Plus one etiquette?

I would consider not inviting them entirely and explaining it is a small family only wedding. It is hard because when you are mostly friends with married people you immediately have to double your guest list.

I didnt get an invite to a wedding with my Fiance this summer (I had never met the couple so honestly it was understandable) but we gave about half as much as we usually do- so I dont necessarily think that it is a cardinal sin. But I know for our wedding if we can have both we are having neither.

Yes, it's very bad etiquette not to invite spouses and significant others, period.

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No, boyfriend/girlfriend is not single. Single means single, not in a relationship, do not have a significant other. You should not be using your best judgment on someone else's relationship - only they can judge their relationship. If they consider themselves in a relationship, they're a social unit and should always be invited together.

From what I've always been told if someone is married their spouse is always invited.

Okay, I had an Aunt (1st Cousin’s Mother) that has re-married, again. No one told me. Also, friend of Mom asked if she could bring her special friend.

All you have to do is alert someone that there’s a person that needs to be invited and the people throwing the event can check to see if there’s room for those additions.

If there’s no room, they can either not attend or come solo.

I didn’t invite several co-workers for various reasons, but it boiled down to having to invite their spouses and that was where I was like, “❌‼️“.

This is where all this "etiquette" gets confusing. I struggled with same issue to get our list down from +300. Generally you would invite the unit; but its up to you as it's your money & your day. Majority of folks understand the cost of a wedding & wont give you a hard time. We did not invite coworkers' spouses/SO. It may work out that you invite them & they cant attend anyway. If you cant swing it for both, invite one cause you really want them to be there & let them make the choice. I sort of feel if they wont come simply because a spouse cant come maybe it's good they do not. I invited a coworker but not her husband. Her words were "if I cant bring my husband, I totally understand cause weddings are so expensive, I'm just honored to get an invite." I told her I would let her know if we had room later. Shes been married for +25-30 years. Her daughter is getting married a month before me. It depends on your relationships. We also did not give our singles a +1.

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Interesting. I've heard so many different variations to the rule, Long term relationships vs relationships, amount of years, common law etc etc. Too complicated for me. My conclusion: Folks (who are paying for the wedding) can invite who they want and vice versa. Persons invited can then choose to attend or not based on the couples invitation process.

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I agree with all of this.

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I agree. You should always invite SOs.

We invited couples as long as we know the other party. That is to say that if Guest A gets into a relationship and wants to bring their stranger significant other to our wedding, it isn't happening. That was our line in the sand on plus 1's. We also did not invite plus 1's for my younger cousins. They'll sit with each other as they are all friends. If the lack of a plus 1 is an issue for any of them, I'd prefer to give their spot away as we are limited on available spots as it is (since we are trying to please everyone instead of doing what we actually want).

I should note that all married or long term couples are invited together.

View Quoted Comment Thank You! This helped a lot.

View Quoted Comment I appreciate this! There are so many wedding rules it's hard to know what's okay or not.

View Quoted Comment I really appreciate your reply. I was starting to feel bad cause I didn't know if I would offend people or what was okay or not. I've just seen a lot of these military guests not bring their significant others to weddings before because most of them have kids and we're doing a no kids wedding. We don't have many single guests so it makes it hard since our guest list with more than double with everyone's significant other.

View Quoted Comment I agree with this. I think it really depends on the relationship the guests have with the actual couple. If we are strictly coworkers, I likely don't know your husband.