Wedding Etiquette Forum

Etiquette for plus one?

What is the proper etiquette for inviting plus ones? I have a couple tricky situations. My separated parents, cousin who is 17 but no relationship that I know of, a recently divorced aunt and uncle, a 70something family member who's sig. other passed several years ago. I know everyone  uses their own guideline (ex. everyone over 21 w/ a date), but what is proper etiquette?

Re: Etiquette for plus one?

  • Usually I would say anyone who is in a long term committed relationship or engaged. Otherwise, it's not necessary.
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  • Typically you hear that anyone married, engaged, living together, or in a serious long term relationship must be treated as a social unit and invited together. Flavors of the month are optional.
  • I wouldn't give a 17 year old a guest for sure.
  • I think the most proper thing to do, etiquette-wise, is to make a rule and stick to it, no exceptions.You ALWAYS have to invite spouses and FIs and long-term relationships, IMO.  Everyone else, just make a rule and stick to it.  We're saying that anyone college-age or older gets a +1.  That way, if anyone complains, we have a concrete rule we can cite back to them: "sorry, nobody in high school got to bring a date."
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  • Yer purdy Jaime. ANOTHER JaIme...what are the odds?
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  • Thanks Kate and Fische! Are you a jaIme too?I originally said anyone 18 plus gets a date. But, I have one cousin who is 17 (out of 26) and I feel bad saying he can't get a date. At the same time, who wants to pay for all those plus ones? Not I. It's just everyone has their own unique situation and it's becoming a PIA for me.
  • No, I'm not, I'm a fishy, but there's JaImebeth and P2 is a JaIme...
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  • I had some similar issues.1. Twin 18 year old neicesboth had a plus one. If they were 16-17 and still in high school I probably would not have given them a plus one. Also, even though these girls are young they've both ben dating their boyfriends for a while.2. Elderly great aunts. We allowed them a plus one knowing that they would not bring a "date" but would need someone to drive them. Especially at night.I would stick with the significant other rule in most cases.GL!
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  • Anyone is in a committed relationship (i.e. engaged, living together), or if they were the only people coming from out of town (no one took advantage of this though).  We put the "dating" clause in at 8 months b/c that was the least amount of time that anyone we knew seriously dating was at (does that make sense).  We got into it with my BIL b/c he dates a girl for a month and moves on to the next one and we wanted to bring someone "so he wouldn't be alone."  We stuck to our guns and he just had to deal.
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  • we only extended guests to the marrieds, living togethers, engaged and serious LTRs. if you dont extend "plus ones" just make sure you put a lot of thought into your seating chart. as long as friends who know each other are grouped together, they'll be fine.  one of the best weddigns i went to was one i went to solo.  i was put at a great table, flirted wtih teh singles all night (i was single at the time!) and danced with everyone.  you dont need a date to have a good time.
  • if you are looking for the etiquette rule, you should invite everyone with a +one.  I come from an english military background where etiquette is viewed as the "only thing that separates us from the animals" (yep, thats right, that would be a direct quote from my mother, passed down from her father).  My aunt and mother were invited to a wedding in the summer, neither with a +one and my aunt was so appauled at the bad manners of the bride and groom that she called me to see if I thought they were serious!  I did my best to explain to her that it was their call, but she was unamused (especially given that she has a signifigant other that was undisclosed to the b&g at the time).  you won't always know the relationship history of all of your guests, so making decisions based on whether you think they are in a serious relationship or not isn't necessarily the best choice.  we invited a +one for every single guest, knowing full well that many of them would not bring anyone.  we invited around 150-160 people and without all the +ones, and the odd person who couldn't make it we only had 103 at the wedding.  I know that seems like a lot to try to wade through, but it is a courtesy to your guests to allow them to bring someone so they are not uncomfortable at your wedding.  Also, you can't value judge someone's relationship based on length of time or age.  Between sending out our save dates and sending out our invitations my husbands step brother went from being engaged to one woman to living with another one who was carrying his child.  This is faster than we would move, but are we not going to invite the future mother of our nephew to our wedding because they haven't been together for some arbitrarily chosen period of time?  The only person we did not send a plus one to was my husbands grandmother, but that is because we know her very well and in her mind her husband is gone and there will be no other dates.  We knew she would be offended at any suggestion otherwise (even just at the opportunity to bring a companion) so we addressed it just to her.
  • OK what should I do in my situation. I have a cousin who has 4 children, the oldest one is 26 or 27 and the youngest I think 8...The oldest still lives at home and I haven't seen him in years, do I need to send him a seperate invitation with a plus one? He's not in a serious relationship that I know of....I was hoping that I can invite the cousin her husband and the 4 children all of the same invitation, is that OK? The other kids are 20 and 13....I also have a first cousin who will be my bridesmaid, she's currently dating one of my best friends who will be attending the wedding.....Do I need to send a plus one to each person? What happens if they break up after they get the invitation but before the wedding? I was going to extend a plus one to my friend but not to my cousin since she's 23 living at home.. I was going to send an invitation to her parents and include her and her brother on the invitation
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  •  know that seems like a lot to try to wade through, but it is a courtesy to your guests to allow them to bring someone so they are not uncomfortable at your wedding.uncomfortable?  seriously?  how is one uncomfortable attending a social function without a date, especially a family event like a wedding wehre they will know other people there.i'm so glad my parents raised me to be an independent person.  i love doing things with my H, but i'm also happy i can do things on my own too.
  • Kathy, I would send the families one invite if they all live under the same roof. I would send the bm a separate invite from bff, but do not include a plus 1. You can do that verbally if they break up before the wedding. You can also do that verbally if the 20-somethings ask if they can bring a date. I would seat the adults still living at home together, maybe they will become friends & get an apartment together.
  • Send as many +ones as you can - that way you won't be nearly as frustrated when you start receiving replies from people who simply ignored that they were invited solo... or better yet, you get to avoid making those awkward phone calls to your friends who posted your wedding details on facebook to fish for a date when they were invited solo. Yeah.
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  • uncomfortable? seriously? how is one uncomfortable attending a social function without a date, especially a family event like a wedding wehre they will know other people there.i'm so glad my parents raised me to be an independent person. i love doing things with my H, but i'm also happy i can do things on my own too. not every person invited to a wedding is related.  we had friends there who didn't know other people - one of my closest friends knows very few of my other friends and my family because I live in a city away from my family and I have friends all over the province and out of the country because people move.  Had I invited him without his girlfriend, it could have been a fairly boring evening for him (I mean outside of being touched by what was going on for us an all :).  He is very independant and able to socialize, but sharing an evening with someone is often more enjoyable for even very independant people - just look around the next time you go out to a restaurant.
  • My Fiance and I did not invite plus one's. simply because everyone we invited knew at least one other person at the wedding.we had two calls about asking if a new bf could attend and I had to politely tell them no as our venue would not be able to accommodate for the extra people, also due to our budget.ours was a hard and fast rule, if they were not together at the time of the engagement party - that we knew of - then they did not get an invite. my cousin to be was understanding of the constraints we had and both she and her new bf were fine with that. my cousin, whom does not keep in touch at all, only wanted to bring him to introduce him to my family. on this point i could be seen as a bridezilla, but as i see it, if she wants to intro him to the fam then she should pick up the phone and organise something to get him to meet the fam. she also thinks she will be alone..ummmm...the whole family will be there, no one will be alone.But if there is a guest who will know absolutely no one except the B&G at the wedding then it would be polite to extend the invitation if you can =)HTH
  • I'm surprised how many people think it's bad form to not invite everyone with a plus one.  I'm going with Emily Post on this one (cause if Emily thinks its ok who am I to say otherwise) - long term SOs, fiances and spouses only is fine.
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