guest's +1 - vent! (and questions)

caiandcullen

hi ladies -

so i was wondering... what is your policy on guests getting +1??

we were trying to do the whole "engaged/married" thing or if people were traveling by themselves/wouldn't know anyone there.

however, we've found out that more than a few of FI's friends have had their significant others book plane tickets to hawaii.

now, from our perspective, FI's friends are all coming together (same flights) and will know at least 15+ people there. additionally, our original dream wedding at 150 people max, has turned into a 290 person wedding. 2-9-0!!!!!!

and that's NOT cheap. i am so frustrated. i feel like this wedding isn't even what we want! it's such a huge shenanigan now. we really wanted a smaller wedding.....

anyway, i know that from their perspective, most people expect to bring their bf/gf to a wedding - but our parents aren't paying for this. we are!

what should we do? i hate feeling pigeonholed into inviting these people that we've never met (yes, FI hasn't met some of his friends' significant others). 

kaesha

Your invites were clear about who you were inviting right? As long as they were, feel free to gently put people in their place. Gently isn't my strong spot - I'm brutally honest with people... what about something like "I'm so glad you're making a vacation out of this, but due to budget constraints (or space) we weren't able to invite as many people as we wanted to the wedding iteself. So we just wanted to gently remind you that we regretfully can't accommodate any other guests."

BoBride28

290!!! WOW!!!!

I feel your pain about the +1s....we had to deal with this and it was SO frusturating and stressful. We felt badly but we had to tell some people that they just couldn't invite extra people because we had only budgeted for a certain amount. We also had some people who had already bought their plane tickets and for those people there was nothing that we could do except throw up our hands in frusturation. Luckily for us, all of our guests were destination so the numbers evened out in the end since we had lots of drop outs as we got closer to the date. But I know you guys will have a lot of local guests...my advice is to remind people that they cannot invite extra people and explain that you have a very strict budget and/or that the venue can only hold so many people. It's a tough thing to do and you will feel badly about saying it to them but your guests have to respect that it is your wedding and money doesn't grow from trees.

One thing I noticed is that the people who added +1s were those who were not married...people who haven't planned a wedding really have no idea about the amount of time and money that goes into it and that adding guests adds a whole level of stress that is not needed!

caiandcullen

....so the catch is our invites haven't gone out yet. they're currently being shipped to us, and we're mailing them out in a month.  

HOWEVER, they do say:

"we have reserved --- seats for you"

kaesha - it's not mine either! but FI is talking to his other friends now, so this doesn't happen again...

i guess my first mistake was using lani and they can accommodate up to 500. 

i think after this, i'm going to tell people that we "can't accommodate them due to budget constraints"... i'm done with inviting extra people (it's been a lot so far!)

thanks for you advice ladies... i really find it hard to put these types of things into a nice way... haha. because i just can't comprehend how people can assume these types of things.

and bobride - you are SO right!! all of these people are not married. haha.

jaymers99

We were trying to keep our guestlist "small" too...175...but we ended up inviting about 320.  I invited +1s for those in my parent's generation.  For my friends and cousins, I stuck with just those that were together over a year or travelling alone and didn't know anyone.  I invited +1s for my co-workers, but only 2 ended up bringing a guest.  I did have one friend call me and say she wanted to bring her new boyfriend.  I had to tell her that I was still working on the guestlist and wasn't sure if we could accomodate guests yet.  Did you guys send out save the dates?  That might help communicate who is actually invited.  Like PP said, though, unless you've planned a wedding, most people are clueless about invite etiquette.  I used the "We have reserved __ seats in your honor," and it worked well.  We didn't have too many travelling from out of town, though.

mishy112

Just a thought - perhaps some of their s/o's want to join them in Hawaii even if they're not coming to the wedding itself. And even if they think they are and you have to set them straight, it's not like they can't enjoy a trip to Hawaii together outside of the wedding and reception. Perhaps all the uninvited s/o's can have some fun doing something else while FI's friends attend the wedding. My point is, don't feel bad even if they did buy plane tickets. I can't imagine having 290 guests!!

pinkmochiball

sorry to hear about the +1 mess.  It's crazy how you put a number and people still find a way to add people.  I remember I did the reserve seat thing for my grad party and i think i had a bunch of people add in extras.  definitely have the FI talk to his friends and communicate your small wedding wishes.  hope everything turns out!

jamie! that is a HUGE jump in numbers...you were able to have round tables with that number in the waikiki ballroom? i thought the max was 300? 

sandyhorne

If the invitations haven't gone out then it should be self explanitory to your friends if it doesn't say "and guest".  I agree that all of the s/o may want to just be there and get together on their own during the wedding.  Guests are a hard thing......I think you could possibly offend either way.  I have one friend coming for sure and on the invitation I put "and guest", he's someone who usually travels alone but I don't want him to feel he can't bring a guest, but then I worry I offend him by saying he can bring a guest.  If your friends RSVP back with more than invited you have to talk to them.  My philosophy at the moment....don't stress til you start getting the RSVP's - there will be plenty of time to stress then lol.  Good luck!