inviting guests

malamute

hello everyone. i just had a question about inviting people without offering them option of bringing guest. is this something that people commonly do for weddings. we are just getting really tight on our inviting list. thanks everyone

kristan1022

From what I know, the only people who are expected to have the option of bringing a guest is those who are married,  in a long-term relationship (over a year), or living with their significant other. Obviously if you are having a wedding without children, this does not extend to their kids, just your friend and their spouse/SO.

The only exception to this in our wedding is the wedding party: all of our wedding party members are allowed to bring a date.

Quite a few of FI's high school friends are not married or seriously dating anyone, and so we are not giving them the option of bringing a guest, as they will have people there that they know.

Hope that helps!

crash2729

I am not extending a +1 to those guests who are not in relationships. However, if they have recently been in a relationship and I don't know the status (It's not on FB) I extended the +1. Hopefully if they are not in a relationship they won't bring one. But it's up to them.

professorscience

Traditional etiquette says it is rude to exclude the SO of anyone in a relationship, no matter the duration of the relationship.  We extended +1's to anyone we knew was in a relationship, and just sort of passed the word along to the people we knew were dating but maybe didn't know their SO's name.  A lot of the time, if the SO didn't know us, they didn't come to the wedding.

There are lots of ways to word your invitation that SHOULD indicate to the recipient who is and isn't invited, but honestly, I've learned that no matter how you word the invitation (even if you put "___seats have been reserved for you"), people are going to try to sneak in +1's or 2's or 3's.  Make sure you print the names of anyone invited to the wedding on the invitation, and then be prepared to call up a few people who try to RSVP for more to tell them that you just can't accommodate extra guests.

fallbride1109

Etiquette says that if there is not a specific name or "and guest" anywhere on the invitation, they are supposed to know not to bring anyone.  However, there will always be people that ignore this.  We just told our single friends, hey were not having plus ones due to space issues.  We had one single mom want to bring her son so we let her since she was OOT and the only one that RSVP'd for more than invited.