Planning & etiquette

i am posting because i dont know what to do.

i have some friends who will be attending my wedding.. the problem is, i dont know their partners and neither does my fiance and we dont want to pay $85pp for people we dont know, and especially dont know how they act when they have a few beers or wine.

is it rude to not invite their partners? everyone that will be at my wedding, knows everyone else, so no-one will be singled out and not know anyone. 

it depends how many people you’re already inviting to your wedding, but our criteria is that partners are invited if:

1. the couple is married or

2. they are living together or

3. they have been together for more than 6 months (or 12, depending on how you feel).

hope this helps.

we have around 80 guests

we have around 80 guests

etiquette wise the correct thing to do is invite all partners who are engaged/married/or living together but if you dont know them and are having a small ceremony and all of your friends know each other it should be fine to invite them as a group of friends instead of with their partners, if your friends dont know anyone else and will be all alone then it would be a good idea to bring their partners though.

but i think its fine just to invute your group of friends, minus partners.

Buggy is right, etiquette wise you should invite the partner of any of the guests invited especially if they are married/engaged/live together or have been invloved for a while.

In my opinion I find it a bit weird that if you are having a small wedding (which I would assume is close friends and family?) that there would be people on your guest list whose partners you do not know or have never met (aside from new relationships of course)?

I would be insulted if my FI was not invited with me and would probably not attend the wedding.

why do you find it “weird” that we are only having approximately 80 guests? thats a bit of a cold jab dont you think?

i see your point about them maybe being offended, but buggy’s is the reply i like. like i said, everyone who will be attending knows everyone else, so no-one will be singled out and left not knowing anyone. i thought about it, and we are not inviting people we dont know because we dont want any trouble (seens as we dont know how they act when they get drunk and really dont want our wedding destroyed by some f**kwit we dont know) and dont see the need of them being there as they are not aquainted with us, there honestly really is no need for them to be there. if i was invited to a wedding with my fiance out of ettiqutte and i didnt know either the bride or groom, it would be quite rude of me to turn up & i honestly wouldnt, it has happened before, my fiance was invited to wedding and i wasnt, i didnt mind, because i did not know the people and he still attended… yet we have been together 5 1/2 years… so obviously no-one really is worried about ettiquette i think it goes more these days on who you know…

why do you find it “weird” that we are only having approximately 80 guests? thats a bit of a cold jab dont you think?

i see your point about them maybe being offended, but buggy’s is the reply i like. like i said, everyone who will be attending knows everyone else, so no-one will be singled out and left not knowing anyone. i thought about it, and we are not inviting people we dont know because we dont want any trouble (seens as we dont know how they act when they get drunk and really dont want our wedding destroyed by some f**kwit we dont know) and dont see the need of them being there as they are not aquainted with us, there honestly really is no need for them to be there. if i was invited to a wedding with my fiance out of ettiqutte and i didnt know either the bride or groom, it would be quite rude of me to turn up & i honestly wouldnt, it has happened before, my fiance was invited to wedding and i wasnt, i didnt mind, because i did not know the people and he still attended… yet we have been together 5 1/2 years… so obviously no-one really is worried about ettiquette i think it goes more these days on who you know…

Sorry Beej I didn’t mean weird becuase you are having a small wedding! Nothing weird about that. I meant weird that you would be inviting people to an intimate (small) wedding whose partners you didn’t know!

I thought the idea of a limited guest list was to only invite people close to the bride and groom. I found it a bit weird that if they were your close friends that you would not know their partners?

And I wont even get into the etiquette stuff….you only have to watch the 6 o’clock news to see what society is coming to. 

Hi beej,

I am on the same wavelength as you – we want to know everyone we invite to our wedding, and not have to say “oh hello i am the bride, who are you” on the day, especially because it is so expensive. If we know our friends partners then definitely they get an invitation (we have said if they have been dating longer than 6 months and we know them well).

Etiquette-wise yes you should invite partners, but anything goes these days, you don’t have to be traditional in every sense.

Just remember this is your wedding, not your friends’ and if they truely are your friends they should respect your decision. And try not to be disheartened, the best advice I can give you is to stick to your guns!

Goodluck