’t think I will attend, it just won’t be enjoyable at all if my SO is not with me. I was really floored and didn’t know what the etiquette about this sort of thing was – thank you for this Wendy. So many days I read this site and you totally answer my questions about some aspect of life, love etc!
All I can say is I feel your pain. I wouldn’t suggest not inviting the significant others, it would be very awkward for everyone. Either trim the total list or find a larger venue.
Let me tell you a little story. My cousin’s wedding (I’ll call her S) was last September and I was a bridesmaid, my son and niece who were 2 were the flowergirl and ringbearer. I am a single mom so in order to make everything work out I was going to need some help, S informed me that I was not allowed to bring a date since they didn’t have the money to feed people they don’t know (the did everything on the extreme cheap to make sure they spent as little on the guests as possible so they could have the money given to them for the wedding by thier parents to pocket). In the end I was able to get a couple different family members to help me but it was a major hassle. On her wedding day she was a complete bitch to everyone and her mother manhandled my son and niece to get them exactly where she wanted them standing 5 minutes before they even needed to be in their spots. By the end of the ceremony I was so pissed off that the minute we walked back out I grabbed my son and left, I have not spoken to S or anyone in her family since.
My point is that being denied a plus one (which was so I could have help with my son) put us on the wrong foot way before the wedding came and all the things that happened added up to me walking out right after the ceremony. Would you want your friends walking out cause you didn’t want to include a plus one?
Honestly, I wouldn’t even go to a wedding if I couldn’t bring someone. Even if I was single, I would want to bring a friend with me. I am not a very social person, I don’t like big crowds and I have absolutely no idea what to say to people I’ve just met. I’m just shy like that and I’ve been that way my whole life.
So unless I would be able to bring someone with me to talk to, I just wouldn’t go.
You have every right to not invite plus ones… Thing is, those invited have every right to not go because they want to bring a plus one. I was invited to a wedding last year of a girl I didn’t know too well. It was casual, BYO-everything (picnic style), but NO PLUS ONES. She was very rigid on this. I didn’t go. Bring my own food and drink but not a date so that I can have fun, and instead be forced to mingle with a bunch of other singletons who I don’t know? Yeah, uncomfortable.
Pick a bigger venue if you can, or be prepared for either a lot of people to not come, or for people to come and not enjoy it as much as they could.
If you really want that venue, then you need to cut your guest list to only the most important people and their SOs.
Just have a huge reception afterwards! I went to a wedding reception last summer, and not the actual wedding, because the girl who invited me is Mormon, and only Mormons could attend the actual ceremony inside of the temple. A reception can be relatively less expensive than the ceremony – you could just have a barbeque in your backyard or something, and it’ll be more fun for all of those who attend. More like a party.
I’ve never been able to think of any more than 15 people that I would want to invite to my wedding. There are lots of people in this world that I like, but I only have 3 girlfriends that I talk to regularly, and I only have one sibling and no extended family.
I feel really lucky because I’ve always wanted a small wedding and can’t imagine the stress of having to weed out your guest list and agonize over who might be offended if they don’t get an invitation… I’m sure that must be really hard especially when it comes to people with big families.
I agree with Wendy, 100%. Sad that you’re thinking about your picture-perfect wedding and not about enjoying the day with those people you’re closest to and making sure THEY also enjoy your day.
I will say that, going on four years as single, getting invites with a plus one is just so gracious! I know it’s not requried, but it really shows me that the bride/groom/whoever recognizes that it would be nice to bring along some kind of date, particularly when I don’t know anyone else at the wedding well.
I understand that times are economically tough right now, but if you want to go that route, of not having “plus ones” on your guest list, expect very little people to show up at your wedding. If your friends are married or in long-term committed relationships, it’s proper etiquette that you invite their S/O…If they’re single, then its ok to not add a plus one. One of my good friends is getting married in September, she’s only met my boyfriend twice, but she knows we’ve been together for 2.5 years & she invited him.
Just wondering if the LW has considered the people that their parents will want to invite? Because that can soon add up to quite a number and make a larger venue much more convenient.
Two of my close friends are getting married in July this year and are paying for their own wedding, having saved for well over a year to be able to afford one at all. In order to keep the costs down and due to a small venue what they have planned to do is keep their guest list small (80-90 people maximum) and only invite family and a selection of their closest friends. Most of the friends are in the wedding plus a few extra each. So that the rest of their friends aren’t left out completely they are having an After-Wedding Party when they get back from their honeymoon where all their friends can come and celebrate together – and the bride and groom can let loose in a way they wouldn’t on the big day. The few closer friends whom there just wasn’t room for were all spoken to personally to explain and are happy with the idea as no one is excluded! I don’t know if this is a feasible option for you, but it could solve your SO drama!
Why is it on the day that you’ve chosen to celebrate choosing a life partner, are you showing NO respect to the life partners chosen by the people you love?
No one is going to remember where you got married 10 years from now, but if you wise up and invite ALL significant partners, they will hopefully remember what a great wedding it was.
As a wedding planner, this letter made me absolutely want to scream. I give people the benefit of the doubt on most etiquette issues, because some people just don’t get it, but you said it best Wendy:
“trust me, it will be much easier for your friends to celebrate your love if the love they have for their significant others is shown a little respect.”
I agree with Wendy completely on this one. Spouses are 100% non-negotiable, even if you’ve never met them, even if you’re not sure how to spell their name. You’re getting married (hopefully) because you think it’s a meaningful step in your relationship and want to make a public commitment to your fiance that makes you a social and legal unit. How can you willfully exclude the people to whom your friends have made that same commitment?
As for long-term significant others, I think as long as these are people who mean something to your friends and are likely to stick around for the foreseeable future, you need to invite them just like you would spouses. Honestly, if you know these people exist as a major part of your friends’ lives, to invite spouses and not long-term partners is just rude and will make your friends feel like you’re judging them (even if you’re not). This situation frequently comes up with my brother (who is almost 31) and his girlfriend of seven years. While our married cousins are always invited to events with their spouses (some of whom have only been around for about 2 years), his girlfriend is frequently not included because “well, they aren’t married” or “how serious could he be about her?” Pretty damn serious, and it’s pretty damn offensive to be patronized like that as a grown adult. She’s family as far as I’m concerned, and as far as he’s concerned. Don’t be Judgy McJudgerson and not invite people you know matter to your friends.
Seems like the letter-writer has forgotten her role as hostess — she needs to extend some effort to make her guests feel comfortable and welcome. Banning peoples’ significant others and spouses is not going to make people feel good about coming to your wedding! Especially since, as you haven’t met many of the SOs, I’m assuming there will be travel involved.
I think everyone is forgetting that it is HER wedding, so she can do what she wants. If she doesn’t want to invite peoples plus ones then the answer is simple, don’t do it.
I have a question for you all. I completely agree that you have to invite spouses and live-in partners, but how do you define someone’s long-term significant other if they don’t live together? Over a year? 2 years? I don’t think theres anything wrong with not giving someone a plus-one if they aren’t in a serious relationship if you want to keep the guest list short, but how do you define that?
A wedding should be about celebrating your loving marriage with the other loved ones in your life. You’re the host of this celebration and must behave as you would in any other hosting situation. If you are selfish enough to make it all about you, and not show regard for your guests’ comfort, they will sense that and they will resent it. Being a good host means that you make sure your guests are comfortable, having fun, well-fed, etc. By letting your guests bring dates, you ensure that they’re having a better time, which also makes things more fun for you. It makes it easier for your guests to have fun on their own even when you’re not able to make introductions, seat them at the perfect table, etc. It also shows your gratitude for the time and money they gave to attend your wedding. They may have traveled, hired a babysitter, given up a shift at work, scrimped to afford a gift, rescheduled a vacation, or made so many other sacrifices to celebrate with you. Show your appreciation for that.
When I got married a year ago, we had a smallish wedding, but we planned for inclusivity from the start. This meant that everyone about 17+ got to bring a date if they wanted to. Sure, it meant that a couple of guests brought friends/dates that we didn’t know, and yes, we paid to feed those people. Sure, it meant that my high-school cousin’s boyfriend somehow got invited and came along. I loved it this way, because it meant my loved ones were having a good time and felt our love for them and our hospitality towards them. Choosing a venue with extra space, so we could fit in those unexpected dates, was one of the best wedding-related decisions we made. I was so relieved to not have to dicker over whose partners were “serious” enough to be invited, to not have to tell my friend that she couldn’t bring her date, to not worry about one too many people not fitting in the space. You need to build your wedding and budget around the people, not the place.
Choose a place with room enough for everyone you love, and the dates they may need in order to feel welcome and comfortable. Believe me, that makes your wedding day far more fantastic than the perfect venue will, and it will gather that much more support for your marriage from your community of loved ones.
Wow, all the support for formal wedding rules, like inviting SO’s no matter what, continues to surprise me. I’m not married, but the older I get the more I realize how ingrained wedding traditions really are. I’ve been invited as a SO, not invited as a SO, invited as a single, and invited without my SO. As with most things, I tend to err on the side of not taking things so personally. I find weddings beautiful, particularly those of close friends. And they’re particularly lovely to share as a guest with a SO. But I personally see that as a privilege, not a right.
I was in one very long term relationship, and I was typically invited to weddings as his plus one even if I didn’t know the couple well and I appreciated that. But I personally would not have been *offended* not to be included. I’ve also been to my fair share of weddings as a single lady. And, while it’s mildly depressing to be the only single at a table of couples, it’s not the end of the world. I do the same thing I would at any event without my SO- I make conversation with new people.
And last Fall, my now boyfriend asked the groom, whom he is close friends with, if he could bring me along at sort of the last minute. We’d only been dating a couple months at that point, and hadn’t been together when my boyfriend was first invited and he wasn’t sure if a plus one would have been extended regardless. If the groom had said no we would have completely understood. But thankfully, he was happy to have me. We bought a very nice present for the couple, I was sure to thank them both personally for having me, and the wedding was one of the most beautiful nights I had spent with my boyfriend in our then newish relationship.
Like I said, I’ve never planned a wedding and I’m not married, so this is my layperson’s perspective. Weddings are (and should be) clearly very personal affairs, absolutely steeped in tradition. Whatever works for any particular couple is completely up to them. I am graciously happy to have a significant other along to share the magic. But if they’re not there, either because they don’t exist (I happen to be single) or the couple could not accommodate them for whatever reason, I enjoy the event without them. Just like with any event I am honored to be invited to.
That said, I’d *want* significant others present at a celebration of love, so I’d do everything I could to accommodate them at my wedding, even ones I didn’t know well.
I guess I view weddings differently than most people. From what I’ve gathered, most think that a wedding should be treated like a formal party, which I agree that the reception basically is. However, I have been invited to a few weddings since becoming an adult where my long-term significant other was not invited, and I was not offended by it because:
a) I consider a wedding to be the celebration of a union between two individuals, not a demonstration of how good of hosts the bride and groom (or groom and groom or bride and bride) are.
b) I *am* able to hold my own and have a good time by myself without my boyfriend or girlfriend (as the case may be at the time). Sure, I would like to have them along when I go out to important events, but it’s not like I’m going to be so offended to be invited as an individual instead of a couple that I won’t go to a dear friend’s wedding!
I don’t expect to be invited to a stranger’s wedding just because my significant other *isn’t* strangers with the to-be-wedded couple, because a wedding should be about the sharing of love and intimacy to start a lifelong union on the right foot… and that love and sharing can come with a hefty price tag per head.
I would prefer for my friends who are getting married to have the venue they want and everything else exactly as they want it, within their budget, than to have them make sacrifices ON THEIR DAY just so that I have my SO to sit next to me during dinner.
To some extent, I agree here. If I was married and a friend only invited me, not my husband, to her wedding…I’d be confused. However, if I want a REALLY small wedding, and I honestly can’t afford for it to be any bigger at all, do I need to sacrifice my financial well-being in order to accommodate a handful of people I don’t know? That seems a little silly. A wedding is just ONE DAY out of years and years of friendship, and (hopefully) years and years of marriage.
As a semi-related aside, I was talking to a friend about my very abstract future wedding plans, and I reminded her that neither my boyfriend nor I drinks or dances, and that, unless his father wants to pay (mine don’t have money, and he and I will likely get married during his final year of law school for practical/financial purposes as much as for romantic ones), we definitely won’t be having an open bar or a DJ (I really hate dance music! Why should I have to listen to it at what will, most likely, be the only big party I ever throw?). My friend was flabbergasted–“You’d MAKE your guests pay for their own liquor? You won’t ALLOW them to DANCE?” And that’s when I realized it’s going to have to be a brunch wedding in the woods. Then it’ll just be too fucking weird for anyone to have steadfast expectations.
Back to the LW, perhaps you could have a low-key and cheap second reception/barbeque/open house a while after the wedding so that the friends whose SOs you exclude know that you don’t have anything against their partners?
LW – I think you should call your friends who are engaged or in longer than 2 year relationships and ask them the names of the S/O and then address the invitation like this:
Ms. Jane Doe and Mr. John Smith
If your friends are single or in 2 years or younger relationships then you can say:
Ms. Jane Doe and Guest
If your friends are married then this:
Mr. and Mrs. John Smith
LW, you just have to pare down your guest list some more. I think that good rule of thumb is that if you know about the relationship of the friend you’re inviting, it’ll be gracious to invite them. If it’s a new relationship and you don’t even know the person’s name without calling and asking… well, I personally don’t see why you should invite them. Anyone you would have to address as “and Guest” on an invitation would probably not enjoy your wedding anyway.
As an aside, I’m single and it always makes me feel funny to get invitations that say, “fallonthecity and Guest” or “fallonthecity and Date.” I realize they’re just trying to be gracious but sometimes I wonder if there’s going to be couple’s games or something. Mostly, though, I’m good at going stag, and I’m good at Rsvp’ing “no” to any wedding I’d be uncomfortable at. I send a note of congratulations and click “like” on their wedding photo album on Facebook 😉
One more thing I wanted to add…
Going stag to a wedding in your 20s is okay because most of you are single anyway. Doing it in your 30s, however, just plain sucks. Everyone is all coupled up.
Miss Manners just did a column on this, and I totally disagree with her. Speaking as someone who has been the only single person invited to a 100+ wedding, I just didn’t go because I’ve tried this before. Couples are with each other, they dance together, they eat together, etc. I hate sitting there with no one to dance with and no one to talk to. No one really wanted to get to know me.
If you are going to invite singles with no plus ones, then fine. Just make sure you invite a lot of them and stick them all at the same table.
One of my good friends just got married in Hawaii and I was one of two bridesmaids. I wasn’t allowed to bring a date and neither were any of our close friends. So we all had to spend major money to fly out to Hawaii for her wedding but she wasn’t even courteous enough to let us bring along dates. Honestly, I’m not sure if our friendship will last.
The biggest problem I have with not inviting SOs or spouses is that a wedding is supposed to be a celebration of love. And not ONLY the love of the couple getting married. It seems extraordinarily selfish to behave as though the only love that matters on your wedding day is yours, and no one else’s, by excluding SOs and spouses.
Not that there’s really anything more to be said on this subject – wedding questions get so much traffic! – but when I married my husband last year, we invited every single guest with a +1, as well as all couples who were dating/living together (and some gay couples, so not allowed to get married in most states!) We also invited all children. We decided this and figured out the list before ever looking at venues. About half of our guests came from out of town (15 different states were represented) – if you are asking people to travel for your wedding, it’s kind of mean not to take these things into consideration. I had a lot of people pull me aside at the wedding as well as weeks later, to express their extreme appreciation at being able to bring a date. Of course it’s not always in the budget, but if you allow for dates and children, you will have the eternal undying gratitude and warm feelings of all of your friends and family, and it’s so worth it – that’s how a wedding celebration should feel, whether or not there is an open/cash bar, morning/afternoon/destination/black tie/whatever. All of the +1s were model wedding guests (air guitar on the dance floor!) and the kids make for adorable pictures, and everyone is smiling and happy. Just sayin’.
I just wouldn’t go if my SO was specifically not invited. If my relationship is not important enough to you, I don’t want to celebrate yours.
My cousin didn’t invite my live-in-boyfriend to his wedding, and I would have been okay with it except for how he handled it. My bf and I, my parents, and my cousin and his fiance had all gotten together for drinks right after they had gotten engaged. This was the first time my boyfriend met my cousin, who spent the entire time talking about himself until his fiance finally interrupted him and asked how me and my boyfriend met. Fast forward a few months when my cousin called me up to invite me to the wedding and give me the date. He didn’t mention plus-ones, so I slipped my boyfriend into the conversation in a way that wasn’t wedding-related. My cousin took the hint and said that, “he seems like a really nice guy” but they couldn’t afford to invite him to the reception, though he could come to the ceremony if he wanted. Given the fact that my cousin hadn’t shown one iota of interest in my boyfriend when they met I couldn’t help but think his comment was a tad on the sarcastic side, plus I was pissed at the suggestion that my boyfriend could travel by plane to the wedding, go to the ceremony and then be barred from dinner!
The bottom line is, I truly think that every rule of etiquette is breakable but only if you have a damn good reason and explain them very sensitively and openly with your guests. Although it sucked not bringing my boyfriend to my first, big family wedding, what really made me angry was my cousin downplaying the importance of our relationship. Tread softly, LW!
honestly, people can sit and pout all they want but not everyone can fork over money for a wedding for people that they don’t know. it is their wedding and if they don’t want you to bring a significant other, well tough luck. mostly everyone is like, i felt this way, and i would never this and that but.. lets face it people it is their day not yours!
I had the experience where a friend sent me an invitation to her wedding, but there were no names on it. I presumed my fiance, whom she had met several times, would be invited, especially since the invitation did not indicate otherwise. When I called her to confirm our attendance, she said great, then called me back a few minutes later to ask if by “we” I meant myself and my fiance. Because they had limited space. So I was in the position where I had to uninvite my fiance. I felt like a complete tool, and now wish I had made the decision to not go at all.
My brother is one of the guests Wendy’s imagining at his friend’s wedding this fall, right down to being an out-of-towner. The groom is an old high school friend of his, and he invited my brother but not his live-in girlfriend. The wedding is in Western Canada (my brother lives in Montreal) and my brother and the groom don’t see each other much anymore, because there are provinces between them. So I believe the groom has only met my bro’s gf maybe once, and the bride possibly not at all. But the groom and my brother were very close for a period of years, and there are a few of the old gang from high school that are invited to the nuptials. And I think some of these guys’ wives/girlfriends DID get invited, but my brother’s girlfriend didn’t make the cut for some reason. I’m guessing it’s because the couple don’t really know her and maybe they haven’t been dating as long as some of the other couples (but they have been together a year and a half, living together since last summer, so it’s definitely a serious, significant relationship).
My brother is really upset that his girlfriend didn’t get an invite. He’s now questioning whether they like her (which is unfortunate, because she’s a lovely, perfectly likeable person). And even if they didn’t like her for some reason, that wouldn’t excuse this insult. My brother is being asked to trek across Canada for this wedding, the least they could do is extend the invitation to his serious girlfriend as well. The fact that they didn’t means my brother is debating not going at all.
So, Newly Engaged, you might want to consider his reaction to all this before you consider excluding spouses and other serious partners of your guests.
I can understand both sides. If you know one person very well and are pretty sure their spouse or SO will know ONLY your friend, I can see inviting only your friend to your extremely small wedding. If they do not want to come without their spouse or SO, you should understand. What I don’t understand are the folks that say that regardless of the name(s) on the invitation, they will bring whomever they please. You say it is rude NOT to invite my spouse, SO, date, so I will come and bring extra people that were not invited? Really? And that isn’t rude?