Private Party 🤫

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I can understand this perspective.

Obviously, it's your party, you can invite who you want, however, you want your guests to enjoy themselves at the party as well. We are having a small wedding and our guest list took us a while to compile because we had to keep it to a certain number. My FH has 2 friends who will be his groomsmen, I have been around them a lot over the last 7 years (they have been friends with FH for almost 20 years) and they stay at our house when in town, one of them, I met his long time girlfriend once and the other, I have met his wife once or maybe twice but I always end up going out with the guys because they include me and we don't have kids so I am usually able to go. We are inviting the spouse & girlfriend. My FH doesn't know them well either but we can't not invite them. It should be their choice whether they want to attend or not. We also gave one other friend who doesn't know anyone but us a plus one even though he doesn't have a long time girlfriend because we are asking him to travel 400 miles and we want him to feel comfortable. That being said, would I attend a wedding that my FH wasn't invited to as well? It would depend if he knows them or not and if I know other people. Perhaps if it was someone from work and everyone else from the office was invited without their spouse or SO, then I might go as they haven't met my FH but if they know him then I would probably be unhappy.

View Quoted Comment You have very valid points. Being at a wedding alone could really suck, especially if you are not a social butterfly. I've never attended a wedding alone but I would make that sacrafice for my best friend.

It would depend on a few things. How close I was to this person, how far away it way, who I'd be sitting with. If it was a close friend and I knew the people I'd be sitting with (or at least know other people who were there) I would probably go. I'd want to be there for my friend. If it was long distance and I didn't know anyone, I wouldn't go. That would mess with my anxiety too much

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You make a great point, all of those factors would determine my decision as well.

This is a bizarre question to me, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

Do people actually send invitations to couple/family households that only invite one person?

If I'm inviting my blood relative uncle, is my aunt (by marriage) considered a 'plus one' in this scenario?

If not, I don't see why a married friend is any different; they're a social unit.

We're offering plus ones to single guests. Everyone else is being invited as a couple/family.

If for some strange reason my friend invited me to a wedding and not my FH, we'd have to have a serious chat about why.

View Quoted Comment This is a hypothetical situation where a bride and groom are choosing to only invite individuals instead of couples. One explanation for this decision may be due to their budget.

I totally get that hypothetical discussions are your thing and that maybe it's entertaining to push people to think about their knee-jerk reactions to different scenarios, but I don't know how realistic this one is. Not allowing plus ones for single guests is one thing (and still something I wouldn't personally do)--this is much different.

Obviously, it's the couple's wedding and they can do as they please, and every friend group and wedding crowd is different. There are a lot of nuances that go into selecting a guest list, and everyone makes cuts. But I'm just picturing a wedding with a bunch of married people without their SOs celebrating the marriage of someone else and it just seems... sad?

Budget is important, but so are relationships. There are plenty of ways to do an affordable wedding without splitting up social units. I don't think either friend in the scenario should have to "sacrifice" to that extent, and I don't think a best friend would ask another to do that.

Almost everyone we're inviting is married or in an established relationship, and while we're not super close with every single one of the SOs accompanying the primary guests, it's not like they're strangers. Even if they were, they're welcome. They've been on the working guest list from the get-go, and if we have to scale some things down to accommodate this group of people, that's fine.

When it comes to my best friends, they're also friends with my FH through me and we do double dates all of the time. One of my bridesmaids is getting married next summer, and I'll be in her wedding as well. If she legitimately came to me and said my FH wasn't invited because of budget, my FH would be extremely hurt and so would I. If you're cutting people that close to your circle because of budget, I think that's a sign to scale back and think about your priorities.