Plus ones ... help?!

We didn't give plus ones, but we did invite all significant others by name. So they aren't a "plus one", they are a guest. We didn't chose who's relationship was significant enough to deserve a plus one. All relationships got one. It upped our guest list but I would never have attended a wedding where my fiance wasn't invited, even if he was just my boyfriend at the time. If people are single, they don't need a plus one. But if they are in a relationship at all, they should get one.

View Quoted Comment Well yes of course we wouldn’t add an actual +1 on the invitation. They would surely be by name. Finances and boyfriends aren’t the question. I’m talking about people who aren’t in a relationship right now. I guess another question I have is if my wedding is next year and I’m supposed to secure a venue now... how did you guys plan for people who will might be in a relationship by then? The guest list is important RIGHT NOW because certain venues only hold so much. One that we’re looking at is more intimate and can’t be one person over 100. If I have to plan for potential boyfriends and girlfriends I need to start looking at bigger venues. I’m only newly engaged and this step is already so stressful!

Plus ones are for single guests, not people in relationships. Anyone in a relationship, whether you deem it “serious” or not, should be invited by name with their significant other. There’s nothing wrong with skipping plus ones for single guests.

We planned for the possibility that everyone could be in a relationship by the time of our wedding. This meant leaving some people off our list. Your wedding isn’t for a year and a half and people could get in a relationship and married before then. I would plan on people having a significant other when invites go out and if they don’t that saves you money.

The way you describe it “in and out of relationship every other week” it is absolutely ok not to give those friends or cousins +1. It also sounds like your cousins all know each other, so they won’t be alone at a wedding where they don’t know anybody.

Many people decide to only include significant other of couples who are in committed, longterm relationships. Some people do only engaged, married, or living together rule. Some people want to invite only people they know or have met, because they want an intimate wedding.
I see no issue with any of it. And I especially don’t think you should go over your budget & get yourself in financial trouble, to accommodate people you don’t know & who your friends are casually dating on short term basis 🤷🏻‍♀️

View Quoted Comment Actually our venue and date is not set. I picked a random date just because it asked us to haha. We’re thinking possibly April, but you’re right people will get in and out of relationships or even married before then. Because we don’t know our date yet would you recommend us saying “okay 100 guests is the limit” and then focus on who those guests are a few months before the wedding when invites go out ? Or should we be identifying those people now ?

View Quoted Comment That makes sense. And it totally depends! We made a rough guest list prior to booking our venue but we sent out save the dates and wanted ourselves locked into a guest list. If you find a venue and can only afford to host 100 there then it’s fine to decide who those 100 are closer to the date.

For our wedding, we had a rough idea of how many people we would be inviting.

I would only do save the dates for those solo cousins. However, I would hesitate to solidify the guest list this early assuming none of them will have a steady relationship by the time your wedding rolls around. 13 months and some change is a decent chunk of time for someone to go from "hi let me buy you a drink" to "I see my life with you."

I suggest following Kelly's advice earlier. Anticipate the most expensive, and be pleasantly surprised when the check drops instead of increasing.

I would look at other venue options even if you don't go with them. Trying to make your guest list fit now with more than a year to go and you've maxed out the venue and budget doesn't seem to be working well. It's only a suggestion.

View Quoted Comment

It's not unheard of to address an envelope "John Smith and Guest", that's why I said it. We didn't max out our venue count with our initial guest list. If people got into relationships (and a few did) we had room for the extra spots, especially because some people broke up and lowered our guest count.

I got engaged 12 months before my wedding date so my rule was if they were together when we got engaged, then they were invited. If you move to April of next year as your date I think you could use that rule too. Unfortunatly my rule will have to be broken for my FSIL bacuase he just now got this bf so I feel like I have to invite him cuz my invites haven't gone out yet but it's one person and only becuase she is a FSIL. I would not break the rule for other family and friends.