Not invited to this wedding?

[Artemi]

I might just be being insecure so the blunt advice of the AIBU vipers is welcome.

My husband is invited to a wedding in a couple of months, and I am not invited. It is of a school friend of his (Anna) and her partner (Ben)
At the time the invitation was received (a whole year before the wedding) we were not yet engaged, although we were living together. I didn't know the couple, so I understood not being invited.

We recently got married this month. The wedding was modest and small- under 25 guests. We did not invite Anna and Ben, purely due to numbers. Not to dripfeed, the reason for keeping it small was due to social anxiety and also because I only had 2 family members, so didn't want to feel uncomfortable by my husband having loads more guests than me.
We did however invite people's long-term partners even if we hadn't met them

Since being engaged and planning a wedding of our own, and now married, I have felt increasingly uncomfortable to not be invited to Anna and Ben's wedding. This probably relates to low self esteem and wanting to be accepted by my husband's friends (There has been some difficulty with other friends of his being unwelcoming to me so this probably clouds my judgment)

My husband messaged Anna politely and asked whether I would be able to come to their wedding but she said no, (quite bluntly) saying that they are having a small wedding.

YANBU: now that we are married and they have also met me, it's a little bit rude to not expand the invitation to include me.

YABU: you offended them by not inviting them and it's therefore understandable that they wouldn't invite you

Thank you

Yeah this - are their parents friends or something?
Maybe your H himself is a 'duty' invite?
DP's family are big on 'keeping in touch'.
He has a couple of 'failure to launch' childhood friends still living at home, whom his parents feel sorry for as everyone else has left. They keep pestering DP to keep in contact, and are hinting that said friends should be invited to our wedding.
If his parents want them there ... they can pay for a bigger venue.

I think maybe the reason I'm feeling upset is that I personally would have much preferred to not invite partners I hadn't met, and I did struggle on the wedding day itself due to this, hang on.. you're upset becuase they did what you wanted to do?!

Do you not have work friends who don’t know your husband? Or say friend through running club, or old school friends who you still see on girls nights out?

do you also think single people should never attend weddings? After all they go alone to a ‘celebration of love’

I don’t quite get the bashing of OP and their partner here…I would always invite couples together, and I don’t see an issue with asking if my partner can come, should I be invited to something. And if it’s no due to limited numbers, then fine and no problem.

OP, don’t take it personally that you’re not invited, there were reasons for this, and please also ignore all these negative comments here, I think you and your DH did nothing wrong. X

YABU - but not because they are offended (tho might find your DH a bit of a CF, not on to text this to the bride).
They created their wedding list before your wedding and you also didn’t invite them. I generally do agree with inviting established couples, but you weren’t really known to them like this at the time and can’t have cared much to change that before now.
I don’t know why you even want to go, as you say you felt uncomfortable with people’s partners at your own wedding. Surely you would feel even more uncomfortable, knowing less people and you don’t even get on well with some of them from what you said.
Plan something nice for yourself that you can look forward to instead.

If you have social anxiety (hence the small wedding yourself) then surely going to someone who you don't knows wedding full of other people you don't know would be absolutely hellish.

@DaniRabbity I can’t work out if you’re being serious or not?

Sorry if I missed something but where did you get the idea he was just some bloke and that they aren’t that close?

Of course you can be good friends with someone or in a group of friends and not know their partner well. My school friends and I are close including some that are men and we usually meet up with each other without partners. I do know their partners and we have socialised with them occasionally but usually we all meet without partners there so partners aren’t as well known.

Partners don’t have to be attached at the hip and intertwined into every aspect of each other’s lives.

If you had such a small wedding due to anxiety why are you so desperate to go to a wedding that you’re not invited too??

It’s bizarre that you don’t have your own friends really, no one from work / sports clubs / hobbies / no one from school who might invite a group of people but not their partners

im there like a lemon on my own at an event that’s supposed to be celebrating love

is there a memo that single people arent allowed to attend weddings?

Completely agree

Why?
I mean it's great if you have the space to invite everyone, but I wouldn't prioritize someone we barely knew over people whose presence we actually cared about.
It can also be a bit awkward if the partner doesn't know anybody and feels left out, or their partner feels obliged to entertain them and ends up constrained the whole evening.

I wouldn't care about that wedding at all and absolutely wouldn't ask my husband to message them to check.

Why would you even go to a wedding where you knew nobody else?
Just decline the invite.

I was always taught it’s bad manners to ask for a plus one to a wedding. I am pretty sure all the etiquette books agree with me.

but it might be a cultural thing?in my social circles it would be frowned upon. Maybe for really big weddings which have a buffet rather than sit down meal this would be okay? You are basically asking the host to fork out say another £60 - £100 for a meal for someone you didn’t want to invite.

You didn't invite them to yours, so why the hell would you expect an invite to theirs?! Bizarre behaviour.

You wanted a small wedding, so do they.

It's fine. Don't take it personally.

If you had invited them to your wedding they may well have reciprocated and invited you but you did not invite any of them so can hardly expect an invite to their wedding. Your DH must decide whether to attend alone or decline invite. Not inviting them to your wedding despite your DH being invited to their wedding will surely mean they won't like you much.

YABU, but not for your reason, but because they’re having a small wedding! You had a small wedding and didn’t invite either of them!

stop making their wedding about you.

YABU and by your DH asking if you could come, he's probably ended any chance of you ever getting on, frankly.

Just said that I wouldn’t call someone impolite or in the wrong for asking…probably the DH didn’t know whether it’s a big or a small wedding, and obviously the couple didn’t know that he got married since the invite, so I don’t see why everyone is so judgemental with OP and DH

YABU
The wedding invites were sent out a long time ago. The numbers will have been set at that point- presumably limited by choice, venue capacity or budget (or combination of these). At the time the invites were sent, they hadn’t met you/you weren’t engaged or married (and you did not invite them to your small wedding) so you didn’t get an invite. That seems totally reasonable. They probably cannot easily add people now without uninviting someone else, even if they wanted to (and they might not want anyone else there). Your DH has been rude to ask them to add an additional person to the wedding because you now “aren’t comfortable” with not getting an invite- your feeling that way is completely irrelevant. It’s not up to you. The only thing you can do is for your DH to decide not to go. That may have wider implications for his friendship with these friends, but that’s for him to say up.

In your position, I would simply accept that the most likely position is that when your DH’s friends were planning numbers/deciding who to invite they had not met you and so you didn’t get an invite to the wedding due to restricted numbers. Presumably, they are inviting family and close friends. If they had to invite all partners, perhaps they’d have to have invited fewer of the people they actually want at their wedding? Anyway, whatever the reasoning, the wedding plans have been sorted for a while now and the fact that your situation has changed (I.e. you are now married) has no bearing on their wedding.

Well I've been added on to evening receptions with someone else where it was just drinks/finger food. Also large Indian wedding, all welcome at the buffet ;)
Definitely not for sit down meals.

I don't know how you'd know in advance? All of these were people the original invitees were close to, and spoke to regularly. Don't know how you'd find out with a duty invite.

I was replying to the part about always inviting couples together.
Why? I mean what's the thinking, etiquette rule or whatever behind it?

Also to add @coffi123 sorry if that's a bit abrasive - genuinely curious.
If I invited all partners I'd need a much bigger venue! And some of these are work colleagues. Their partners would know nobody else at the wedding, so would just feel out of place at well.