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

YABU

They are limiting numbers. I had 120 for sit down dinner at my wedding, and still had to cut numbers, so some friends their partners, even husbands weren't invited. We only invited couple who me and DH socialise with as a couple. So I had a few friends who I didn't invite their husbands as those husband places were needed for more of my actual friends. I did say they were welcome to the evening do, some came to that some didn't. Your partner is their friend, you clearly aren't close to them, inviting you would mean another friend can't be invited. Don't take it personally.

You are being Very unreasonable. Tbh I’m sure they are regretting inviting your husband now.

Completely this

I feel stupid that I allowed him to message and ask. I didn't know that was rude. At my wedding I did have someone who I didn't know had a partner message me and ask to add him- which I happily did- so I thought it was ok.
I do understand that they are having a small wedding and that explains it, and everyone here has explained it to me that my understanding of etiquette was wrong/outdated so apologies.
I didn't know they were having a small wedding - all the other clues (wedding website, large registry, large venue, sending invites so far in advance) hinted towards a normal wedding.

We wouldn't have minded if we hadn't been invited entirely so I don't think it's quite fair to say that I'm trying to wrangle an invite out of entitlement. One of the couples who came to our wedding are also having a 20 person wedding that we are not invited to- not a problem at all and wouldn't dream of asking!

Not because it will change people's advice but just because a few people have mentioned, DH is not going as part of a group of friends/colleagues. He may not know anyone apart from the couple. It's a 3+ hour drive. They were good friends at school but do not regularly see eachother (hence why I'd only met them once)

I have mild ASD so I find the "rules" of things very important and I find it confusing when I have one understanding of the rules and people do something else.
I don't particularly want to go to the wedding but I was trying to understand whether my understanding of the "rules" was incorrect - which I can now see it was - or whether people were deliberately leaving me out.

Thank you all for clarifying

They never planned for you to be there you never invited them. A lot of couples will be having smaller ceremonies. With the cost of living increasing so not wanting to blow so much money on one day.

I don’t think you are being unreasonable. I think it is normal to invite both halves of a married couple to a wedding.
I also think it was ok for DH to ask as long as he knows the bride well enough for her to say no sorry.

try not to get stressed about it…

I voted YABU because it’s unreasonable to expect an invitation to someone’s wedding. But they are being a bit odd to invite only one half of a married couple - and in your DH’s shoes, I’d be saying thanks but no thanks. All very odd.

Weddings are boring shite. Have a lovely day doing exactly what you want to do. Enjoy. 🤗

As I've explained, it's not that I want to go to the wedding (I don't) but trying to understand what "should" have happened as I struggle with social understanding.

I see now that real life opinions vary from the etiquette I read online and I have apologised for getting it wrong.

FYI I didn't "not want them at my wedding" DH dealt with invites, and I'm finding it a bit distressing to be told I've done something wrong as that was not my intention at all. I've tried really hard to get things "right" and I'm sad I've messed up this time.

How did you have space to ‘happily add’ someone’s partner if you didn’t have space to invite friends you actually wanted there…?

@Artemi you haven't done anything right or wrong. DH asked for an extra invite, that's on him. He dealt with the invites, that's in him. Try not to take it personally

I don't want to be harsh, as this seems to stem from insecurity, but think about this logically. You didn't invite either of them due to numbers, when they sent out their invitations you were not engaged, they also have restrictions due to numbers.

You could argue it was a bit rude of you not to invite them to your wedding knowing that they have invited you. I would say it was probably fine, as you had to stick to your numbers. However, it is the same for them too. Please just forget about this and treat yourself to a nice day with friends or something whilst your husband attends the wedding.

The lovely thing about weddings in the 21st century is that you don't have to follow strict rules. Weddings have become much 'freer' in the choices people can make. OTOH a whole industry has grown up around charging people for things that really aren't necessary, and for overcharging people for everything once someone mentions the word 'wedding'. So you don't "have to" do anything. People make different choices, and the only thing I would say you "should" do, is make the day in to the day you want it to be. Yes, make sure guests are comfortable but remember it is your day and you should make choices that make it into the day you both want.

I didn't know they were having a small wedding - all the other clues (wedding website, large registry, large venue, sending invites so far in advance) hinted towards a normal wedding.

Actually, it doesn't matter if it is considered 'small', 'normal', 'medium', large, or extra large. If the limit is 20, 50, 80, 120, or 180, if you are the 21st or 51st or 81st or121st or 180st person then you aren't invited. Some people have huge families, some people have tiny families. Some people's families are really close, other less so. Some people are part of several friendship groups, some don't have many friends at all - it isn't a simple case of comparing numbers.

Incredibly rude to invite the husband but not the wife. Your husband should decline the invitation.

Yabvu and I'm cringing at your dh asking them to add you to the invite now you are married, that is so rude. (Even if you had invited them to your wedding. The fact you didn't makes it even worse).

Actually, I just want to give you a bit of a hug.

I read this thread, at first, kind of appalled about the sense of entitlement. I'm planning a wedding myself and I'm sure you remember: overnight, you become a neurotic events organiser. It's like an Apprectice episode without the suits but more emotional blackmail.

Fair play to you for taking on the comments, some of them were pretty blunt and also a reality check, which you recognised, and I think you've taken that very gracefully. You've been candid about your own insecurities and now I read you have ASD and things fall a little more into place. Rules are important for you, I imagine, because they make you feel confident and safe in how you and others will or should behave. It can be anxiety-enducing to lack the confidence to read social cues or understand a landscape of ever-changing etiquette - as you can see on this thread, there's huge disagreement about what is and isn't acceptable regarding wedding invites.

On that, I'm of the opinion that what's acceptable is whatever the bride & groom want to do, it's their day and they will have their priorities and budget - yes, it might be painful to realise you are not on the list. People have different priorities and weddings come weighted with (sometimes conflicting) social and family expectations and huge costs.

My best advice to you is for you not take it personally and for DH to go - or not, it doesn't matter - but perhaps, if feeling closer to his friends is important to you, make an effort to get to know them in a less pressured setting later in the year. You could celebrate their (and your) good fortune and perhaps throw in an apology for the wedding misunderstanding. But really, this stuff isn't important in the grand scheme of things.

Congrats on your own wedding BTW. You are now officially a "social unit" as a previous poster (who presumably time-travelled from the 1800s) stated. Go well.

I’m surprised so many find it the norm not to invite partners. That’s not my experience at all.

But having done so, nothing’s really changed (I don’t think married couples trump other couples - this just leads to people who got married on a whim after a month being treated more seriously than people in stable relationship for 10 years) so I wouldn’t expect the invitation to change. It was extremely rude to ask them to change it. I suspect they might have considered doing so without being prompted if they’d been invited to your wedding.

It wasn’t a space issue but a preference to keep the wedding small, according to what the OP has written.

I think she sounds very gracious when you take in the full picture.

Op i am sorry I missed you saying you had ASD, that does explain why you were so worried about rules. The thing is to a large extent people make their own rules around their guest lists. We absolutely wanted children at our wedding, others have no children ect. Also even large weddings have limits on guests making it hard to add in extras.

Please don't beat yourself up about it. I am sure it is all fine. The bride will as you know have plenty of other things to worry about around the wedding. If you are worried about it though, you could always message the bride to say you absolutely understand about numbers and hope they able an amazing day. You could also (if you wanted to) say that you are so sorry that due to having such a small wedding yourself you were not able to invite them to your day, but would love to invite them over for a meal to celebrate both of your recent weddings.

Only if you would want to do this though, don't think you in anyway have to. Think it is all fine. Just make sure you have a lovely day planned for the day of the wedding, so you get to enjoy yourself too.

Quite a few smug marrieds on this thread, who seem to think BEING married gives them a higher understand of weddings and therefore makes them more suitable to attend weddings than us ignorant single simpletons. All a bit grim unfortunately.

My husband wouldn't go to a wedding if I wasn't invited !

@Artemi I think you need to think that this is less about you and more about what those people want for their wedding ( & can afford , what they have planned for etc for over a year it sounds like ) This is not your day & it is not personal to you I suspect - so let DH go and over the years to come you, DH & Anna and Ben may become great friends - if not then one day wasn't worth the asking.

You say there were other friedns you wanted at your wedding - why did you only have 25 people then? That seems a bit odd to have such a small wedding when actually you wanted more people.
op, I’m sure if they were sending out invites now you’d be invited as a friends wife. It’s just they did all that when you weren’t a wife or a fiancée. And by the time you were married they had their numbers set and couldn’t add people- it may not be that small a wedding but many people can’t add extras late in the organising. So your instincts to invite them both were right, you don’t need to sit there second guessing yourself. Neither have they done anything unreasonable. We were engaged 18m
before our wedding and I told my best friend her new date would have an invite if she wanted him to. I wouldn’t have done that for anyone else!

@THEDEACON - Really? - nothing against that point of view but I could imagine a situation where DH went without me to a wedding - I have been to one without him.

@rainbowmilk - see above - because I am married to 1 chap doesn't give me the right to attend another wedding as his wife unless I am invited. Maybe after 27 years I just can't be bothered with the drama some ( I repeat some ) weddings engender and just invite who you like and do what you want and what you can afford and everyone else be happy if invited or try to understand what the couple are doing and be happy for them.

You don't really know them... why would you want to be invited?
If you had invited them to your own wedding, that would be different.
You wanted a small wedding. They have said they want a small wedding.
You didn't invite them because of numbers; they are doing the same.
Looks pretty much in balance to me. Please don't let your DH feel awkward if he chooses to go to the wedding, even though you haven't been invited.