People adding plus one

Well a significant other is not a plus one, regardless of how long they have been dating, so in my opinion you kind of did that to yourself. If it is a truely single person, you can just say “I’m sorry for the miscommunication but the invite was only for ___.”

Well you have a couple of options - just keep letting people add to your guest list like you have been doing.... or take control of it, have the difficult discussions and tell people that they can't add to your list as you don't have the budget or space for it. I would never add 24 more seats, I'd rather clarify the situation with people and then let them decide how they want to RSVP. I invited everyone's significant others to my wedding so I am guessing that is why I had very little of you are describing happen to me.

I'm contacting people that add a plus one on their own, explaining the need to keep this headcount under control.

Wow, I am a little shocked at this. I imagine people are just trying to take advantage and aren't ignorant unless it just wasn't made clear?

Out of curiosity, how did you handle the invite situation? From my understanding, etiquette wise, you see who the envelope is addressed to and then on the RSVP card you have a space for them to fill out how many seats out of how many you are giving them. For me personally, I am having people RSVP online, on our wedding website, and you just can't RSVP for more than yourself and if you have a guest.

It's going to be uncomfortably but personally I would inform people that regrettably you are unable to accommodate more than who you invited. I would definitely not add 24 more seats, just out of principal, let alone money and space wise.

They probably thought you forgot to add their partner since that would have been the correct thing to do. Making up random rules about who gets to bring their gf or bf isn't really acceptable. If my cousin moves in with some girl he met at a bar after 2 weeks, she gets invited because she lives with him, but my other cousin who is in a serious relationship for 5 months doesn't get to bring her boyfriend because of your imaginary line that makes it "serious"? Anyone in a relationship at the time your invitations go out should get to bring their significant other. If they are casually dating multiple people, or don't start dating until the week before the wedding, that's different. Also, nobody under the age of 18 needs to bring a date.

I stupidly assumed that people would RSVP for only who it was addressed to. I'm not good at telling people no. Ughh. I can't have anymore uninvited attend but I'm going to have to put my foot down.

View Quoted Comment I disagree. They aren't random rules, they're how we cut our list in half. The guy who added a plus one today, he's been with her a month & we've never met her. I don't even know her name so why would we invite her?

View Quoted Comment

Your rules ARE random because they have lots of "or" attached and you already said you let 24 people break the "rules". You also say if you "don't really know them". Does that mean you've never met them? Only met them once? You've met them more than once, but you don't like them, so you exclulde them by saying you don't "really" know them? What if someone lives with their partner of a year, but you don't really know them? They don't get invited? Does the living together trump the not knowing them?

See how random it is? And, again, you've already broken your own rule 24 times. Have fun explaining that to the next 24 that you tell "no".

View Quoted Comment OG Gretchen is correct. We invited two single friends of hubby's; neither had a girlfriend nor was dating anyone, they each got a plus one. Why? I wanted them to comfortable, I did not care if either brought a girl they met two weeks before. That unknown girl could be their wife someday too.

So everyone should get a plus one? Never heard of that being done. I don't ever plan on getting married again so I'll never have to do this again.

View Quoted Comment A plus one is only for guests who are truly single at the time wedding invites go out. Plus ones are not required for good etiquette. People who are in a relationship for any length of time are a social unit who should be invited together and are not referred to as plus ones.

View Quoted Comment Yep, and if a guest was dating someone when i addressed invites, i sent it to "Jack Williams and Megan West" at Jack's address.

View Quoted Comment Oh no they are extremely random rules girl... you don’t get to dictate the seriousness of someone else’s relationship. You would invite the guest girlfriend of a month becuase it is the right thing to do. They are in a relationship, they are a social unit, they could get engaged next week after dating for a month & a week for all you know.

I gave every single person a plus one for this reason. I may not be sure of their situation, and since i.e. is a DW, people wouldn't come alone. A friend of mine tried to limit her guests to only those that were engaged or lived together. I had been dating FH for about 3 years at that point, but didn't live with him. She wasn't going to invite him but I told her I would appreciate it because I had to travel. She had never met him either. I wouldn't have come if he weren't invited.

Everyone doesn't get a "plus one", but people who are in a relationship get invited with their partner, even if you don't think they've been together long enough to count. Casual dating isn't a relationship, somoene who meets someone the week before your wedding doesn't need a plus one, people who aren't dating anyone don't need to be allowed to bring a random date. You just invite people who are in relationships. That's not a "plus one", it's their partner being invited.

Clearly a topic with a lot of um passionate responses I guess would be the PC term for all the rage in this thread. Just repeat after me. My venue has a fire code. Your guest will get my wedding canceled. If you don't wanna come without them I totally get it, we'll celebrate together another time.

I would call people immediately. On my details card I told people to contact me directly through text/call/ email with questions. So far I’ve had one person do that before she assumed. I was happy about it but still could not accommodate her wishes. She said she would still come so..... as the rest roll in I will personally call every one who have added people . I don’t want to spend more money.

It's a bold move to add a plus one when the invitation was addressed to a certain person, but even bolder to make an arbitrary determination on the seriousness of a relationship based on time together. Do you worry about what will happen to these friendships once you tell them that you made a determination about their relationship based on their time together?

View Quoted Comment Would you end a friendship over a wedding invitation? My determination had many factors besides time together.... finances played a huge part and cuts had to be made somewhere. So not inviting people I don't know or met once was where the cut was made. If a "friend" can't understand that they aren't a true friend.

I'm going to go the unpopular opinion apparently and say I completely understand and agree with what you did. Most of my friends have been with their partners for a while (I'm going to 9 weddings this summer!) so it meant only like 3 people were single and I'm giving them a plus 1. However, if I was in your situation I probably would have made some judgement call. I firmly think it is beyond stupid that if someone goes 'Oh hey! I have a girlfriend named Suzie!' the day before I send out invitations that I'm required to invite Suzie. That is not the rule despite what people on this site say. In fact from doing a 15 minute google search it constantly says invite 'Serious Relationships' despite the fact that the official Emily Post rule is still 'no ring, no invite'.

Some people go on about 'How could you even begin to determine if my relationship is serious or not?' and I would say, that if I can't tell if your relationship is serious or not, then you shouldn't be invited to my wedding in the first place. My FH and I started dating in late April a few years ago, that summer he was invited to 4 weddings and I was only invited with him to 2. (Of which I likely would have received my own invite to 1 of the 2) Now, according to people on this site we both should have been up in arms, offended, and he should have not gone to those weddings and considered ending those friendships. Instead I went 'Have fun! I'm going to have a girls night here with friends!' and he went to the wedding and I had a blast with my own friends. No ill feelings, we still see those people regularly and they are invited to our wedding. Our relationship turned serious that summer, but before that we were very much just hooking up and dating and trying to figure out if our relationship was more than just a bunch of great times in the bedroom. I do not feel like we missed out on a major life event as a couple because we didn't go to those two weddings together.

OP - just know who should and should not be invited to YOUR wedding and practice saying 'I'm sorry for the misunderstanding but we can only accommodate _______. If this means you cannot attend then we will miss you and can't wait to celebrate with you later!'