AIBU to find it strange that husband is invited to wedding without me

Also, to add, I entirely understand people not inviting plus ones / partners etc to weddings. Weddings are so expensive and, as someone set out very diplomatically, above, to invite a plus one is likely to mean not inviting someone else who may be closer to the couple getting married.

For us, 15 years ago, we paid around £100 per head for day guests, of which we had 100 (and that was after we'd had to make cuts). It worked out that all partners were invited but that was fortune rather than just being blase about inviting plus ones. We had a rule that no one would be invited to the ceremony / day if we didn't both know them, at least to some degree. We said we didn't want strangers sharing the most important and intimate moment of our life. We also didn't have any children below the age of 12/13 (can of worms!).

Had it not worked out that all partners could be invited to the ceremony / day, we would have given evening invitations to partners or possibly shifted a day guest to be an evening guest (because, let's face it, if they weren't close enough to us for us to know their partner, they probably weren't that high up on the priority list) but with an invite for both of them and their partner together.

Absolutely normal, where more than just one colleague has been invited.

That said, the couple getting married should be ready to accept that people whose partners have not been invited might decline the invitation.

On the one hand, it's a huge privilege to be invited to a wedding. On the other hand, it is also a huge commitment (time, money etc) for a guest to attend.

For some people, they won't want to go to the expense of using annual leave, paying for travel, booking a hotel room, buying drinks, contributing to a gift, possibly having to buy an outfit, have hair done etc if they can't enjoy the day (and expense) with their significant other.

My husband and I certainly fit into that category. We don't have much disposable income and so, if there's a big outlay such as a wedding, we will want to enjoy it together or, possibly, not at all. Also, we don't really have anyone in our lives that one of us is so close to but the other is distant from (colleagues excepted) so if only one of us was to get an invite to a wedding from someone we know, either it would be from someone neither of us are overly close to and so neither of us would be willing to spend that amount of money on attending (especially if the other couldn't be there) or it would flag up to us the relationship with that couple isn't as close as we had thought (because we'd expect a double invite).

As I said, colleagues are the exception. I wouldn't expect my husband to be invited to a colleague's wedding, though I would anticipate any celebration would be close by (given we all work in the same location) and so I'd probably look to attend but on a scaled down budget (no hotel, possibly drive there to save on drinks, chip in for a gift with colleagues etc). If a colleague's wedding was far away, and my husband wasn't invited, I would likely decline with thanks and send a card.

Uhhm, I am the audience though🤔. And I have no issue going to weddings alone, nor does DH, nor do many, many people we know (I would think everyone actually given everyone we know seems to happily do it). So, how would you ‘know your audience’, those who want to come clinging to their spouse versus those happy not to. Is it a Monkey survey to find out who is happy to come on that basis and you issue them a single invite, versus someone who marches with the Army of the Perpetually Offended, where you know to either issue them 2 invites or strike them off the list?

Wow thats some ego. As if keeping invites to people you actually know is somehow a slight on your marriage - whaaaat? That is some leap 🤣🤣🤣 Welcome to the modern world where people can make their own choices and spouses aren't joined at the hip!

Ultimately its up to them who they invite and its up to those invited whether they accept or not. Personally i would have no issue going to a wedding, or another social occasian without my partner and would be happy for him to go without me. If others aren't, dont go, its that simple. But its not odd or weird in this day and age to invite just people you actually know and want there, to your wedding!

But also that’s they are based in London and wedding is in Scotland.

Inviting work colleagues as a group without partners is generally fine for a local evening do. Not one that involves 2 nights away and expensive travel to get there.

I guess it’s important to look at it practically rather than as a personal slight.

It’s around £100 per person for a wedding (it was £135 per person at mine and that was six years ago), and the number of guests are limited (we were limited to 220). By prioritising the spouse of a colleague, someone you have never met before and perhaps may never see again, you are having to choose not to invite someone you know and want at your wedding. That colleague will already know other people there so you’re not asking them to come alone to an event where they’ll feel awkward or lonely. So when you consider the cost of weddings and the limitations on numbers, it makes complete sense that when it comes to the order of priority, colleagues are further down the list for those that get a plus one. Why should the spouse of a colleague get priority over a neighbour, for example.

Right.

There's always one on mumsnet who, when not invited to a wedding, rubs their hands and cackles "But I can just turn up anyway you know!!! You can't deny me entrance to the place nobody wants me!!!" It is such a bizarre reaction and honestly makes me think they must be really creepy in real life.

Oh good, he can just say no then.

If they don't know you and you don't know them, or barely so, and your husband and the groom only know one another from work (so its work colleagues who will be hanging out with one another) it's normal enough not to invite spouses. If other spouses were invited that would be odd.

It's not a new thing either.

I couldn’t afford to fly everyone I know to Tuscany for my wedding and have Maroon 5 play. So I didn’t.

This thread has been an eye-opener for me!

You aren’t being at all unreasonable, OP. DH and I married over 20 years ago, but have been to plenty of weddings since then, always invited together. I had no idea it was now common for people to invite only one of a couple to a wedding.

Weddings are all about marriage, and making the statement that you’ve changed from a single to a shared life — even if you’ve been living together, you were officially two single people. So it seems odd to invite only half a couple.

I’m not objecting to the new custom. Just I wouldn’t have done it myself. But then I wouldn’t have had a child-free wedding either, even though DH and I were childless and knew we were unlikely to be able to have children. So it seems we’re a couple of dinosaurs!

I’m in my forties, been married for nearly twenty years and, in that time, neither myself nor my husband have ever been invited to a wedding without the other.
I doubt I would go to a wedding without him (depending on who else I knew who was attending).
Having said that, we’ve not been invited to many weddings of colleagues and the majority of the ones that we have, we’ve only been to the evening part.
At our own wedding, we had colleagues, their partners and their children to the evening part only. We did have one of my husband’s colleagues and his wife to the ceremony but that was because we were friends with them outside of work.

If it’s any wedding no one can stop you going in.

She maybe can't afford to invite spouses. Imagine she wanted to invite 10 colleagues. If she invited their spouses, that's 20 wedding guests (presumably quite expensive).

But..why would OP go to church to see a wedding of someone she doesn't know and wasn't invited to? Just because her husband can't go on his own for some reason despite apparently holding down a job of some responsibility? The mind boggles.

I think it's reasonable to invite work colleagues without a plus one. Presumably you've never met her? He doesn't have to go if he genuinely can't cope without you for a few hours but that's a bit odd in itself.

You seem very unaware. Weddings are so expensive and lots of venues put limits on numbers. We only invited people we knew and cared about. Why would you want a complete stranger at your wedding ceremony? Close work colleagues were invited to the evening only, no plus ones.

You don’t know the couple, so why would you be invited. I think when inviting work colleagues and sports team mates to a wedding no +1 is normal. I think the only thing that makes your situation slightly different is that he’s the owner.

What I find more strange is after 13 pages of the majority saying it’s completely fine and very much the norm nowadays, there are posters like you still going on about how it’s strange and rude to not invite spouses of colleagues.

Can you fathom that it’s strange to those of us that have never heard of it and would never do it?

How manybtimes are you going to say it's strange?

People can invite whoever they want, you not doing that, doesn't make it or her strange.

If it was me though, I’d be happy to share the driving with DH, stay in a nice hotel room, read a book, watch movies, have room service, bit of a self-pamper while drinking fizz while he is at the wedding

I'd rather do that than go to the wedding of someone I don't know.

It’s tone deaf to celebrate your own union by ignoring that of others

Tbh I'm old and I've been to a couple of weddings of work colleagues without my husband being invited. His words when I got the invitation were "Do I have to come?" No, you're not invited. Big sigh of relief from him.

We invited work colleagues without their partners to our wedding, regardless of whether they were married or not. We were tight for numbers (a maximum of 80) and we only wanted people who we knew there. Everyone seemed to understand x

Even more so those who see weddings as celebrating their union and status as a married couple, even though weddings have nothing to do with them and they’re just a guest…

True. In previous threads I've seen the popular opinion that "a wedding is to celebrate marriage so it's weird not to invite both people who are, you know, married" Even when you wouldn't know them from Adam.

I have no idea why munsnet posters keep getting so shocked about people getting solo invites to weddings. I think it's totally normal!! You invite your friends, sometimes those people are "couple" friends and you know the partner fairly well and wish them to be there. Sometimes, especially with work colleagues, you don't know the partner, barely know their name and as a result don't want to spend between 50 and 150 quid to buy their dinner and drinks at a celebration of your union, which is a very personal and intimate thing for most people. I always wanted my wedding to be full of people I love not "oh I think that's Tom's wife maybe, not sure". Your husband is very much allowed to not go if he doesn't fancy doing it alone - that's also totally OK.

You're not the only person to find it strange though, every week someone posts something along these lines.