Who gets a plus one?

I don't know if this helps or not, but we decided that all members of the wedding party got a plus one and all people who are living with a SO has their SO invited. I realize a lot of people are going to disagree with this, but we just could not accomodate everyone having a plus one. My biggest advice to you, with this or any other decision such as not inviting/inviting children is to set your parameters AND STICK TO THEM! I wouldn't say there is a right or wrong way to set your parameters, but the second you start making exceptions for people you are effectively making judgments on who's relationship "is serious" and who's "isn't serious" ... that is NOT a path you want to go down because it is just going to stress you out and risk offending people.

I was invited to a wedding when my now FH and I were together for 10 months and he didn't get invited. I can say that he was really hurt by it, and took it as my friends not liking him. That wasn't the case at all, they just had a "rule" only couples together a certain amount of time were invited. It is your wedding, but to anyone making these rules, know that you will hurt someone that you care about. The majority of my friends are married or living with their SO. I did have one situation with a friend who just started dating someone when I get engaged. I just checked in with her when I was sending out invites to see if she was still with him and if she wanted to bring him. She ended up setting up a double date so we could meet him, so he wasn't a stranger at our wedding. Even if I hadn't met him, I still would have invited him, because now they've been together 10 months. I would just say to anyone who doesn't want random people in their wedding pictures, you can always make time to meet your guest's SO. Though I would just say if you are having a big wedding, it's unlikely that they will make it into a lot of your photos unless you are having a small wedding. Most wedding photos I've seen have a few pictures of people dancing, but typically don't do a lot of posed pictures of all the guests.

Thank you Kate!

We gave plus ones to all single guests. If a guest was in a shorter relationship I have asked them how they are most comfortable having the invitation addressed. I have one guest who was in a relationship when I sent STD then broke up and is now in a different relationship and she’s unsure how she wants her invitation addressed but I will follow her direction. My philosophy is that I’d rather people come with a guest than not come at all.

You are entitled to your opinion, but we truly feel we are not "B" listing anyone. In fact, we would have loved to find a venue for 400, but they simply do not exist where we live. Only 3 take up to our number in fact. We had our hands tied with that. We invited all of our family and as many friends as we could. We only had about 9 people that this applied to on both sides, and they completely understood because they didn't make it about their feelings. They were putting our needs first. They understood that we could not go over max capacity. I can speak from personal experience from this. I had 2 weddings in the past 2 years that the person came to me and even apologized because they had a very small wedding venue, and although they would have loved to have invited our family, they simply could not. I very graciously told them they did not have to apologize - I meant it. Would I have loved to go? Of course! Did I even go to one's bridal shower and not to her wedding because of lack of room? Yes I did - happily. I understood that due to financial situations and circumstances, they simply could not afford larger venues - and that's ok! My husband and I teach a Financial Peace class and have seen so much success with people getting out of debt - and not going into further debt which destroys their families and lives (even for a wedding). I would rather have compassion towards these friends and understand that It was not about me, it is about hard decisions they had to make that was best for them. I never felt B listed. In fact, it meant a lot to me that they both came to me personally to let me know. This last summer my family was also invited to another friend's wedding where there were other friends they could not invite due to lack of room. After it was all over, there were even family they invited that sent RSVPs but didn't show up. My friend, the mother-of-the-bride was sad because she knew of other friends she "could have" invited and would have invited had the family told her they could not come after all. I took compassion on her because it was such a hard decision - and now I know what she was going through myself. My friends, it's all about perception and where your heart is at. We are blessed to have family and friends that treat us with this same compassion and understanding I guess. I would hope we could all see things through different eyes at times, instead of only considering ourselves - the world would be better for it. Thank you for sharing your opinion with me and allowing me to share mine - I appreciate your perspective.

Invite who you can afford to. For those who can afford to invite everyone's SO Great. Personally, I'm not cutting anyone I want at my wedding so you can bring your SO you met last month. PLEASE. If I were in a new relationship, I wouldn't expect someone to shell out $100-$200 for someone I just met. That's a bit much. And I moved in with my FH after a month.

I’m with you on this one. I have already told my family that any siblings, cousins etc that are not in a relationship over a year except the invite to only be listed to just them. I’m not having all the casual gf/bfs invited

View Quoted Comment That’s what I’ve been trying to say from the start! I honestly didn’t know, didn’t expect everyone to get so worked up! It’s impossible to make everyone happy when planning a wedding. I’m focusing on what will make me and my fiancé most happy. Thanks for the advice

View Quoted Comment Thank you for this I appreciate it!! Good luck with your planning fellow 2019 bride

I don’t need validation from anyone. I asked what the proper etiquette behind something was because I am new to wedding planning and didn’t know. Me asking about proper etiquette does not equate to me leaving the fate of who is invited to MY WEDDING in the hands of a bunch of random strangers. I get some people might consider it rude, some people don’t. Difference in opinion is fine, I am entitled to mine as much as you are to yours. I don’t need everyone to agree with me but my opinion should be respected regardless.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! If I have to pick between inviting a close friend and my cousins 3rd girlfriend in a year I’m gunna go with my friend for obvious reasons!

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I believe that posters are calling the ideas of B-lists, inviting people after dinner, omitting SO's from the guest list rude. That is not name calling. Name calling would be something like "you are a rude person". I know it seems like semantics, but it's not.

You can "judge" others relationship if you want, whether they have been togetger long or not. You have that right. You invite who you want to, regardless of whether it be you or your family paying. I have a 28 yr old cousin I'm inviting that has been in a relationship with someone for almost two yrs, but he still lives with his parents. Im not inviting his girlfriend for this reason, plus I've never met the girl so no invite. And nobody is going to make me feel bad about it either.

I’m also curious about the same thing. Things can get out of hand cost wise if literally everyone has a plus one. My FI and I are paying for our own wedding so we have to be strict. The way I’m going to do it is whoever has a SO at the time of me sending out my invitations, their SO will be invited. If guests who I know are single and are single at the time of invitations, they won’t. I don’t really want people I don’t know at my wedding and this way it helps control the number of guests. I don’t want to cut out the people that actually mean something to me, that I actually know because of plus ones. I hope this helps!

I’m only inviting people who are engaged and married. The only kids who are invited to my wedding are the kids in the bridal party. There is only so much space and money that I can afford to keep the number of invites. I really wish that I could invite people with their boyfriends and girlfriends, but it is too difficult. I just hope people understand.

I'm only sending +1 to people who are either married, engaged, or been a relationship for more than a year. Weddings are too pricey to invite someone I don't know that has been with a friend for 6 months. Maybe I'm cut throat...but that's how I see it.

I followed the rule of only including a plus one if they had been dating for a year or were engaged or married. Expect people to add additional guests even if you did not include them, though. We are currently a little over a month from our day. Our RSVPs have been rolling in. We’ve had three people so far add a plus one that we did not account for, and we had two family friends that we invitied that are bringing THREE additional guests to the wedding. According to my mother, it’s rude to tell people that they can’t bring someone if they’ve already RSVP’d for those additional people (even if it was only addressed to just that person)!

Usually plus one is for every invitation you send out. So usually everyone gets a plus one in less its a child or you say something. If the invitation is for two people make sure you write that the invitation is only seating for two people. I had a friend that had a wedding and sent out a invitation. When she got the RSVP back it was saying 8 people is coming. She had to make an awkward call saying that the invitation is only good for two people. But ultimately it is up to you.

View Quoted Comment This is the thing I struggled with most with planning. What I decided on is to invite family or older guests with their plus ones. I’m 23 so a lot of my friends are still in the dating around phase. Which is totally fine, but I can’t afford to pay for them all to come and at the end of the day it is MY wedding. I’m inviting childhood friends that I haven’t seen in a few years and they find it completely normal to not have a plus one on the invite. If you need to cut the numbers down to be within budget I would rather cut out plus ones that I’ve never met than people who are more important in my life, family, friends etc.

We are being very pragmatic over this issue: if both me and my fiancée know the significant other, he/she is invited.
In our case, we are having a more intimate event and we want the people "closest" to us present. If we do not know the person/SO then it is not close and therefore not invited.