How to deal with uninvited guests...

I'd also be curious as to how many guests everyone who's saying it's no big deal are having. I think the numbers definitely make a difference. It's not just about a headcount.

We didn't deny. We invited this friend and her boyfriend. Not her sister. And it will potentially affect our headcount. As I said before, there are some people who wil see this as "hey, you said I couldn't bring my brother. How come she gets to bring her sister.?" Hello, snowball effect. And @Aph, we actually always had that situation happen with a couple people already, believe it or not.

This friend won't be alone. As I said, all of FH's friends know each other one way or another. So she certainly won't be sitting with strangers.

This would bother me as well. You invited the bf as a courtesy. I am assuming that there were other people you had to cut to be polite and invite the SO of your guests. I wouldn't want people I don't know at my wedding either.

I think you're making this harder than it actually is. I don't think other people will complain and say "why couldn't I bring my brother" etc. Still let her know that you only wanted to invite her S.O, but that it's ok to bring someone else. I had a friend who asked me for a plus 1 and I gave it to her thinking she would have a date. Nope, it's a guy we went to school with but it's ok because my head count is still correct. Don't over think things.

Carrie sounds like you had the answer to this question before posting it...

We are planning for 120.

So someone else already asked to bring someone in addition to his guest and you denied that? I'm trying to get at the actual root of this.

I had 100 people total. I allowed guests for everyone invited, whether that be siblings, S.O.s, FWB's, and pet flying squirrels. It wasn't worth me arguing over and saying "Well this person deserves a guest because she has been with this guy for X number of days".

It happened to me... really not a big deal

Let's remove guests complaining and the fact that this doesn't change the numbers.

It's not about that. It's about carefully choosing who you want to spend your day with and if you're not close to this person or don't even know them, it's a big fucking deal. If you've got 200 guests, I'm sure you won't notice a face in the crowd when you probably won't get around to greeting everyone anyway. But it sounds like Carrie put a lot of thought into who she wanted to share this day with and this guest's sister is not on the list.

Seems like you made up your mind about this before even asking.

What question, @Lory L? I'm just stating what happened, and was on curious as to why people think it's okay to do this. If my FH couldn't make it to an event we were going to, I wouldn't just randomly bring someone else along in his place. That's a little rude.

I don't get your logic here. How is it going to make your guest list get bigger? She is subbing someone in for her boyfriend who couldn't make it. No one else is going to want to leave their significant other at home to bring their sister. No one is going to care about this anyways. If you want to send out your little written "note", so be it, but know that it sounds silly. In the grand scheme of things this matters 0%. She isn't adding a guest. As PP have mentioned, you can just explain that she didn't want to come alone and her other half couldn't attend. Did you give plus ones to single guests?

I dunno. I'm not Kim Kardashian so I don't feel the need to enforce elite crowd control so.....lol

Because it'll open up the door for others to ask. "Hey, I want to bring my brother"

Just, no. We only want the people we know to come to our wedding. This isn't some random, free for all party. We've put time, effort, and a hell of a lot of money into planning this. Why would we want to spend our wedding with people we don't even know?

You don't want your friend coming alone. If anyone asks, and they won't, say they were able to bring their S/O, and she's not..... sooooo....

Ahaaaaaaaaaa....there's the root. That's what I was looking for:

Why would we want to spend our wedding with people we don't even know?

By that token, I should have excluded the wives of my coworkers. I had never met them. lol

In my opinion, which i believe others have stated. If you have allotted for 2 people its 2 people. If one of my friends wanted to bring their family member in place of a spouse that couldn't attend I would be fine with it. Actually my FH sister's fiance' can not attend and she is bringing her college room mate totally fine i allotted for 2 heads... just saying.

We have quite a handful of people coming by themselves. They, as well as the rest of FH's friends, all know each other.

"Because it'll open up the door for others to ask. "Hey, I want to bring my brother""

Still don't understand this logic. How would any other guest know this sister was attending? They'd find out at the wedding.

Then go ahead and tell her she can't bring her sister. You've chosen this as something to stress about so take care of it and let it go.