My fiance's cousin lives in Maine and our wedding is in Pennsylvania. This cousin is getting married in two days to a person we have never met. We had already done our guest list and really cannot afford to invite her new husband. We did not give plus ones to her mother or her sister so if we invite her new husband that would mean we should give plus one's to the mother and sister which would be three extra people we really cannot afford to invite nor do we know. Further they announced to the family that we are getting married only a week before their wedding after we already created the guest list and budgeted for our wedding. What do you recommend?
Re: What to do
Also, you don't have to allow the other plus one's. Plus one's are literally dates. And are optional. Significant others - like a spouse - are NOT optional. Also if three people are going to break your budget you did not leave enough cushion.
And for for the record, significant other is not a plus one. Plus one is for single guests. Anyone dating/engaged/married to someone whether it’s for one day or one hundred years needs to be invited with their person.
I suggest you relook at your budget and make sure everyone you invited is invited with their SO.
My gosh.
If her mother and sister are truly single, then you don't have to give them plus-ones just because you're including the cousin's husband.
You don't have to invite truly single people with a plus one, but you must invite everyone's significant other. Unless this cousin is getting married at first sight, her husband would have been a significant other when you were putting together your guest list. You need to go through and make sure that you haven't excluded any other significant others.
If you didn't leave enough room in your budget for significant others, that's your fault. You will have to cut your favors, or hair/make up, or limo, or start eating instant ramen or whatever you need to do to find the money. The fact that you didn't plan correctly is no excuse to treat people badly.
You need to go back to your guest list and see how many other significant others you've left out and invite them. Move some money around, cancel the ice sculpture, find a way to make this right.
Few things are shittier than inviting someone to celebrate your relationship while simultaneously telling them that theirs isn't good enough.
Seriously, how would you feel if someone looked at your wedding and your relationship with such judgement?
Fix your budget. End of story.
H's grandma told him they wouldn't be able to come to our wedding. We still sent them an invitation. It's not a summons.
1) Don't let any mom speak for what her grown children will or will not do.
2) That H should have been on you guest list back when he was a boyfriend.
You've never met me but seem to communicate well enough. Have your fiance reach out to his cousin. This isn't rocket surgery.
Edited because I used the wrong word.
I get it. It's easy to think that the MIL has it all down but she doesn't in this case so he needs to call around even if it's to say, "Mom can you get me Aunt Martha's number?"
Just know that anyone in any relationship needs to be invited with his/her/their SO.
It sounds like you should have done as his brother did and not invited them if you both barely know them. But you sent them a save the date, so that's water under the bridge. If your FI feels like it's too much trouble to figure out how to treat these people properly as your guests, the time to say that was when you were establishing the guest list. Now they're guests, and you have to figure this out. If you're getting unreliable info from FMIL, go to the source.
We didn't invite the person that one of our guests was pretty obviously dating, because H asked her directly and she wouldn't admit to dating him. She didn't consider him a SO, so we didn't invite him. The key thing is that the guests gets to make that determination, not their mom, and not their aunt.
edit - H to FI, OP ain't married