what are you girls doing about the 'and guest'

My brother went to a wedding in July and NO ONE including the BP was invited with a guest! It looked a little strange when the DJ asked all couples to dance!!

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Posted by Dougs Girl

That's something that we are trying to fiure out. I only wanted to invite 'and guest' if the person is in a serious relationship. I didn't want single people bringing some random person just to bring a guest. But, FH says we should invite and guest no matter what. I'm still not sure what to do

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sorry, though many dont agree, i DO agree with your FH
i feel that adults should be invited with guests and we shouldnt be the ones to determine how 'serious' someone else's relationship is
ive been invited alone, as an adult and it stinks
youre automatically exclcuded from slow dances and u sit there watcing everyone - very boring

i dont want anyone to be bored at my wedding

I have such mixed feelings on this, and haven't made up my mind yet either.

A few years ago I was invited to a wedding without a guest, and was furious. I was actually annoyed that I was invited to the wedding at all because it was a friend of a friend who I really wasn't close with at all. The only person we had in common was said friend, so maybe I would have known 2 people there, and I was invited without a guest. I let our friend in common know about how I felt, and I responded no, and sent a gift.

The girl whose wedding it was emailed me saying that I could bring a guest -- but I had already made up an excuse why I couldn't go.

Anyway, my whole point is that at the time, I was upset about not being invited with a date. Our friend in common, who was also wedding planning explained to me how hard making the list, etc was, but at the time, I wasn't in a relationship, let alone planning a wedding, so I didn't want to hear it.

Now that I'm planning, I feel like such a hypocrite. I think most people will be invited with a guest, but I have a few friends that I really do not want to invite with guests. They are single, in their late 20's - early 30's, and I know for a fact that they are not in any kind of relationship and will know tons of people there. Furthermore, these few people run in the same social circles as I do, and if they were to bring a date, it would probably be someone I know and didn't invite --which would be weird.

So sorry about this long vent, it actually felt good to get that all out, because this is something I've been thinking about a lot.

I guess there is no right and wrong answer, just do what you eventually are comfortable with. Now I need to take my own advice

We were planning on inviting only the plus ones of friends were were seriously involved/engaged/married...however, we know a lot of our friends are from out of town and might not want to come alone, even if they were single. So we decided to do plus ones only for those who are seriously involved OR those who are from out of town.

However, pretty much all of our friends but two fall in one of these categories...so we're probably just going to give everyone a plus one.

But I think that most people understand budgets and will suck it up...It is YOUR wedding.

thanks girls soo much for all your input!!!

i just wanted to see what everyone else was doing about this.... the friends i'm not inviting with a guest all know each other so will be sitting with each other... some of them have been with the SO for a short time, others a while, but the fact is, on my wedding day i will be meeting some of these people for the first and second times! i feel like okay this is MY wedding and someone who im not even friends with is coming to celebrate my day? they might as well bring a homeless person off the street lol

sorry if that sounds harsh, but thats the way we feel... i REALLY want to keep it small b/c of space and $$ & i want everyone there to have a good time and dance & i know some of those friends WONT dance and have a good time if their SO are there b/c they always complain how unsociable they are and how they dont dance

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Posted by Songstress1212

Im not inviting any of my cousins with a guest unless theyre married or living with that person. Ive been having issues with this cause I have people telling me 'The right thing to do' would be to invite everyone with a guest and that really irks me cause they act like Im intentionally NOT trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, my budget doesnt allow 'the right thing to do'. Would the right thing to do be not to invite people I would REALLY want there so my cousin could bring her newest fling? Sorry I got carried away! Its just a touchy subject cause Im so tired of the politics that go with inviting guests...

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you said exactly what i wanted to say.

the only thing i'd add is this... and this is where i get 'yelled at'
We are inviting our friends who will not know anyone but us with guests. We know a lot of people from a lot of different groups who have never met. Most of these friends have never even met our parents.
We are giving them each a guest so that they are more inclined to come. Our relatives who are not in significant relationships are not getting a guest. Combined we have well over 50 first cousins. if we give them all a guest, we couldn't invite any friends at all.

We are very thankful that we don't have that issue. Any single people we have (and it is just a handful) are over the age of 21. They will be invited with a guest but I know they won't bring one just to bring one -- they 'don't like to be bogged down' hahaha.

But we will have the other issue of divorced couples that we are friends with both. At least we have some time to see how that goes.

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Posted by Snowflake08

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Posted by Dougs Girl

That's something that we are trying to fiure out. I only wanted to invite 'and guest' if the person is in a serious relationship. I didn't want single people bringing some random person just to bring a guest. But, FH says we should invite and guest no matter what. I'm still not sure what to do

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sorry, though many dont agree, i DO agree with your FH
i feel that adults should be invited with guests and we shouldnt be the ones to determine how 'serious' someone else's relationship is
ive been invited alone, as an adult and it stinks
youre automatically exclcuded from slow dances and u sit there watcing everyone - very boring

i dont want anyone to be bored at my wedding

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I will tell him. I guess I'm kind of thinking more on the money side.I do agree though. I have been invited alone and it's no fun. Plus we mostly have guy friends. If we don't inite and guest there won't be too many girls there.

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Posted by Snowflake08

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Posted by Dougs Girl

That's something that we are trying to fiure out. I only wanted to invite 'and guest' if the person is in a serious relationship. I didn't want single people bringing some random person just to bring a guest. But, FH says we should invite and guest no matter what. I'm still not sure what to do

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sorry, though many dont agree, i DO agree with your FH
i feel that adults should be invited with guests and we shouldnt be the ones to determine how 'serious' someone else's relationship is
ive been invited alone, as an adult and it stinks
youre automatically exclcuded from slow dances and u sit there watcing everyone - very boring

i dont want anyone to be bored at my wedding

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im inviting everybody with 'and guest' my friends and FH's friends that are in relationships of course we'll put both names on the envelope bc if they are in serious relationships then obviously we know their SO so out of respect for the other person we'll but their names instead of 'and guest' the others will get and guest. To each their own but the reason im doing this is bc lets say theres a single person among my close friends im sure theyre gonna want to sit with the ppl they know and if i werent doing and guest then they would be at a table with all couples and they'd probably feel a little awkward especially when couples get up to dance. Also there are some people who wont know many others at the wedding and to come alone on top of that they'd probably feel weird...Personally if i got invited without a guest and i knew alot of ppl it'd be ok but if i didnt know many ppl that would be at the wedding i dont know if id even go

But i would also suggest asking single friends if they plan on brining anybody, some of them dont want to and will come alone so this will resolve the issue before you send out invites...for my e-party i did this, i asked single friends if they're bringing a date and most of them said no

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Posted by DSNY08

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Posted by jteach711

We are doing, anyone who is over 18 is invited with a guest.

I have been to weddings when I was younger and wasn't invited with a guest b/c I wasn't in a serious relationship and it bothered me so I vowed not to do it at my wedding. IMO if you are an adult than you should be invited with a guest

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ditto for me.

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thats we said. Anyone over 18 geta & guest, but under no way...unless we know the bf or gf and they were together for a while

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Posted by MISSESPINK722

IM onlyinviting guests for married people or people that live togehter, have had the gf/bf for a longgg time...not just someone they are dating, i really cant afford it. if its a serious gf/bf then fine..but not to find a date for a wedding.

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same here

Fh and I agreed since I have a big family we are limiting the 'and guest' inviting. We wanted to be able to invite our friends and not feel we can't invite someone we want there because we need to invite my cousin with a date. Because Fh and I are paying for the wedding ourselves we can't afford to shell out all this money on guest that we dont know or wont even show up the day of.

I have alot of first cousins and I know there are a couple of them that will just bring whoever with them if I invited them with a date. Or they would rsvp with their gf at the time and be broken up with her by the time of hte wedding and be down a person who I paid for. Especially since some of my cousins have 13 gf's in a year!

So we decided anyone married/engaged/living together or in a serious relationship where we know the person is invited with their significant other. And whoever is in the bridal party is invited as well with a guest. But I think the people in our bridal party have a gf or bf that are invited to the wedding anyway haha. But yes I think it is fair since it is my wedding and my money. i don't care if my cousin is 23 and not invited with a guest. i dont want one of his slutty girls that he just took out the night before coming to my wedding haha. Plus everyone invited knows everyone esle at the wedding anyway!

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Posted by novia26

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Posted by MISSESPINK722

IM onlyinviting guests for married people or people that live togehter, have had the gf/bf for a longgg time...not just someone they are dating, i really cant afford it. if its a serious gf/bf then fine..but not to find a date for a wedding.

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same here

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Mee Too!!!! It took a long time to come to this decision, but that is the way the cookie crumbles. I do not want some flavor of the week at my wedding...since they are my friends/family, they will understand that it is expensive.... and if they don't, they will get over it

I do not mean to sound harsh, it is just FH and I have HUGE families.... where does it end

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Posted by bemyyoko

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Posted by Songstress1212

Im not inviting any of my cousins with a guest unless theyre married or living with that person. Ive been having issues with this cause I have people telling me 'The right thing to do' would be to invite everyone with a guest and that really irks me cause they act like Im intentionally NOT trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, my budget doesnt allow 'the right thing to do'. Would the right thing to do be not to invite people I would REALLY want there so my cousin could bring her newest fling? Sorry I got carried away! Its just a touchy subject cause Im so tired of the politics that go with inviting guests...

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you said exactly what i wanted to say.

the only thing i'd add is this... and this is where i get 'yelled at'
We are inviting our friends who will not know anyone but us with guests. We know a lot of people from a lot of different groups who have never met. Most of these friends have never even met our parents.
We are giving them each a guest so that they are more inclined to come. Our relatives who are not in significant relationships are not getting a guest. Combined we have well over 50 first cousins. if we give them all a guest, we couldn't invite any friends at all.

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ditto to all!!! except all the cousins... i don't have that many

since we are keeping our guest list extreemly short (only 100 people!)

there is no way we can include guests unless they are married. only people in the wedding party get guests!

I feel bad but theres nothing I can do. I cant invite someone's boyfriend/girlfriend and drop a relative from the list!

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Posted by jteach711

We are doing, anyone who is over 18 is invited with a guest.

I have been to weddings when I was younger and wasn't invited with a guest b/c I wasn't in a serious relationship and it bothered me so I vowed not to do it at my wedding. IMO if you are an adult than you should be invited with a guest

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This is pretty much what we're doing too... family members though are the exception to the rule though. If you're a family member and you're not in a serious relationship, you won't be invited with guest... IMO, there's no reason to bring a stranger to a family members wedding.