Weddingbee boards

Hi bees, 

i'm hoping you can help me out in your infinite wisdom! FH and I met in college after being introduced by a good friend of mine (she was the first person I met on my pre-frosh weekend trip to campus etc) - let's call her L.

L and i have been friends since undergrad but obviously after we left school and started our "real" lives we've grown apart a bit. i try like heck to keep her in my life but can usally only pull off a dinner every 2-3 months or something like that. as an aside, it usually takes a lot of rescheduling as she's a GIANTTTTTTTflake, but i make it work. she's a great girl and a great friend, minus the absentee/flakiness. 

anyways, she started dating this guy she met online a few years ago. i've only met him once at a big alumni holiday party. we couldn't have said more than 50 words to each other over a span of maybe 30 minutes. that was it.

since they've been dating he's "cheated" on her (kept his match.com account open and arranged a date with another girl), and she went on a date and kissed another guy while they were on a "ross/rachel break" last year. my point is, from what i know of their relationship it's not been all sunshine and puppies (who's is tho, right?) but he's done some pretty WTF things. they don't live together and, even tho she announced to me last january - as a reason not to partcipate in a fitness challange with all our friends - that she was about to get engaged, she doesn't have a ring on it yet. 

here's the question (Finally!): we are having a small wedding. 100 people. even though we are both Dominican from giant families. we have set our +1 rule to married, engaged or living together. since they are not yet engaged nor living together I know i can technically get away with not inviting him bc of the cutoff we have set. I know she'll be suuuuuper hurt though but I have etiquette/technicalities on my side. BUT, what if he proposes to her before my wedding (they are going to Italy next month and she's sure it will happen then. she was sure it was going to happen last january too tho so who knows...)??

I really don't want to invite him bc I don't know him, and what little bit I kno I don't really like. it kills me not to be able to invite a friend or relative I REALLY want there becaue of this guy. but i want her there. so what do i do????

if you were L, would you miss my wedding bc i didnt invite your bf/prospective FI? 

I understand your dilemma!

Since your hard and fast rule is, "+1 rule to married, engaged or living together," you can just profusely apologize and let her know that since he doesn't fit into those categories, you only have space for her, NO exceptions. If you start making exceptions, this guest list thing can become a BEAST very quickly!

Now, IF they get engaged before your wedding, I think you should TRY to squeeze him in (B list). But depending on when they get engaged, you might be able to say "I'm sorry but I only budgeted for x number of people so I have no more room."

She might be disappointed that he's not invited, but seeing that you and your FI met through her, and you consider her a good friend, I would hope that she gets over it.

I have the same rule - engaged or married couples only - and fortunately, have not heard any complaints (yet).

the last time we went out to lunch (almost 4 months ago) she was telling me about a wedding they had gone to the previous month and she said something like "he gave the couple $300 as a gift even though I'd gotten something off the registry so you're lucky!". obvi, i haven't discussed with her the dilemma I'm having about not inviting him and apparently she assumes he will absolutely be going with her.

i know she was a little disappointed that she wasn't asked to be a bridesmaid so i just feel like i'm disappointing her a second time. 

she WILL know about half the people at the wedding though since most of them are our college friends so I know she'd be perfectly capable of coming alone and having a great time, but I'm just petrefied she wouldnt come to prove a point or something. not to mention that our wedding is on a friday and an hour out of the city so it'd be really easy for her to see her bf not being invited as an acceptable reason not to go (cause then she'd have to make ride alone etc). 

putting him on the B list is a great idea delicious but realistically, he'd be pretty far down even on the B list. 

uggggh, this is literally keeping me up at night!!