Another wedding AIBU....

[PBlaarth]

Hello. I've seen these sort of posts on AIBU before, but obviously I'd like a personalised view on my situation.

Got an invite to an August wedding, hand delivered this morning, addressed to my husband, for the whole shindig. I haven't been invited. Not even as a 'plus one'. I don't know the couple, but we invited them to our evening do at our wedding last year (they didn't attend), so they know I exist.

I'm pissed off because I think it's rude and insulting. Bad etiquette.

I'm annoyed with my DH because he doesn't see why I'm so annoyed and offended. It's not like I'm his girlfriend of a few months....we're married with a small baby (gorgeous boy, born 10 weeks ago, love being a mum!!).

I started off by saying I'm not happy him going without me; ended up saying you're NOT going without me. We're a family and come as a package. I wouldn't go to a friend's wedding if they didn't invite my DH and DS. He said he'd have a word with them, see if they just 'forgot'. I don't want to go now anyway, and don't really want to have to spend the money on us all going, but AIBU?

Also, and this shouldn't be considered when replying, but...they have a wedding WEBSITE. Including pages such as Q&As, How we met, About us, Venue...etc etc and other such pretentious cuntery of the like I have never seen.....

thanks ladies and gents
xx

This rule of "Couple A invited Couple B to their wedding, therefore Couple B must reciprocate and invite Couple A" is silly. What if Couple A had a 200 seater venue, but Couple B have a venue that seats only 50?

Anyway, I like you OP - I do think you were BU, but your response has been very gracious. And I was going to forgive you anyway, because your usage of "pretentious cuntery" is outstanding.

YANBU. Super rude and bad manners not to include you.

You would know it was at the expense of one of their friends.

Not necessarily. They just might have planned it to cover good manners.

Is it bad manners on behalf of said spouse, to actually go to a strangers wedding, knowing full well you have taken the place of an actual friend of the couple?

Excellent question and one that would be informed, I think, by your position on the original situation.

I would assume that if I were invited to the wedding of complete strangers, that they had bags of room available and were willing and able to buy me dinner etc. I would not expect to be invited instead of friends.

I would therefore be pretty mortified to turn up to a small wedding or one where it was clear (maybe table gossip, whatever) that some "more important" people had been excluded to allow me a courtesy invitation.

OP- seriously, calm down!

Why do you want to even go to the wedding? You said yourself that you don't know the couple and they didn't attend your wedding anyway.

I think you're being highly unreasonable to not allow your other half to go.

Generally, what is all this bollocks about if you're married you somehow automatically get an invite too.

Come on, weddings are expensive and a huge thing to organise- they should be allowed to invite who they want!

As for wedding websites- a few friends have done these.
They were really useful for getting all the details, travel info etc.
Also good fun with all the stories and old photos.
Plus it was a place to share all the photos after the big day.

Well I think weddings have become too try-hard these days. They used to be relaxed family affairs but now people are chopping spouses and partners off the list.

I've been to weddings where I barely knew the bride or the groom ( i.e I only knew one of them), but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have been invited so I would not expect a bride or groom to ditch me or DH because only one of them knew me.

It's just all got way too precious and I think that's what bugs me the most about this dreadful growing trend. Couples are getting the posh and scenic bijoux venue that only seats 97.5 people and ending up with several friends who won't quite feel the same about them again. Priorities are getting skewed in the rush for the picture perfect textbook wedding day.

I do think it's rude to only invite one of a married couple. However my own DH is heading off (solo) tomorrow to the wedding of an old school friend and I don't mind.

I've read the thread and i still think its ok just to invite one of a married couple.

Where do you draw the line?
Couple 1 - married
Couple 2 - long term co habiting
Couple 3 - long term dating
Couple 4 - met last week on tindr?

who are you to judge who is more worthy of a plus1 invite?

I dont want people i (or OH) dont know at my wedding, why would you want to go to a wedding where you dont know the main players?? and especially if you know you're only invited 'because of politeness'

ew - no thanks

Kittens I was just about to ask the EXACT same thing. A lot of the talk on this thread is about married couples. So do a couple who have been together years rank lower just because they've chosen not to go through the same rigmarole before-hand?

Exactly. People keep saying it's a ceremony to celebrate marriage so all married couples should be invited or it's hypocritical, or something alone those lines?

How long until guests can only attend weddings if they are married themselves?

Sorry un-married people, no matter how good a friend you are, you have not participated in our level of commitment so we are bumping you off the guest list so we can invite lots of people we don't know and have never met purely because they are married.

It's ridiculous.

A wedding is about the couple being surrounded by people they know and love, not strangers who 'etiquette' says they must invite at the expense of people who actually matter to the couple.

OH MY GOD single people should be banned completely. They are just worthless

Well I think the comfort of guests should be considered if you want your wedding to be remembered fondly by well wishers. I stand firm in saying that weddings have become a far too precious bride and groom show.

I don't get this rule that you can only have people both of you know at your wedding. It would have been incredibly unfair on DH if I had said that and insisted that none of his friends brought spouses or long term partners.

I regard long term unmarried couples as the same as married couples. For me it would depend on whether they are a serious long term couple. I would invite their partner so they have someone to enjoy the day with, because as a bride and groom, you can't keep your guests company all day.

It depends on the wedding a bit - if it is small do with only 20-30 people and everyone is a close friend/relative then it is reasonable you were not invited, but I would expect a note in the invite explaining that.
If it is big wedding with loads of guests then the B&G are being very rude.

Why didn't they come to yours?

I don't get this rule that you can only have people both of you know at your wedding

I don't think this is a rule, at least, I've not seen anyone assert it here. I had a couple of people I hadn't met before at my wedding but all known to my husband. Two were long term partners of his closest male uni friends. One was his granny's mate, so his granny would have a suitable companion for the day. I wouldn't have excluded any of them because they weren't known to both of us.

The "rule" in question here is about knowing neither the bride nor the groom.

You don't know them: why would you want to go to their wedding?

People keep mentioning the comfort of their guests, I.e inviting their partner that you don't know to ensure their guest has someone to talk to - but surely in 95% of cases all the guests know each other anyway so a person would have plenty of people to talk to even if their OH wasn't there?!

Also, comfort is an odd word to use here

Things I provided for the comfort of my guests:
Seats.
Loos.
Appropriate heating levels.
Ballet flats.

Kittens - we judged everyone worthy of a plus one. When we knew people were married or in a relationship then partners were invited by name. Where we knew people were single they were invited 'and guest' - their choice whether to bring anyone or not. Some did, some didn't.

i think it is beyond precious to not want anyone you don't know at your wedding. I know and love our friends and relatives - which is precisely why we invited them all with partners/ plus ones. Because the only bit of our wedding that was only about me and dh was the vows. The rest was about making sure that our guests, as well as us, enjoyed themselves and had a bloody good time.

I would invite a guest plus one. Quite often the 'guest' declines to bring a plus one. I think the issue of being married is irrelevant, a couple is a couple regardless of marriage.

Finally i can understand not wanting a tiny baby or toddlers at weddings, the last wedding I attended was spoilt by a screaming baby in church.

This scenario always divides opinion on MN!

The "why would you want to go to a wedding when you don't know them?" question is a simple one to answer depending on your point of view.

My POV is that I cant understand what would possess people only inviting one half of a couple knowing it would feel pretty shitty for the excluded person, just to save the cost of a meal or some sandwiches and sausage rolls at the evening do. And it risks the invited person sitting there having to watch the "lucky" invited couples partying while they are like....well... A spare fart at a wedding.

Poor form. Unclassy. But it seems to happen a lot. In RL I have been to loads of weddings and it has never happened to me.

My wedding was about £65 a head so pretty much middle of the road I imagine. That cost would have escalated pretty fast though if we were expected to invite all the OH's that we had never met purely for etiquette. If we had done so it would have added about another £1,000 on to our costs and we just didn't have that money.

daisychain - sorry but that doesn't answer the question AT ALL does it?

Seriously, why would anyone ever want to go to a wedding of people they don't know? For the chicken dinner and pay bar? If you don't know the people weddings are generally just a kind-of-average party.

I would never want to be a plus one. I would never take a plus one. I hate weddings full of plus ones - they are usually far too big and bland and impersonal. (NB unless a totally vast scale Indian wedding with 500+ guests, the kind where the bride's cousin gets to invite her mates and some bloke they met in the pub the other week- those are ace).

That said, I do agree it's poor form on behalf of B&G, technically, but it's not such a breach of etiquette that the OP should forbid (ok through having a bit of a tiff be forced into the position of forbidding) her DH to go.

YANBU. Marriage wasn't a big thing for my wife and me - we did it more for our traditional parents, but...

If you weren't married then fair enough, but this is a wedding - supposed to be celebrating marriage. Bit ridiculous to show the institution no respect whatsoever in who gets invited.

You could always do what happened to us. We invited some two friends who had each just started new relationships. We'd met neither of their new flames. We specifically invited just the friends - no partners, no "plus ones". At the time I thought it was a bit harsh, but we were restricted on numbers and DW said she didn't want anyone there she didn't know (and, who might not be part of our lives in the future).

We met up a couple of weeks before the wedding and asked where the friends were staying. Got the reply, "Don't know we let the girls book it."

And that's how we found out we had 2 more guests to accommodate in the already overfull marquee, a fortnight before the big day. Needless to say, neither friend is still with the girl they brought along.

I think the old 'No ringy, no bringy' adage is just about acceptable, but I would make exceptions for long term cohabitees too...