My fi and I got in a big argument about this today. I have been asking him for weeks to get the names of some of his friends' significant others. We weren't planning on inviting truly single guests with plus ones, but anyone who has any type of significant other will get an invite for that person. There are three people on his list who are friends of his, but he isn't sure if they are dating anyone (one has an on again off again and last we heard, they were off again) and one travels a lot and he just hasn't seen her lately to know if she is dating anyone and one recently told us she and her boyfriend broke up. First guy assumed he got to bring a date and keeps mentioning it. Since we found out a few of our out of town relatives aren't going to be able to make it (word of mouth from the Save the Date, we didn't b-list anyone), we can accommodate this guy's random date and since he is traveling and won't know anyone else there I am ok with making an exception to the rule with him. With the two girls in question, one emailed him today asking if she gets to bring a plus one. I told him to reply with something like, "I didn't know you had a boyfriend! What's his name so we can address the invitation correctly." She is the other person on our list who will be traveling and won't know very many people at the wedding, so I'd be ok with her bring a guest. The other we just don't know anything about her dating situation -- and she's local and her best friend and best friend's husband are also invited (they go out all the time as a threesome so that wouldn't be weird for her). I told him he needed to ask if she was dating someone and he could just say we would like to include her boyfriend on the invite if she is. He thinks it is weird to ask a friend this question.
How do I explain to him that it is perfectly acceptable to ask the name of a significant other for a wedding invitation? We already tried facebook stalking said friends to get the name, so that option is out.