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So many of us are planning weddings on a budget. This may mean having less than spectacular flowers, less guests, different food, a cash bar, etc. This begs the question: are you allowing guests to bring a date?
Amongst my family and friends, those who have boyfriends/girlfriends, have been together a long time. So those significant others will be invited. What about the cousin/friend who is not currently dating someone, but wants to bring a date anyway?
The guest list is usually a huge object of contention between many couples and their families. Although I really don’t want to anger anyone in my family, why would I invite you + guest if there is no one in your life; not even a prospect? It may sound rude, but I really don’t want to invite your date if that means I can’t invite a friend instead.
Our guest list is as large as we can allow. We are paying for every single penny of this wedding, and trying to avoid expensive nights out so we can invite more people. Yeah, I guess I’d be slightly bitter at having to fork over more money for someone I’ve never met, and someone our guest has just met.
If it’s a family member, they’ll certainly have plenty of people to talk to, and will most likely know about 75% of the guests. So is it really wrong to just invite that single person? Of course, this would invite some of the “double standard” comparisons that I just don’t want to deal with. I can slightly understand inviting a friend + date if they won’t know that many people, but what if they will know a handful of people, is it still an uncomfortable situation?
My question is this: for a tightly budgeted wedding, where do you draw the line, guest-wise?
This has probably been our biggest issue with our wedding — not b/c of budget constraints so much, but b/c our wedding just balloons and balloons and balloons in size. I gave up my dream of having a small wedding a LONG time ago.
Our criteria is: if you’re coming from very far away, you get to bring a date. If you wouldn’t know anyone otherwise, you get to bring a date. If you’re engaged or in a long-time relationship, you get to bring a date EXCEPT for family members (like teenaged cousins) who will know lots of folks anyway.
Godspeed with this one - I feel for ya. I’m just terrified we’re going to invite people w/o guests and they’ll bring ‘em anyway!
We had a smallish wedding (125) and we invited guests who were significant others, but we didn’t invite casual dates, and I think people understood. Actually no one even mentioned it or even asked to bring a date.
I did make one exception for one of my best friends who didn’t really know anyone there — she brought one of her girlfriends.
Thank you so much for asking this!!! FI and I are allowing our friends to bring dates as well as high-school age (and older) family members. However, I don’t think that children of family friends, even if they are in high school, should be allowed to bring dates…
—>HOW DO I DESIGNATE THIS ON THE INVITATION? Most people I know would simply assume that they can bring dates, but when you are inviting the FAMILY, not just the individual, I really don’t think it’s necessary. Any thoughts would be sooo appreciated!!!
I totally agree with you. Its hard to justify letting someone who is single bring a date when it means that one less person that you wanted to invite that you can’t. My fiance and I drew the line where if we didn’t know the last name of the person you are dating, then they aren’t getting an “and guest.” Some people might think this sounds harsh, but when everything is SO expensive and the guest list is limited, you have to draw the line somewhere. If I were you, I wouldn’t make exceptions for people who don’t know a lot of people. I have been to many a wedding as a single girl where I didn’t know a lot of people and I was always just fine!
Good luck!
We are on a budget too and paying for 90% of it. We are allowing dates if 1) our guest lives with a SO of 2) our guest will know no on else there. I don’t want to pay for people to eat and drink that I don’t even know, plus our list already exceeds the capacity of our venue!
I would rather invite more of our friends/co-workers then let every single person bring a guest.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with inviting single people without a guest. Of course, if someone’s in a recognized long-term relationship, you invite the other person. Otherwise, it’s exactly as you said–you’re inviting strangers, and weddings just cost too much money! Besides, everyone knows that weddings are great places to meet potential dates. That’s what Wedding Crashers was all about. OK, Wedding Crashers was about meeting people for sex, but close enough. Luckily, this is not such an issue for us, as we’re having a small wedding–fewer guests overall–and we’re older so most of our relatives and friends are married or otherwise coupled.
I have heard it is rude. I always felt that it discriminates and places a value judgment on single women in particular.
We were on a budget too. We did not add and guest to anyone’s invite. If we didn’t know the name of their SO at the time of invites, odds are they are not important, and may not even be around for the wedding! Fortunately, most of our friends were going to know at least 5 other people there.
Unfortunately, this did not stop people from inviting dates anyway. It only added about 15 people, so it was not a problem, but it could have been if there were more!
Very timely post! I just got done having a series of discussions with my FMIL on this topic–my FSIL is single and wants to bring “a friend” (ie one of her random girlfriends) to the wedding, and I absolutely put my foot down on this. She’ll have all her relatives at the wedding, so there will be lots of people to talk to. I’m sure she’ll get in a snit over it, but whatever–our guest list is just too tight to let her bring a friend for no good reason.
Same goes for my high school/college friends who will have lots of friends there anyway–unless they’re engaged or married (or might as well be), they’re date-less.
What people need to understand is…THIS IS YOUR WEDDING. You can do whatever YOU want…and that includes cutting your guestlist to family and friends w/ Long term significant others. That is what I am doing as well.
I think you can avoid the double standards comparison if you apply some criteria that would make it seem less objective, such as a minimal time period of dating. For example, your friend could bring his girlfriend if they’ve been dating for six months, but your cousin can’t bring a girl he just met.
I don’t think its rude. However, inviting singles may mean spending just a bit more time on your seating arrangements to make sure those singles are with people with similar backgrounds or tastes, or who you simply know are friendly and welcoming.
Sorry, I meant to say criteria that would make it seem less SUBJECTIVE.
I draw the line at engaged. If they’re just boyfriend/girlfriend, we only invite them. We just cannot afford to have extra guests, so we’re specifying on the envelope and RSVP card how many seats we are reserving for them.
Tessa same with us. For those friends of mine who are in relationships but I don’t know their other half, their partner is only being invited if they are married or if they are travelling far enough they they have to fly in for the wedding and are staying several days, because it’s not much fun to travel alone.
Jilly, the way I’ve seen this addressed is the same way you do things if a couple has children but you’re not inviting the kids. Address the invitation only to the invited people, and on the reply card leave a place where they can enter the number of people that are RSVP’ing on that card. If they enter more people than you had invited, then a follow up phone call is in order to explain the situation as politely as possible (but stick to your guns!) If you want to minimise this problem, I recently saw someone write on the RSVP card (was it on Weddingbee?):
__ of __ happily accept
__ of __ regretfully decline
And if you are only inviting one person then you handwrite the number “1″ into the second blank space on each line so they should get the hint that you are not giving them the option of inviting a guest.
In response to putting the number of seats on rsvp cards… this is what we did, and it worked really well. We are on a tight budget, paying for our own wedding and didn’t want unknown guests.
For our single friends the rsvp says:
“A seat has been reserved in your honor”
For those in a group:
“___ seats have been reserved in your honor”
We filled in the blank before sending out. I felt a lot better using the word “A” instead of the number “1″.
This was a tough one for us also. A couple friends of ours are getting married in a few months and we’re in the same circle of friends… so we both set the same rules just to avoid any confusion. We’re only allowing a guest if the couple lives together, are married or engaged. We are already over our room limit and I had originally wanted a very small wedding. My FI has a big Italian family though so that idea went right out the window the moment we got engaged. But we’ve spread the word around to our single or friends who have new gf/bf’s that it’s a very tight guestlist. But everyone will know someone at the wedding for sure either way. And if they don’t…. they’ll just have to make some new friends! =)
We decided to go with cheaper catering (hello On the Border) so that we could invite more guests and their respective “and guests”. So far we are still within budget and our friends can bring dates. Honestly most of them opted not to bring a date unless they were already in a relationship.
Wonderful post.. I’m having this problem too, and we’re only in the initial stages of a guest list. I have lived with the same 8 girls since I started college 3 years ago. They’re all invited, (of course) and although I’m pretty close with their bfs as well, the only bf that will be invited to the wedding is the one who is a mutual friend with the FI and myself. I have one close girlfriend from out of state who is allowed to bring her bf because she won’t know a blessed soul at the wedding… and if she comes all the way from Florida, I want to make sure she has a great time. Many of our friends from home our mutual-friend-couples… so in those cases, they can both come! I guess it’s pretty subjective, but I can’t figure out how else to do it. We’re really not old enough that we have any close friends who are married/engaged.
because we had so many of our friends we couldn’t include on the guest list, we were very strict when it came to bringing a date. only if they were boyfriend/girlfriend AND we knew them- at least met them, did we allow it. there was one person that we know of that was bothered by this, but nobody else asked about a date and seemed to understand completely about our tight guest list situation. i think as long as you have some certain “rule” and stick with it (ie. try not to make excpetions bc that’s when things can get oogly), hopefully your friends will understand! wait until they have to plan their own wedding! haha. that’s what i always tell people. but yeahhh i hear you on the budget/guest list dilemma. good luck miss kiwi!
I’ve seen something clever recently where on the response card they put in for example
___ Accepts ____ of 2 people
____ Regrets
where they pre fill in the number of people you are allowed to bring.
That’s always an option of quietly informing the people they can’t bring more than you anticipate.
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Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA Engagement Date: March 31, 2006 Wedding Date: November 3, 2007 Venue: Radisson Hotel About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
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