To think this is a cheeky RSVP?

[coralpig]

Our RSVPs for August wedding are coming in. My fiancé's aunt and her 20 year old children (so his first cousins) are invited but we have said that the eldest cousin's boyfriend of about a year isn't as we are not having plus ones. My fiancé doesn't want him there, neither of us have ever met him and he has been extremely rude, bigoted and snobby to my mother in law on the rare occasion that they have met. None of us really want him there.

The cousin in question will know a lot of people there as it is a family wedding. The cousins all grew up very close.

We said all this and addressed invitations to members of the family.
Today we have had an RSVP from my fiancé's aunt saying that they were all looking forward to attending. She listed the names and included the name of the boyfriend.

AIBU to think this is really cheeky and inappropriate? WWYD?

This may be a simple error as they may not have realised he was not invited or assumed you had made an error in not inviting him - why assume they are being rude and cheeky. However clear you think you were it may not have been the case to someone on the other end.

You say the mother replied - but the cousin or her boyfriend may not actually really care about attending your wedding so may not be bothered in the slightest.

If you say the wedding is tight on space etc etc and invite the couple round for a meal/BBQ shortly before or after the wedding - you could include all the other +1's not invited to the wedding - it would not sound so churlish.

You have absolute right to invite however you like to your own wedding and expect your feelings to be respected - everyone else has the absolute right to form their own opinions on you and your actions and you have to respect that.

As in all these cases you have the way up the possibility of causing a rift for a not very important reason against your knowledge of how understanding the family are. No one on a site like this can advise you as they do not know the people involved.

"Because I can imagine no possible scenario where inviting one child in a family to a wedding but not inviting siblings would be ok"

A friend I used to have did this - didn't want children at the wedding at all, but invited her little god-daughter to be a bridesmaid. God-daughter's siblings weren't included. She was there as BM though, and her parents - because some people are capable of understanding the bride and groom's wishes and letting them have the day they want - but are also able to find childcare for the other children (which can be an issue of course)

Oh and YANBU - but if this cousin and her obnoxious BF stay together and, God forbid, end up getting married, I'd lay 100-1 that you don't get invited to the wedding!

This may be a simple error as they may not have realised he was not invited or assumed you had made an error in not inviting him - why assume they are being rude and cheeky. However clear you think you were it may not have been the case to someone on the other end.

They would still be at fault for 'assuming'. They presumably read the invitation. If they had a query they should have asked.

Could you not say he was invited to the evening party if you having one? Compromise....
But definitely point out that you didn't invite him to main wedding.

YANBU

I would be very straight and factual. Call your Hubs to be aunt or cousin and say you there has been a misunderstanding and that +1 are not possible. If also say that you don't understand how the mix up has happened as you explained to everyone about this and hopefully they can understand and I would even go so far as to offer to speak to the uninvited guest directly and explain. That should shut them up sharpish

icepop9000 I don't see why they should have to compromise at all. It's their wedding. They're paying for it. If they don't want to invite somebody, then that's their call and only theirs to make.

I think although it's rude to assume someone who is not invited is however I think not inviting someone's partner is equally rude.....it's not like they have just met! Could you not just invite the partner for the meal?

On an other note I was at a wedding last year where bride included some children in wedding party but their siblings weren't even invited to any of the wedding!

Some people are weird about weddings. My cousin is getting married next week and they're having a very small wedding (30 family and friends). Because of this and a few other factors, they haven't invited any children in the family, aside from my cousin's nephew who's the page boy. My other aunt and uncle were seriously annoyed because their children (11 and 15) couldn't come. They went on and on and on and ON about how it wasn't fair because I was invited (I'm 20...I don't think I count as a child) and in the end they very aggressively snapped that they weren't coming. The weird thing though was that they didn't say they weren't coming because of the kids as the deciding factor - they're not coming because they can't bring their dogs! The venue is about 1-2 hours away from where we live but they don't have to stay over and even if they did they could get a dog sitter like we are doing But no, my aunt had a long phone conversation ( rant ) to the bride and then ended with "well if the children not being invited wasn't bad enough, we can't even bring the dogs! We WON'T be attending!" and then slammed the phone down! What is it about weddings?

Back on topic, yes they're being extremely rude. Don't let them get away with it, keep reminding them that this man is NOT invited and won't be let into the wedding. If they do turn up with him on the day, don't let him in and state firmly that you said time and again plus ones wouldn't be let in, so he will have to leave. Honestly, some people cause so much drama

I know of weddings where the daughter has been invited to be a BM and, because of numbers, and with the full and happy acceptance of the daughter's parents, the two sons spent the day playing in our garden instead, where they were much happier than being cooped up in a church and then marquee.

I can't imagine people turning up where they haven't had invitations. I think we need to publish a MN guide to organising and/or attending a wedding.

sjh81 It's not rude to not invite partners - they've never met them, they (the boyfriends) doesn't know most of the attendees and there is limited space. The bride and groom are not obligated to allow plus ones. It's just a boyfriend and a year is hardly a long time for a relationship. If the cousin and 'boyfriend' were married or had been together for 5+ years, it'd be a different kettle of fish, but why should they feel obligated to invite the boyfriend? They've been consistent and said nobody can bring a plus one. To think it is rude not to invite a partner is self-entitlement. It is not anyone's day but the bride and grooms.

It sounds like a misunderstanding to me. I highly doubt that a 20-year-old guy is going to be that desperate to go to the wedding of two total strangers with his girlfriends family to the point that he insists his name is added to the RSVP. I reckon the aunt has just included him without thinking, since it's usual to invite partners.

TheEternalForever - The dog thing is weird. A lot of venues just simply don't allow them whether the bride and groom want them there or not.

When my husband and I married, we had to leave our little dog with some friends. We would've loved for him to come - he's part of the family and it felt wrong not to have him there on the big day but the place we had our wedding said no dogs were allowed (except service dogs obviously). If we could have, we would have let everyone bring their dogs since it was such a lovely place with nice gardens. We even asked our wedding insurance if they would cover any damage our pet did and they said yes but the venue said it had to do with the law rather than it being their policy - no animals are allowed were food is served or prepared by law (or at least that's what the venue said anyway).

Mackerel I think that sounds very plausible now you've said it. OP is this a possibility?

We may never know... hoping OP cmes back and this isn't another 'Hit and Run'

Yeah, get them told asap and do it bluntly.

Regarding children, we had two very whingey, passive-aggressive responses to our not inviting them, including one flouncy refusal to attend. One came from a couple who'd invited no kids to their wedding, one from a couple inviting only half the kids in each family.

I have 3 weddings this year and don't want to take my child to any of them. He's too little.

I think not inviting kids is fine as long as you're consistent. If you say don't bring kids but let even one person invite them it's hardly fair even if they're part of the ceremony like a page boy or flower girl. I'd say the same for plus ones. You can't say 'these people can invite kids/plus ones and these can't'. I mean it's still a bride and groom's choice but expect backlash because many won't understand why some were allowed to do certain things while others weren't whereas if it's a blanket rule and they still don't understand then they're just looking for a free meal and want to squeeze you for all you've got.

Your wedding, your rules. If you want, just say you are trying to keep costs down, then she can't get offended by that.

If you don't want the boyfriend there, that's absolutely your decision. Let the Aunt know and if that causes a problem maybe she and cousins won't come and you can invite some more of your friends!

At our wedding we invited DH's aunt and her long time partner (we'll call him 'Brian'). Shortly after we sent out the invitations the Aunt broke up with Brian but coincidentally started seeing another bloke called Brian. Even though no one in the family had met new Brian, Aunt was determined to bring him because the invitation said '(Aunt's name) and Brian'. Thankfully they broke up before the wedding so we didn't have to deal with it.

We also invited some of DH's parents' friends and one of the couples said they would come but then the husband had to work so the wife asked if she could bring her daughter instead. we'd never met the daughter but this friend was travelling a long distance to come and we felt bad about asking her to travel alone so we said yes. The next request was for the daughter to bring her boyfriend along as well. We were guilted into saying yes, even though numbers we so tight. The daughter and the boyfriend didn't know anyone but had a great time getting dressed up and eating and drinking merrily at our expense.

We had a similar situation, dh's aunt did the exact same thing. I wanted to write back but Dh is a people pleaser so said just to leave it. I was really annoyed.

I had a similar situation at my wedding 6 years ago when I put my foot down about a cousin's boyfriend who I had never met. The cousin didn't end up coming and it sort of caused a small rift for a while. It wasn't pleasant. I don't know what it is with weddings but it definitely brings out the worst in some people.

Of course you have the right to invite who you want to your own wedding. But do give it some thought if you think not inviting him could cause a family rift. Think about the repercussions. Because now when I think back on it, it really wouldn't have mattered if my cousin's boyfriend was there. Not really in the grand scheme of things.

I think people behave this way because they view a wedding as a free night out rather than the celebration it's supposed to be. Some people are just so self-entitled it's unreal.

I know a few people who didn't come to our wedding who we later found out decided not to because we 'didn't even have a free bar' and a few guests who did come commented 'Well it IS a wedding. How are we supposed to celebrate their marriage without a drink ...? It's a little tasteless to not have a free or at least subsidised bar'.

We paid for each guest to have a glass of champagne to toast and for after dinner tea, coffee and biscuits but that's all we could afford (and frankly I wanted to avoid a free bar to discourage rowdy drunken behaviour). Now, though, I wish I hadn't even done that for some of them - so ungrateful! This is not your free night out so you can drink until you pass out. I even had one guest try and dictate what food HAD to be served (we were having a buffet). When I gave the guests the buffet menu (and I was sure I had equal parts vegetarian options as non-vegetarian options and asked guests if they had allergies before I organised the menu with the caterers) said guest went 'oh you might as well just buy us all a Big Mac this isn't wedding food' (the food was not cheap - it wasn't high end but it was good, relatively expensive food). Consequently I cut this 'friend' from my life and her invite to the wedding was retracted and I'm glad to have her out of my life.

Did you list their individual names on the invitation? If you did then yes that's very cheeky. Either way you need to contact them ASAP and clarify that he is not invited. His girlfriend may not come either, but presumably that's a sacrifice you're willing to make.

Years ago, my SIL had conniptions because when she was invited to her cousin's wedding, she took great offence that her 'partner' was not included in the wedding invite. Her 'partner' being the married (to someone else) man that she was having an affair with. SIL threatened to boycott the wedding (including not taking her children) if her lover was not allowed to accompany her.

I got into serious hot water with all my husband's family because I supported the cousin in not inviting the 'partner', and because I gave my opinion that it was completely inappropriate for her ask somebody else's husband to accompany her to ....er....a wedding! Makes an entire mockery of wedding vows IMHO.

Cousin held her ground; SIL didn't go, but allowed other family members to take the children.

SIL divorced her own husband, her lover divorced his wife; they eventually married and have now been together for years. However, my new BIL took great umbrage at my comments at the time and it has taken about 10 years for the heat to settle. To this day they have never visited us, although we make the effort to visit them regularly so that both our kids can know their cousins.

Families....eh!

YANBU! Do not cave - be firm on this one!!

I invited a couple of my parents friends and their two 20-something year old children(who I did know and did like to be fair), one of the children wanted to bring their other half and I said no because a) I wasn't up for paying £100 a head for a total stranger and b) I didn't want anyone at my wedding who I didn't know at all or would probably not know in the future, for sentimental reasons... as expected, they weren't together anymore just a few months later.

(as a side note I also invited someone at work for totally political reasons because I didn't want to be judged and hated by everyone else who thought said person was a saint. within a year they had all sussed that she was a massive bleeping bleep bleeeeeeep and I massively regret it - invite only people you want there. It's YOUR day. don't cave).

Polite but FIRM is the way forward.