Wedding Guest Plus 1?

[Everanewbie]

I am due to get married at the end of October. My fiance has a lot of friends through his hobby, but is closest with 4 in particular. 3 of which we see as couples who we've invited, and the 4th not so much, but we invited his partner so he didn't feel left out.

We have space and budget for another 10-12 evening guests. Having groups of friends rather than a hierarchy, (another 7 becomes 12, 12 becomes 20 etc!) my fiance and i agreed that we'd invite another 5-6 friends each without partners, otherwise 5-6 becomes 2-3 each.

So my fiance sends invites to several friends, including the father of a groomsman who he participates in the hobby with, independent of the son (wide age ranges at this hobby, don't ask!). He initially accepting the invitation saying him and his wife would be glad to go. After we discussed it between ourselves, we agreed to accept both and say no more of it, especially given that my fiance knew the guests wife/groomsmans mother growing up.

Later, the guest realises it was only an invite for him, not him +1, and has shouted at him over the phone, apoplectic that his wife wasn't initially invited, despite us accepting her, and blanked my fiance since.

Question is, AIBU? Is an invite for an evening for the friends only, without the wife a faux pas, or acceptable? Are we rude, or is this guy batshit crazy?

Its really getting my fiance down as he thought a lot of this guy and is worried about his relationship with the son.

I think you are overthinking how much of an “honour” an evening only invite without a partner is to a wedding! Best thing oils have just been inviting these guys to the Stag.

@Tooembarrassingtomention

These 5 guys and evening only guests were never in the plans, its a small-ish wedding after all, but with the misery of the last 18 months we both decided to open things up a bit to give a few more people a nice time.

You do know that many people dread evening invites to weddings don't you?

Sorry to say, OP, i really agree with this.

Lots of people see evening invitations as second tier / duty invitations.

Your DH got it wrong, unfortunately. You invite people to your wedding to celebrate with you - not to 'bestow' on them a nice time.

That said - the fella who shouted over the phone is a NUTTER! What an overreaction. I'd certainly be distancing from him.

@Tooembarrassingtomention

These 5 guys and evening only guests were never in the plans, its a small-ish wedding after all, but with the misery of the last 18 months we both decided to open things up a bit to give a few more people a nice time.

You do know that many people dread evening invites to weddings don't you?

Well no. I'm not sure what is backing up this statement. You might do, and your friends might do. But pretending that this is a fact rather than your opinion for a second, in answer to your question, no, i clearly didn't otherwise we'd have capped it at day guests and had zero fucking evening guests.

An evening invitation means- a gift as if at the full event- driving so you cant drink or taxis or overnight stay.

You can get a pretty good night out locally for that much money here.

I did say that many people dread- not all people dread- I am sure that some love it.

@Doidontimmm

I think you are overthinking how much of an “honour” an evening only invite without a partner is to a wedding! Best thing oils have just been inviting these guys to the Stag.

Fucks sake I'm losing the will to live here. We sent an invite, we're not trying to bestow anything on anyone. We're full up on day guests. Maximum budget and room capacity.

I assumed that people are grown up enough to understand capacities and budgets and take an invite (not an offer of an OBE or a fucking honoury doctorate) in the spirit it is intended i.e. We're getting married, we would love it if you could come along for a drink, a piece of cake, a dance, a cocktail and a glass of champagne. Great if you can, understand if you can't or don't fucking want to.

I've been to many weddings where there are day and evening guests, but usually there is quite a significant number of evening only guests.

I do think adding just 10-12 evening guests looks as though you're just trying to make up the numbers rather than actually wanting those people there.

I would have left it as the day guests only. However, I do think this man has been very rude and I would be pleased if he was no longer attending.

Weird man to kick off! Just decline and leave it.

I’d say it depends a bit how old people are. An invite without a partner seems ok in your 20s but is a bit mean if any older. It’s a family occasion and seems the kind of thing people want to attend together?

That said, I’m not much of a fan of weddings so wouldn’t mind being left behind. That happened once and I didn’t mind a bit! So maybe depends on other halves too and how much they like weddings.

We are just giving our opinion but you are getting sweary & arsey! I think you have really upset the guy & his wife unintentionally I know but evening invites without partners are a bit shit in all honesty, especially in that age bracket.

So did you just invite the dad to just fill up numbers for the evening? or was he someone your DP really wanted there? I'm a bit confused.

But yes, its very rude to invite just one half of a couple and especially so when you know the other half and they've been a couple for a very very long time. The bulk of the guests were all invited with partners except for the handful (very odd, sorry) of evening guests.

I expect his reply, though rude, was born out of the fact that his wife was extremely upset at not even being considered, as you actually know her. You've basically announced you want her son and husband there, but not her.

Also £30 a head for a burger for evening guests? For real?

You shouldn't have bothered having people for the evening when it was only 10-12 people. If they weren't going to make the wedding guest list then just leave them out altogether. If I was one of 10 people to be invited to the evening bit, where there were 80 at the actual wedding, I'd give it a miss.

YABU to have left the wife out given the longstanding relationship she has with your Dh, as his good friends mum. While the father was unreasonable to have shouted, I understand his annoyance.

Apologies. I don’t mean to be arsey and sweary. I’ll admit I was hoping that more people would agree with me, or at the very least see that our intentions were good in inviting a few people we hadn’t originally planned to, even if we’ve not quite got it right.

I appreciate peoples opinions, even if it’s telling me I’m wrong, but what I don’t appreciate is critiquing my wedding as weird because we’ve decided to invite a few evening guests and a subtext implying selfishness when maybe clumsy/misguided is about as strong as it gets here.

@Notaroadrunner

You shouldn't have bothered having people for the evening when it was only 10-12 people. If they weren't going to make the wedding guest list then just leave them out altogether. If I was one of 10 people to be invited to the evening bit, where there were 80 at the actual wedding, I'd give it a miss.

YABU to have left the wife out given the longstanding relationship she has with your Dh, as his good friends mum. While the father was unreasonable to have shouted, I understand his annoyance.

Fiancé also knows the mothers and fathers of two other groomsmen. He knows both fathers from the hobby but has not asked either dad. Perhaps we should have done the same with this dad too.

I understand why you invited the 5 sportsmen with no partners and it would've been fine if they were just 5 of your partners friends.

However, he 100% should have invited the wife if he's know her since childhood and her husband, son and DIL are all invited. It does look like a snub IMO.

My fiancé knows her as in he went round their house for tea in his teens. I have never met her and have only met the guy once. We don’t know each other as “couples”. We invited the guy in his capacity as a sportsman not “friend of the family” alongside 4 other sportsman.

These 5 guys and evening only guests were never in the plans, its a small-ish wedding after all, but with the misery of the last 18 months we both decided to open things up a bit to give a few more people a nice time

Just wow. How nice of you.
So you didn't actually want them there anyway? Just invited them to give them a nice time? But totally oblivious to the fact you've just insulted one of their wives? You invited the groomsmans dad but not his mum. Incredibly insulting. And how do you know the other 4 blokes are not sat at home thinking, wtf, why isn't my partner invited?

Wouldn't it have been better to have invited another 2 or 4 day guests that you actually wanted there? It does look really odd to have only 10 extra people joining in the evening.

When you are planning a wedding, you are almost guaranteed to offend somebody. I got married 28 years ago, and there are people who still moan at me about not being invited! (This is despite me having almost no input into the guest list- there were 240 of Mr Croft's closest friends and family, and 10 from my side).

Don't give it any more headspace. You might have got it wrong (according to him) but it wasn't done with malicious intent. Let your fiancé deal with it, or just move on and forget it (in my family, these things would be approximately the same in terms of anything actually happening!).

I know that wedding planning can be incredibly stressful, which can mean that tiny issues can seem much more important than they actually are. All that has actually happened is that someone misunderstood and then had a tantrum. Much worse things could have happened.

I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong OP. It wouldn’t bother me at all if DH was invited to something as part of a group without me. I can’t imagine a more tedious evening than him with his hobby group prattling away about their mutual interest.

I think your DF needs to have a chat with his Groomsman and explain it as you’ve explained it here (without the prices!) and let them work it out between them. Dad blew a fuse and quite likely will regret it.

Hope it all works out and you have a lovely day.

Thank you QueeniesCroft. I’m glad you can at least appreciate our feelings.

Bookworm, well thanks for the support. I never knew an invitation to a party was such an insult. Suddenly the 6 person lockdown wedding sounds more attractive.

And those questioning our prices/day etc. Well it’s what we want and we’ve worked hard and endured a fair bit of uncertainty in the planning stage with COVID, bereavement, Illness etc I hope you can appreciate that we would like a nice venue with the corresponding price tag. In any case it’s far too late to change it now.

My fiance is just saying he wishes he hadn't been naive enough to try to do something nice for a few of his pals

This isn’t why you invite people to your wedding though is it? To do something nice for them.

Oh it's such a minefield. Perhaps your fiancé shd have invited the wife given she knows his mum but it wasn't an intended insult and he really was quite rude to lose his rag like that. Not cool, but then old men aren't always, he sounds like a grumpy arse.

I'd leave it alone, see if he settles down. Hopefully he's embarrassed about his behaviour in the cold light of day, he's behaved like a bit of an entitled oaf.

If they turn up and you are introduced you can say "oh" knowingly and give a polite smile with a head tilt.

He should not have screamed. That is never ok. However, inviting someone without their spouse to anything but an extremely small wedding is incredibly rude. For example, if the wedding was just your parents and siblings and no one else, you could get maybe get away with not inviting spouses. It’s completely different than not including a plus 1. A plus 1 is a date not a spouse.

I think his reaction was out of order, totally. A huge over-reaction.

However, I do think that spouses generally should be invited when they both know the person getting married. I also think at 60, it's a long and established marriage so may seem ruder to the guy in question, I know my parents would never expect to be invited alone to a wedding, having been married for 36 years.

So he's wrong to over-react the way he has, but equally I can see where the awkwardness is in this invite.

If I were your DP I'd have a chat with the groomsman and explain that no offence was meant to his parents at all.

I don't know much about wedding etiquette, but I don't think you were rude. Would have been different if you'd regularly socialised with this woman then excluded her, but neither of you do. Regardless, when he assumed she was invited you accepted, so no harm done. His reaction was horrible and I wouldn't want him there after that, though!

Anyway, it's definitely not as rude as a family member of mine who made a point of contacting friends and family who weren't invited to let them know that they couldn't come as they hadn't made the cut. 😁

I love mumsnet one thread over and all the advise is “it’s their wedding/stop making it about you/they are entitled to any decision they make on their day” etc etc (that particular thread I did think the bride was a little bit mean but hey ho)

And on this one you are rude and even your wedding reception is being questioned and mildly insulted - I mean I’m relatively new to here but it’s hilarious you never know if your feed is going to get the haters or the supporters. I’ve seen identical topics get either the latter or the former!

Anyway. Don’t worry about it. You had you’re reasons anyone who calls someone up and shouts over something like this really isn’t worth your time end of. My hubby was once invited on a stag do and not the wedding or evening - he didn’t bat an eyelid we just laughed and said each to their own and he enjoyed the stag!

YABVVU.

Evening invites are a way of having extra people that you want to celebrate with, without costing a fortune. The thought of individual evening invites, not extended to partners is completely batshit