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I'm posting this on behalf of a bewildered (and insulted)friend of mine, since I wasn't really sure if this is a cut-and-dry answer.
My friend has been specifically told by the groom that the invitation does NOT include a guest and that she's invited to attend only by herself since the wedding guest list has "been a big problem" and costly to their budget.
Naturally, as a single woman, she was quite insulted and thus decided to to attend at all.
Is this part of the new etiquette? not to include a plus one because of budget costs despite hurting your friends' feelings?
Thanks everyone!
The bride and groom can only afford to invite a certain number of people, so it's not new etiquette, it is just the unfortunate truth.
If the bride invites only 30 people + guests and the groom invites 30 + guests you are already at 120 people, nothing to sneeze at for what would seem to be a small wedding at first.
I am sure it wasn't one to hurt your friend's feelings. The bride and groom would probably invite everyone who wanted to be invited, if they could.
Personally, I've been to weddings where I was not provided a guest and I didn't mind at all. I knew everyone (or most) who would be there, many of my other singles gals were there and a date would have been a hinderance. That particular couple's logic was - why should we pay for a meal for someone we don't know, and most likely will never see again...
That being said. It's now my turn to plan a wedding. We TOO are NOT giving PLUS one's. We will however give them to anybody who we feel may need that to fall back on b/c they may not have a good time without one (not know anybody at wedding or etc), but our logic is this - we don't want anyone to bring a guest for the sake of just trying to bring someone. All of our friends with significant others will be allowed their plus 1. Anybody invited will be allowed to bring someone who is important to them - but if they are capable of having a good time without, and aren't in a serious relationship, they will not get a plus one.
We hope that no one gets offended, but once you get into the budget/planning shoes of a bride/groom - the figures all start to add up and you realize, in order to get the people you want to be there, you have to sacrifice a little "etiquette" (for some who get offended) to do so.
When I was unattached, I never brought a date to weddings. It just didn't feel right to me-- the bride and groom wouldn't have known whoever it was I decided to bring, and the date probably wouldn't have had much fun anyway. Now, if someone in a serious relationship/married was told to come solo, that would be different.
Weddings do cost a lot of $$, and they may not have extra room in the budget for random people-- especially if they've already had to make serious cuts in the guest list.
This is a really hard issue. We are paying for the wedding ourselves and at first we thought that we'd not invite +guests at all due to the budget.
This may seem harsh.. but if your the friend that you're posting for is so insulted that she won't go to the wedding at all, it seems like she's very unsympathetic to the fact that the bride and groom's budget is limited.
I think that weddings cost a lot more than people really think. If you've never planned one or not planned one recently, you just don't know. We are having a medium sized wedding, I have a large family, our wedding is under the national average for cost and it's STILL costing us over $100 per person. We have decided to let people bring guests but I kind of hope that no one brings some friend just because they don't want to go alone or something.
I've had to make some decisions based on budget--I have a B list for example. I feel like my friends will understand that it isn't that I don't want them at the wedding... it's purely financial and I hope that they'll understand. :( The B list is actually letting me get to my goal # of guests.
It's tough but please tell your friend to try be sympathetic. Obviously the bride and groom want her there to be a part of their wedding. It could be a limitation of their budget or venue... :/
Only significant others are allowed at ours, and nobody has voiced any concern or disappointment. Boyfriends & girlfriends are not allowed--needs to be a fiancee or a partner. End of story. We have 3 reasons: 1. we don't want random people at our wedding; 2. budget; 3. we don't want people to be introducing random dates and/or feel obligated to babysit a date.
Most importantly, we want our wedding to be as intimate as a 150+ wedding can be, and to achieve that we imposed a strict rule: every guest has to be personally connected to either the bride or groom.
Allowing guests to bring dates is not necessary in terms of etiquette. The only "dates" that etiquette demands are spouses, and the partners of people who cohabitate. However, it is not polite to specifically point out to people that they are not allowed to bring a date. You are only supposed to put the invited person's name on the invitation and hope they understand they can't invite people on their own.
Whew! Been reading my Emily Post. And no, my single guests will not get to invite dates (people they don't live with and have been dating less than a year). Otherwise we won't be able to invite all those we do know and want to be there to celebrate with us.
Weddings are expensive, and while this may come off as rude, it is in fact totally up to the bride and groom to make the decision. We have several people at our wedding who were not invited with a guest, we felt significant others (seriously dating/engaged even) we're allowed to attened with a guest.
I doubt they don't have faith in her choice of dates, but weddings are costly and while I would have been horribly upset to be on the recieving end of a non-guest invite before planning my wedding - I now totally understand why it happens.
Tell her to not take it personally, and that she should feel great that they want her there as it seems to be a rather intiamte reception and she's obviously special to them.
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We're also not allowing +1s unless we personally know them or they've made it known that they're "serious" (we didn't want to get into the business of judging "serious"). That meant that we did invite our friend's gf, but it also meant that we didn't invite our other friend's baby mama. It's nice if you can do +1s, but it's very common now not to, especially if the guest will know a number of people at the wedding.
I'm basically on the same place with everyone who replied. We invite significant others and fiance only. That's hard enough for us. No boyfriend/girlfriend, unless we know them. We put "and guests" for singles whom we thought are more conservative, but probably just a couple of them.
From our point of view, it really is the budget issues. We don't mean to be rude at all, but we really hope that the people that we invite are being understanding enough (which we believe so) that all of this comes from our own pocket and we are certainly not a millionaire at this point. :)
I'm engaged but it's a long distance relationship so I guess I'm used to going to weddings as a solo (even though the invitation comes with "and guest"). It's a bit hard for me at first, but it's not that hard, really! What I usually do is just making sure that I know at least a couple or a few people so I can at least sit with someone I know. Besides, i personally think it's not really as much fun to have to babysit your date in your friend's wedding. Just my opinion.
I'll echo what everyone here has said already. Its hard to imagine, but your friends plus one could cost her friend and his fiance upwards of $200 depending on what kind of wedding they are having. My guess is your friend feels like she is being singled out and being "punished" because she isnt in a relationship. I say that because, before I knew how much weddings cost, I felt the same way once or twice 
But that isnt the case at all, its really just about the cost and, even more importantly, being surrounded by as many loved ones as possible - even if it means forgoing a few plus ones.
It isn't the "new etiquette" at all. Per Emily Post and Miss manners, only people who are married, or living together/engaged must be allowed to bring dates. Otherwise, if they can swing it they can, and if they can't, they aren't doing anything wrong. Your friend is out of line to be so insulted by this.
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Your friend must not be very close with the bride and the groom if she's not going because she can't bring a friend. Like everyone else, we're not inviting an "and guest" unless they're serious because we don't have the space or the money.
I have a friend who dropped out of a wedding party because he wasn't allowed to bring his girlfriend. It's a long story, but basically, the couple planning the wedding told their single (at the time) groomsmen a year before the wedding that they wouldn't be allowed to bring dates. Nine months from the wedding, one groomsman got a girlfriend. Two months before the wedding, he got an invite, sans guest. (The couple had a "only engaged or living together" rule for guests.) He, and his girlfriend, were livid, and he fought with the couple about bringing his girlfriend to the wedding, to the rehearsal dinner, and they finally dropped him from the wedding party.
Many people say that it is rude to not allow your groomsmen to bring a guest, especially not a fairly serious girlfriend. But when I spoke to the couple in question, the bride said, "I had friends of my own I wasn't able to invite because of the money. I wasn't going to sacrifice MY friends so that he could bring his girlfriend."
I have a number of friends getting married next summer, and the ones that are not particularly close to my boyfriend (who I live with and have been with for four years and am basically engaged to) I've already told that they shouldn't feel the need to invite him as well. I know how much dinner will cost them, and I'm going to have just as much fun without him, hanging out with my friends.
I think its fine to invite somebody without a guest as long as they will know at least one other person at a wedding. Otherwise, they should be allowed to bring someone.
OMG do weddings cost a LOT! Agreed with all previous posters...and being a budget bride, we're only allowing our married/engaged/long-term relationship (at least 1 year together & we both must know the boyfriend/girlfriend) friends bring a guest. No strangers at this wedding...why would anyone want to pay for a stranger?
Anyways..if your friend was truly your friend, he/she would go to your wedding no matter what...dateless and all. I went stag to a wedding even though I had been with my guy for 6 years; I understood her situation.
I agree with others. This is not new etiquette.
I too, in the past would feel slighted if I was invited to
a wedding (and not a guest).
But now that I am planning our wedding I totally understand and
had to cut out the "& guests". It wasn't to be mean or even b/c
we didn't want to, but it was a space problem. There were only a
certain amount of seats and we had to cut back A LOT.
And like someone already said, it's hard to leave another guest
(possibly family) out just so that another friend can bring a "guest"
(who quite possibly never even met the couple getting married!)
So the person who was invited alone, should not be uspet about
not having a choice to bring someone....but should be thinking
how honored they are to be invited at all!
Even before I started planning my wedding, I totally didn't get the random wedding date thing. I mean really, doesn't it raise too many questions? If you've been dating long enough to wonder where your relationship is going, it's a lot of pressure. If you're the date who doesn't know anyone, how much fun are you going to have watching these people you don't even know exchange vows, and meeting all their elderly aunts and uncles?
That said, have both venue size and budget limitations - for a total capacity of about 150. Since I have a pretty large family, and we have a lot of married friends, we had to exercise some judgement with the single folks. We called each of them to ask if there was someone special whose name we should include on the invitation (our nice way of saying if you automatically know who you would bring, they are invited - if not, you are invited alone). Three of them had answers right away, and so we did include their SOs (none of whom we have met, but all of whom we had heard about previously, so we knew they were dating).
One other single guy asked if he could bring his daughter, whom we also know fairly well, so we said yes. Two additional single people RSVP'd with dates that we don't know - however, since they are travelling from St. Croix and South Carolina (to our wedding in Washington State) we're going to give them the plus-ones - after all, lots of people don't like to travel alone. Three local singles (actually friends of FI's daughter, not our friends per se) asked to bring dates, and were told that we couldn't accomodate that. As far as I can tell, they have no problem going as a group of girls to dinner or the movies, so I can't see how they can't have fun as a group of girls at our wedding. And we do have a number of single guys their age invited, so there shouldn't be any shortage of people to hang out or dance with.
I feel like we have been really reasonable - but first of all, we really don't want people we don't even know at our wedding. Secondly, at about $70 per guest, we don't feel bad about not wanting to feed and entertain people who don't even know us. And at the end of the day, anyone who decides they would rather stay home, or maybe catch dinner and a movie with their SO at their own expense, didn't really want share the day with us all that badly - so it's no great loss. We did try to be very polite to everybody, regardless of the answer we gave them.
I should also say, since we are keeping things pretty small in the first place, there is actually nobody invited who won't know at least a dozen people there - so the argument that somebody who comes without a date will feel lonely and out of place really doesn't wash with us.
sadly, this happens. We allowed boyfriends/girlfriends, but only if it had been a while, no one could bring someone they had gone on a few dates with. But if she is single, I don't get what the big deal is. You really aren't supposed to bring a random person with you to someone's wedding. I definitely don't think the "only if you're living together" thing is fair. some people are long distance, but can be in a relationship for years, some could want to wait until marriage, etc...I also don't like when I was dating my husband and some family had met him, but he wasn't invited. Just because we weren't engaged yet doesn't mean we weren't going to be someday, you know? I understand budget issues. I do however think each case is different and should be considered before saying absolutely yes or no to dates.
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After reading all these posts, I'm glad I wasn't complete alone AND realize i can actually be a little more stringent too. I love the "no ring no bring" and am thinking Maybe we should implement the "no ring, no bring" or the "one house or (future) spouse" rule to include co -habitants - for the plus one rule...
most weddings i have been to have had some restrictions, such as only allowing spouses and fiances, or only allowing out-of-town guests to bring a plus one and not the local guests (unless both are friends with the couple). even though to some weddings, i felt a little weird going alone, it's always still so much fun because the point of going is to be there to witness and celebrate the couple, not to go on my own mini vacation. i just don't feel right about asking a couple to spend over $100 on someone they might not even know!
occasionally at the last minute, if someone drops out, i've seen people open that up to someone who has a plus one that is local, but usually i think guests will respect the wishes and generosity of the bride and groom.
Ya gotta invite the partners of those who live together. After all, what may be keeping them from getting married is the cost and mess of planning a wedding... I've been avoiding this for years!
Personally I have been the subject of "no ring, no bring" and I thought it was awful. I felt insulted as I had been dating someone for two years and it made me feel like my relationship was not signficant.
It made me decide that when I got married, I would only invite people if I had room for their bfs/gfs. If I hadn't met them, then this was a great opportunity to meet them for the first time. I didn't allow everyone a +1, but I also didn't try to judge the seriousness of a relationship. I feel pretty much everyone displayed good judgement in telling us if they had someone they would like to bring or not. (the only exception we had a cousin who couldn't show up, so his sister brought a friend in his place!!)
If your friend is not travelling for the wedding and not dating anyone seriously, there is NO reason to be offended.
this has been one of the toughest bits about our guest list, but we're sticking to our guns, making allowances where we can. our wedding will only have 55 guests, so it's tight - we're not inviting many of our local peeps, as we have a lot of family. we've actually had the most trouble with people we don't know as well.
with such a limited list, we made strict invite rules, including both of us having to know or have met each of the guests. one of the exceptions was FI's friend from just after college who has been living in another far away country. she was invited, but then made it known that she wouldn't attend unless her SO was invited, whom neither of us know. it was a really tough decision. they're planning on flying over together to attend our wedding plus another one in a neighboring state as well as visit friends/family. we struggled quite a bit, but ultimately decided that bumping someone we both know for this person's SO wasn't ok. instead, we offered to set up some time when they were in town to catch-up over a meal, but are not sure that will happen.
getting back to the original post, while it was not exactly polite to have such an explicit ban on dates, perhaps they bridge & groom felt their guests (or this guest in particular) might need some guidance rather than trusting them to understand that an invite in their name only meant no guests? there must be a better way to accomplish the same goal in a more polite fashion, but if your friend was shocked, it was probably a good move to be clear (just not so rudely).
now that we're planning a wedding ourselves, we'll be MUCH better guests at future events - it's been quite an education!
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I think it is completely up to the bride and groom; however, I have totally been victim to what seem like arbitrary rules. I was not allowed a guest to a wedding that fell a month before we got engaged (after 4 years of dating) because their rule was either you had to be married, or living with your SO. In most cases, it's spouses and significant others that the bride/groom have met, know, or who you have been dating for a long time. We are fortunate enough to include a +1 for everyone thankfully, so no hurt or hard feelings.
We recently completed the guest list for our 06.27.09 wedding. If our friends are dating someone seriously now, they will be invited with a guest. I know this will not work 100% as a lot may happen in 1 year, but this was our best attempt at honoring relationships while still drawing a line in the sand somewhere. I have talked to each one of my single guests personallyto let them know how the guest list was created and they have all assured me that they understood. We'll see what happens as the date draws nearer ;)
i came across this blog the other day and this entry is pretty relevant to this discussion. I don't think it's worth damaging friendships over 1 more guest--guidelines are good but common sense and kindness should win out.
http://dontbethatbride.blogspot.com/2005/12/dont-evaluate-your-guests_26.html
ErinMarieMack-I can't believe you completed your guest list for your wedding a year a way. You rock-I was still finalizing ours as I addressed the invites last week!
we had to do the same thing...its really hard to make a judgement call on people's relationships and doesn't feel right to us at all but we had to do what we had to do...
we both said that if we weren't able to bring each other to a wedding (before we were engaged) we would have been a little sad but would have gone with a group of friends who were also invited as well, no harm done...so we made a if you're not engaged or living together then you don't get to bring a plus one rule...so far people have been fairly understanding but i foresee some uncomfortable phone calls in the near future (mostly with cousins who have started dating someone since we made the guest list)...ultimately we have to stick to our guns b/c once you start making acceptions it gets outta hand..
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We invited everyone that was married, engaged, seriously dating, or living together with a guest. If they were single and knew a lot of other people at the wedding, especially at the same table, we would just leave it at that. If they were single and they didn't know anyone or there were only a limited number of people they knew, they got a guest.
I'm going to play devils advocate.
If your friend doesn't really know anyone... or all her friends are allowed dates because they are married or have a partner- I do think she should be allowed to bring a date. It sucks feeling like a third wheel.
I do agree with all the other brides about budget though... I totally understand. I think you also have to factor in your guests comfort as well. No one wants to dance alone or have to hang on their married friend all night.
I agree with all of the posters since everyone feels the same about this. But to the OP, MrsAllGood, your profile says you're married, and have been a member of WeddingBee for 7 months, so I'm curious as to how your wedding went. Believe me, I'm not trying to be rude at all, but you know how expensive weddings can get. I mean, we are allowing plus ones, but the majority of our guests are already married or in very long term relationships, and most of them have to travel anyway. However, even the most average cost per person would add up VERY quickly. I know mine is, and it's definitely way above average!
But what was your wedding like? And there have been so many posts on here about brides being upset about people just adding a plus one on their RSVP or asking if they can bring Joe Schmoe for whatever reason, and I don't think you'd find anyone that would be ok with that. Your friend's friend is completely within reason, think about it from his point of view, especially if they're already having budget issues AND the guest list is out of hand... TWO excellent reasons to not have a plus one. And he only needed one, or none, it's his wedding!! But please, this was not meant to be mean, so I hope it doesn't come off that way.
married or intended spouses will get dates, OR if they don't know anyone else (very few of these), I haven't decided if guest that needs to travel will get an invite since about 90% of the guest will need to travel. It's a tough choice... I'll much prefer to only invite people that we know...even if money isn't an issue, I'll still perfer an intimate wedding.
We're on a tight budget but for the most part I gave everyone the option to bring a date simply because I wanted to people to have fun and if having a date got them to dance more or feel more comfortable it's worth it.
LeahB -
To clarify this point - #1 - My husband and I eloped! #2 - I grew up in a country where weddings are a HUGE affair and everyone, friends, neighbors, and plus ones are included. On very rare occasions have I seen someone excluded from the privilege of bringing a friend to a wedding, male or female.
My friend whom I spoke to today is genuinely insulted, so obviously these issues of expense and calculation are not common knowledge. I offered to ask the advice of weddingbee readers and was quite surprised, to tell you the truth. Maybe it's a generation thing, maybe it's my culture, I don't know.
Like Maureen9oo4 said, it sucks being the third wheel and they know she's single. Do they not want her to have a good time at their wedding? She will not make friends instantly because people stay with whom they know at affairs like that. I appreciate the cost issue, I do, really, but at the same time I don't think it's a big beef to have her bring a guest. There was a reason I posted the question..!!
Thanks so much everyone -I appreciate the input very much - I will pass it on to her with the hopes she can make the right decision for her.
Thanks for the clarification, but I do have to ask now, if weddings in your country are such huge events where everyone is included, were any of your friends or family upset that they weren't included in your wedding? I'm sure you had your reasons for eloping, but because of those reasons, I would think you would be even more understanding to this situation. I really hope your friend wouldn't decide to skip the wedding just for this reason. At our wedding, there will be so many single men, and weddings are a great place to meet people!! She may end up meeting her plus one
Actually my personal situation has nothing to do at all with the question. Kindly keep me out of this.
If a friend of mine is single and for the sake of feeling comfortable at my celebration she would rather bring a guest instead of not attending at all - I do believe I would make an exception for her because that's the way I feel it should be.
I know that every rule has exceptions and in this case, someone's feelings were hurt when the situation could've been handled a bit differently, I believe.
"Do they not want her to have a good time at their wedding? She will not make friends instantly because people stay with whom they know at affairs like that. I appreciate the cost issue, I do, really, but at the same time I don't think it's a big beef to have her bring a guest."
MrsAllGood -- A couple issues I see here with this logic, with all due respect:
1) This is a lot of assuming on the guests part. Most brides and grooms know when their FRIEND is coming alone and they will strategically place them at a table with those (married, singled, whatever) that will allow the friend to have a good time with others.
2) Bringing a guest is not just a $25 expense. It's a +$100 expense. The meal, the drinks, the dessert. You have to break down your guest list as one where you say "Would I normally buy this person a $75 or $150 gift?" If you don't know them at all, why would you do that? Especially if you are on a tight budget which was explained by the couple. That +1 coming means someone that KNOWS the couple cannot attend.
Ultimately it is your friends decision. But as was stated earlier, this person must not be very close with the couple or they have no concept of etiquette. If you get an invitation that says 'AND GUEST' that's your cue. Always has been.
It is absolutely not rude to not include plus one's unless you invite someone who is in a relationship. The fact that she was so offended that she didn't come to celebrate one of the most important days of her friend's life makes me sad.
In making the guest list for my own wedding, my fiance and I gave no plus one's. If someone had a serious boyfriend/girlfriend we specifically invited that person. Also, people who had to travel but aren't in a relationship got a plus one so they don't have to make the trip alone. Other than that, my fiance and I each invited several single people. We're seating them with other people they know as well as a few of the opposite gender. They're all social and who doesn't like to make a new friend or two?
Why on earth would a bride and groom want a bunch of people they don't know in attendance during the most sacred day of their lives? Their wedding isn't about your friend's social life. They invited her because they care for her enough to want to share such a momentous occasion with her. If she can't put aside her attitude about not having someone to make out with on the dance floor long enough to genuinely celebrate with her friends, then perhaps she doesn't deserve the invitation in the first place.
For every "and guest" that shows up, that's generally one less person the couple actually knows but couldn't invite due to space limitations.
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@ mrsallgood - weddings are about the couple getting married. when hosting, it's important to be the best host/hostess we can possibly be, but sometimes we all have to make choices. if your friend is close to the couple, she should understand their situation and be accommodating - that may mean she opts not to come rather than attend alone, but she shouldn't raise a fuss about it, even if the couple was a bit rude in being so blunt about the limitations on the invite.
single guests are tricky - we're having table assignments specifically to deal with potential single guests and make sure they have the best time possible and will assign some of our more gregarious friends to reach out to them and make sure they have a good time. we've also limited the size of our wedding so we can spend time with everyone. this is not a decision we are taking lightly and it is in no way intended to offend. we're not sure one of our guests will come, as she doesn't know many of our other friends and we're ok with that. of course we'd love for her to join us and will do all of the things outlined above to make her comfortable, but we just don't have space for her to bring someone we don't even know. there are many others on our list that we'll likely not be able to invite at all.
as with most things, it's a balancing act that is unfortunately not that well understood unless you've planned or participated in a wedding. several years ago, someone in our social circle had a tiny wedding and only invited her friends, but not their SOs. at the time, we all thought it was weird, but now completely understand the tradeoffs. 
for the sticky situations, it's best to tread as gently as possible and make exceptions where you can/feel it is warranted, but it may not be in the case of your friend, especially if she'd not being flexible. it's not about her - it's about sharing the day of the couple.
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