Here's some background. We are inviting 180 people despite wishing for a smaller, more intimate wedding. FH has a gigantic,very close family. We do not want strangers at our wedding, so that means no plus-ones for single people who have close friends to hang out with at the wedding. There are only two single people on our list who don't really have a designated social circle to hang out with, so we made an exception for them.
We have a friend, let's call him John. John is one of the two mentioned above. Now, he will know a LOT of people at the wedding, but the social circle he knows is very cliquey and "exclusive" (they did not let me be a part of the group for a long time when I relocated with FH - these were originally his friends and are now good to me after I mentioned their cliquey-ness). Anyway, John was quite vocal about wishing for a plus-one (I'd go so far to say that he threw a bit of a tantrum over it). FH (this is his friend) asked him who he was thinking of bringing and he said his...friends with benefits, Jane. FH and I agreed, not because of his tantrum, but because we don't want him to be alone at the wedding, and also because we really like Jane (we would consider her more a friend of a friend but I happen to like her more than him).
FH reached out to ask for the spelling of her full name. John responded with her address and said "you should probably send her her own invitation in case we don't work out so that I can bring someone else"......we were like "um, what?" (amongst ourselves). Anyway, FH responded and said, sorry if there is confusion, Jane is his plus one, that we have a very limited guest list. Additionally, if they do not work out, this "plus one" is not transferable - we are writing her name on the invitation because we want JANE to come, not one of his trashy, trouble-making friends.
When FH said "Jane is your plus one", John said "well, I guess if we don't work out then we can just be civil". Um, if you don't work out then she doesn't need to be coming, she's a guest of JOHNS, not like a direct invite from us (if that makes sense).
How do we explain this to him because I don't think he understands the etiquette and I don't think he means this maliciously, so we don't want to hurt him but at the same time we need to make this very clear that he gets to bring Jane or noone at all. TY!
