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I recently attended a wedding where guests were only allowed to bring a guest if they were married or engaged to them. Guests who just had boyfriends or girlfriends (no matter how serious they were) were not permitted to bring them and had to attend the wedding alone. I knew the Groom, and heard through the grapevine that since the Bride wanted such an extravagant wedding, she decided that is where she would make her cuts.
Will you and your Groom be doing something similar, or will you allow every guest to bring a guest?
@BridalBlondie: I can't vote in your poll because none of the answers fit.
Here's what we are doing:
1) Married, engaged, or living together gets a +1
2) Bridal party & groomsmen get a +1
3) Couples not living together are invited ONLY if we would invite each individual separately if they were not dating.
We are allowing guests (not married/ engaged) only on the following basis:
1. We know and are also friends with the bf/ gf.
2. The couple lives together and pretty much functions as a married couple.
3. The person is travelling from far away/ overseas and would like to bring their current bf/ gf "home" with them.
We aren't allowing people to just bring random guests or have dates as a matter of course. That would be a nightmare in terms of numbers, and also we don't really want a bunch of people we don't know at all at our wedding.
We allowed every guest to bring a date. Those who were not in serious relationships declined the offer but thank us for giving the option.
We allowed every guest to bring a date. Those who were not in serious relationships declined the offer but thank us for giving the option.
One of my good friends from college was having her wedding in FL (when we lived in Boston), she asked me to not bring my BF at the time, because she was trying to trim the guest list adn the wedding was SO expensive. I thought I have to fly to FL, pay for a hotel fro 2 night, and get you a gift. I KNOW that your cost were a plate is less than what I'll have to pay to come to your wedding (she also had it during Spring break season so plane tickets were really high). I was really insulted and ended up not going to her wedding. With that in mind, now that I'm having my own, I build a guest list that everyone can bring a guest. If its too long with that then trim who you invite. I don't think its important that your guests have a good time (which will help if they can bring someone). Everyone can do what they want at their wedding, but its something that was important to me.
We allowed dates for married, engaged, or long-term/live-in relationships. No "flavor of the months" or people bringing friends as dates just to have a date.
We allowed everyone to bring a date. All of our unmarried guests brought their fiance, boyfriend, or girlfirend.
Everyone in a serious relationship or who were traveling from a long distance were allowed to bring a date.
We are allowing all guests to have a plus 1. Though I am limiting my MOH for her daughters who are teens on bringing dates. That is just more drama than it is worth right there.
We're extending a +1 to all of our guests. We have very few single guests (well most are not married, but in serious long term relationships), so we're not worried about the few "randoms" we might get.
If a majority of our friends were single, we might rethink this.
We allowed all of our guests to bring a guest!
Guest enjoyment was very important to us and we believe everyone is more comfortable with a guest and so we made our small guest list (60 invitees) with this in mind.
The bridal party got a +1, people flying in were given +1s and people in serious realtionships were given +1s (dating over a yr, engaged, living together)
In the beginning I wasn't going to give +1's to anyone not in a serious relationship, but as the planning went on and I saw just how many people were getting a +1 for a significant other I knew I gave up and just counted everyone as a couple. If every guest that is not in a serious relationship brings a date I'll have maybe 10 random people at the wedding. Totally not worth the chance of making a guest or two uncomfortable.
@Sassygrn: Whoa yea. Did I have to clarify that anyone under 18 is not allowed a guest?!
@busterbluth: "We allowed dates for married, engaged, or long-term/live-in relationships. No 'flavor of the months' or people bringing friends as dates just to have a date."
We are doing the same.
Most of our guests are out of town and partners who live together are invited (I don't think we know any married/engaged couples that don't live together).
As far as couples that aren't cohabitating, we're kind of taking it case by case with the idea being that established couples are cool to come, but single or the near-single don't get guests. If we know and like the partner, then they are invited (this is the case for most couples). If we don't know them, and we generally trust the person's taste in significant others, they're invited. If you have a habit of dating people who are not good for you (pretentious drama queens, gold diggers, people way younger with nothing in common with you), we have probably already let you know that your taste in significant others is lousy and you can't bring a guest until proven otherwise.
Personally, I kind of enjoy being rude, but as someone on here pointed out to me, inviting someone to my wedding is like personally vouching for them to all my other guests. So it's kind of bad etiquette to allow people to invite their revolving door significant others.
@KatNYC2011 - that sounds like our scenario. The majority of our guests are married. Those that are single will most likely not care to have a date. There are some who I have decided that it would nice to allow a +1 because they will not know many people.
This is a change from my strict policy I had in the beginning. I simply trimmed the guest list as a whole.
Guests who are single and know people at the wedding family and group friends will not get a date.
Guests who will not know anyone at the wedding will be permitted a date.
Serious couples only get their SO's invited.
That whole mentality of only allowing guests for those who are married or engaged really pisses me off. I was invited to a co-worker/friends wedding 2 years ago but my (now) FI was not. Other people in our department who were married were invited with a +1. I had been dating my FI for like 3 years longer than the bride had been with her husband (actually longer than any of the married couples too) but because we weren’t engaged, he wasn’t invited. I personally think that if your guests have been in their relationships longer than you and your husband, there should be an exception. FI wouldn’t have gone anyway (he can’t stand this girl) but it was the principal of the matter.
Any guest who is in a “serious” relationship will be invited with a +1. By serious, I mean dating for more than a few months by the time our wedding rolls around. My mother told my male cousin who is 22 that he will have to find a date for our wedding. After she said this, I shot her the death stare and then informed her that we’re not inviting just anyone. If he’s in a relationship then sure, but I’m not going to pay for him to bring some chick that he met at the bar the weekend before. If the single guests wouldn’t know anyone else at our wedding then I would extend a +1 but any singles that we have are cousins who will know like dozens of other people.
@UpstateCait: I totally agree. I didn't go to a wedding last summer of a long time friend because of this. The wedding was a few hours away and I absolutely would have gone, but boyfriends weren't invited. I wasn't going to drive all that way alone, just because I wasn't engaged. So rude.
Um...if you're in a relationship you can bring your date. Otherwise, no +1.
Guests who are married, engaged, or a long-term serious boy/girlfriend. I think it's easy for us because just about every couple we know both people. But not everyone has a bf/gf so thatshould be interesting.
We are mostly doing couples (if we know them), but for example co-workers and friends (long distance), if I don't know or have never seen their husbands, fiancee's they are not getting an invite.
Let me slightly change what I'm saying if its just a flavor of the months person I also don't want them to bring that person especially if they have friends and all know each other.
For us we are letting people bring guests if they are married, engaged or dating. We didn't let people bring guests if they are not in a known relationship. It was to cut costs but, also beacause we don't want a bunch of random people we don't know at our wedding. Especially because my man has allot of male friends who always have new "girlfriends" for a day, or week or month. We don't want any drama.
It is all dependent on who it is. I know that sounds bad...but here are a few examples.
1) There's a girl I used to work with at a restaurant, and we are still close. She is in an on-again-off-again relationship, but they've been together for years. I am inviting her best friend who also used to work with me, so I'm not inviting the first girl's boyfriend. The two girls will be each other's date.
2) A family friend's son who I grew up with is invited, but he isn't in a relationship. So no guest for him. Plus his parents will be there.
3) A friend of ours who has only been in a relationship with his girlfriend for 6 months, is allowed to bring her. This is because they live together, and I really enjoy his girlfriend's company.
Our guest list is like that, unless the couple is engaged or married. Then obviously both people in the couple is invited.
@UpstateCait: When I attended this wedding, my fiance was still my boyfriend. Because of this, I was not allowed to bring him. (Even though we were serious and living together.) I went to the wedding because it was a family member, but I felt so uncomfortable the whole time. I didn't dance at all because it just felt strange without him there. To make matters worse, I found out that some people were given special privileges and allowed to bring their boyfriends and girlfriends. I just wish they would have been consistent with all guests, because it really hurt the feelings of those who were not allowed to bring their SO just because they weren't married.
Any guest who is in a serious relationship that we know about/ engaged/ cohabitating had his or her invitation addressed with her/her partner's name on the envelope as well. A friend of mine aked that I not put her boyfriend's name on the envelope for she is in a messy divorce; we planned for her to put his name on the response card, which she did.
Another girlfriend of mine never told me she was dating somebody; I learned about it while listening to her do a radio interview (she's an author.) The invitation was already addressed to her only, and I did not feel obligated to tell her to bring her boyfriend if she could not tell me on her own.
We are going for a small, intimate wedding, and I am not interested in my guests having their own guests or inviting people that I might not ever meet again. We have a pretty friendly group of people coming, and the few single people already know some of the other guests.
We're only giving +1s to married, engaged, or serious relationship/living together. Since the entire guest list consists of about 60 people, there's no way we can give everyone a +1.
I don't think it's rude when the couple have specifications for who can come to the wedding as far as dates go. It's their wedding.
My parents are paying for my wedding and we have a very limited budget. We seriously cannot afford for extra people to come that we didn't specifically invite. We're not trying to be rude or anything...my parents just can't afford the extra people. And this may sound rude, but to be honest...I don't want just some random girlfriend of someone at my wedding. It's a very small wedding with a limited guest list because of costs.
Our best man wants to bring his girlfriend that he's about to marry because they're "serious" (they aren't engaged yet though because she's not finished with her divorce from the marriage she's in) I didn't want her there because she doesn't know anybody. She's moving here like a week before our wedding. She will be completely bored and by herself because our best man is going to be sitting at our table with us, taking pictures with us, and obviously not sitting with her during the ceremony. So I don't see why she has to be there. All those things aside, I've met her twice and she's extremely rude, B!tchy, stuck up, and dresses completely innapropriately. Why should my parents pay for her to be there when my man and I can't stand her? I see no reason why we should have to.
Everyone's situation is different though. Our reasons for not wanting the extra people there is our extremely tight budget. Some pepole have room for them in their budget and that's perfectly fine too. I certainly wouldn't mind the bunch of extra people there allowing guests to bring their kids, dates, etc, but we just can't afford it. Plain and simple.
We're giving +1's to our guests who are in exclusive relationships, regarless of how long they've been together. We're not giving +1's to single guests who would bring a casual "date" or friend, just to have someone to bring. Luckily, there's only a few singles who aren't getting +1's, and they all know lots of other guests, so I'm not worried about them feeling lonely.
Here was our criteria for dates:
1. Bridal party
2. Married/engaged
3. Don't know anyone else at the wedding
This means my coworkers and rando boyfriends/girlfriends of relatives will not be getting +1s!
We're doing +1's for people who are in relationships or won't know a lot of other people at the wedding (I'm still good friends with my ex so I'm inviting him, and encouraging him to bring a date because, let's face it, he needs all the encouragement he can get. I'm pretty sure he hasn't been on a date since we broke up five years ago)
I don't think it's necessary to give certain singles a +1, like FI's 18 year-old cousin who definitely isn't dating. I don't think they'll be insulted if they have no one they would bring anyway.
I've been reading this; what occurs to me is I'm old! LOL... most friends are married, and if single I wouldn't even think they'd bring anyone they weren't serious about, so FI and I didn't stress that part at all. I can understand though that if I were younger and friends were dating more actively it would be an issue as far as the guest list goes.
Were trying to be conservative with our +1s,so basically anyone who is married or in a serious relationship we both know them anyway so no need for a plus one. Ive given my bridal party plus ones,but also a handful of people that I want to be there but who will not really know anybody. I dont want to see anybody sitting on their own and looking awkward! Ive got a feeling were a little over our original limit or guests but I darent re-write the list out and face facts lol!
We decided this on an individual basis, but most people who were in a serious relationship could bring a date. Otherwise we just sent a single invite.
My FI and I come from a huge family...we are trying to make a potential 500 person guest list to 320. This means not anyone can bring a plus one, and actually my friends are really understanding about it... I literally cannot accomodate plus ones that I haven't even met when I am turning away family members.
It's complicated!
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