inviting ALL significant others?

byrder

I'm having a small wedding - the venue holds 50 people, including me and the groom (and the minister and wife, if they stay for the reception)! I've been surprised how quickly the guest list is filling up. There is a lot more family to invite than I had originally realized, so I'm having to really pick and choose which friends I can include. A handful of guests have significant others that I do not know, or have only met one time, etc. Do I have to invite them? These relationships are somewhat longterm (one is a year long relationship), and my cousin lives with her boyfriend (but my fiancee and I have only met him once). My mom keeps telling me to drop them off the list, but I'm not sure. I don't particularly want these people at my wedding, but I kind of feel like I'm being rude if I don't.

smokeybailey

Why would you invite 75 people you don't know to your wedding?

Get the names from your FMIL. 

banana468

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_inviting-significant-others?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:6a594e51-0e7c-48fa-ab35-686778aef275Post:c05762e1-8ca5-441a-8e9a-c6ae78098ecd">Re: inviting ALL significant others?</a>:
[QUOTE]Update - all the etiquette articles I've read say technically that it isproper etiquette to add plus ones for couples who are married, engaged are living together.  Anything beyond that is considered to be gracious and generous on the host's behalf. 
Posted by marissa_claire[/QUOTE]

So you wouldn't have invited DH and I as a social unit when we were together for 2 and a half years and not yet engaged because we weren't living together?

If any of my friends did that between the time DH and I were together for 3 months until the proposal, I would have been really upset at how they marginalized my relationship.

The point of those articles is that you need to recognize serious relationships.   If you make a cutoff knowing that you're excluding a well-established relationship, would you really be OK with doing so to one of your nearest and dearest?

marissa_claire

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_inviting-significant-others?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:6a594e51-0e7c-48fa-ab35-686778aef275Post:9dc6a45d-be47-41c2-81d7-c6d383a4c961">Re: inviting ALL significant others?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: inviting ALL significant others? : So you wouldn't have invited DH and I as a social unit when we were together for 2 and a half years and not yet engaged because we weren't living together? If any of my friends did that between the time DH and I were together for 3 months until the proposal, I would have been really upset at how they marginalized my relationship. The point of those articles is that you need to recognize serious relationships.   If you make a cutoff knowing that you're excluding a well-established relationship, would you really be OK with doing so to one of your nearest and dearest?
Posted by banana468[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>I didn't say that's what I would do.  I said that's what etiquette recommends, meaning that if you didn't invite all SO's it shouldn't be considered rude.  I personally would include a lot more than what the rule allows for, but I think this is a very big gray area with no steadfast rule and what I previously wrote being the only actual rule around.  And yes, the OP needs to invite those who she mentioned.  I don't disagree on that, but I think making the blanket statement of "all SO's need to be included" but then saying that you have to determine what constitutes a SO is contradictory.   Unless you're inviting everyone with a plus one, you're cutting people off somewhere, and in that case you are kind of judging the relationships at hand.  

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banana468

Not necessarily.

You can be completely single and not in a relationship at all.  No judgement there if you don't extend the plus one.

However the statement you made implies that long term relationships where the parties aren't living together are somehow less valid than those where the couple is. 

marissa_claire

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_inviting-significant-others?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:6a594e51-0e7c-48fa-ab35-686778aef275Post:41ec7281-bae9-42d8-b8bc-74dad2e341da">Re: inviting ALL significant others?</a>:
[QUOTE]Not necessarily. You can be completely single and not in a relationship at all.  No judgement there if you don't extend the plus one. However the statement you made implies that long term relationships where the parties aren't living together are somehow less valid than those where the couple is. 
Posted by banana468[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>The statement I made is that here are the rules that are on the books.  I never said I did or didn't agree.  I simply said "Here's what Emily Post says."  I never added "and I happen to agree."  If you read it differently, I'm sorry, but I explained a few posts ago what we did with our friends in relationships.  If you want to take issue with that, so be it.  But don't say that I said I agree with what the rule recommends when I was simply stating it's the only rule that seems to exist.  

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botticelliangel6

If they live together, have been together a significant period of time etc you need to invite them.  If anyone had not invited my fiance to their wedding after about the first year (i.e. after we moved in together) I certainly would not have gone and would have been offended (at least if they knew he existed).

byrder

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_inviting-significant-others?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:6a594e51-0e7c-48fa-ab35-686778aef275Post:91f85539-7da6-4e55-aa86-a3376a62ba89">Re: inviting ALL significant others?</a>:
[QUOTE]It's not your place to decide who is worthy and who isn't. If you've only managed to be a good friend and meet their SO once, maybe you should consider spending more time with your friends, and start with your wedding.
Posted by squirrly[/QUOTE]

It isn't a matter of deciding "who's worthy and who isn't". The point is to have people at our wedding that we love and care about, and vice versa. One of these so-called SO recently attended a wedding I was at... he whined until my friend left the reception, took her to Hooter's for dinner, and then my friend came back to the reception alone. Do I want to invite him to my wedding and have him take up one of my 50 spots? Not particularly. Also, please don't judge whether I'm a good friend or not by how many times I've met a friend's SO. The friend mentioned earlier is a friend from work that I used to see 5 days a week. We didn't have much time to meet outside of work LOL!

calindi

1) The old rules of "Married, engaged, or living together" are an antiquated cop out to draw a line in the sand with invitations.  People who don't live together before they get engaged can be equally valid, often more so, than the couples who move in together right away and aren't as serious.

2) Three month cut off for relationships is silly - in fact, any timeline as an indicator of seriousness is silly.  In fact, it's not your place to judge the seriousness of someone else's relationship.  If you invited them to your birthday party, would they bring their significant other?  In that case, you should be inviting them, too. I get that your high school cousin's boyfriend of the month is not the same, but you can't judge that on time lines.  In my case, I'd cut it off by age - if they're under 18 years old, they're family anyway and don't need a date.  Over 18, if they're dating someone, they get a +1.  End of story.

3) I feel like whenever a question comes up that says, "Here's the situation.... should we invite the significant other or not?" the answer is almost always yes.  If you have any question or doubt, chances are it will at least raise an eyebrow if not insult the person if they are not invited with a significant other.