Different wedding invites for bridesmaids partner

[Sunnyheart]

Hello all,

I wanted some opinions on this situation.

I am a bridesmaid for a friend this summer, and received the official invite to the wedding yesterday. When I went to respond on their wedding website, my partner and I had different tabs for our RSVP. I am listed as attending the whole day ( lunchtime ceremony, afternoon reception which includes sit down meal & speeches etc, and evening do) however my partner was listed as only attending the evening do. I messaged my friend to check this was right and in fact he is able to attend the ceremony ( which finishes at 1) and the evening do from 7pm.

Am I being unreasonable to find this strange ?
My partner and I totally understands costs etc and limits to numbers, but part of me does find this rude.

We will need to travel and stay over night in order to attend, and as the venues are slightly out in the sticks it would be logistically a pain for my partner to go back and forth between a hotel and the venues.

I will caveat by saying that my friend hasn't met my partner even though we have been together for 3 years, as my friend has lived across the country for years now. We are very much firm friends and we have known eachother since college, but not as close day to day as we once were and don't see eachother for months at a time.

My partner doesn't really want to attend which I totally understand , although I would love to have him there ofcourse ( and for selfish reasons it would be much more ideal as I don't feel comfortable driving the distance so it will be the cost of a train there and back , looking at close to £100)

Thank you all.

I wouldn’t have invited anyone I didn’t know to my wedding.

This would be the best solution.

For my wedding we had a rule that we shouldn't be meeting anyone for the first time. I am not saying it's right just because we did that more than it's not unheard of. Your partner should be able to occupy himself for a few hours and can meet up with you in the evening. Weddings are so expensive and I can understand her reluctance to invite people she hasn't ever met but I really think it's thoughtful to include him. I was once invited to a wedding and my partner only invited to the evening and my friend explained it was because of costs and numbers, he didn't go and that was reasonable too.

I waived that rule for my single bridesmaids. I said if they wanted to bring a new plus one that was fine by me right up until the day before. They were my bridesmaids because they matter to me, and how they enjoy my wedding mattered to me.

My brother and I got invited to our cousin's wedding without our partners despite our own weddings being a few months away. We went and people just asked where they were!

Having said that, I genuinely can't remember if my chief bridesmaid's partner was at the wedding breakfast or not! Obviously she was on the top table with the Best Man but we had very limited numbers for the sit-down part. I hope we did include him. My other bridesmaid was single. It may be just a numbers game.

I think people who don't give plus ones and only invite some people to parts of the day are cheapskates.

If she values you enough to ask you to be a bridesmaid, she should value you enough to invite your partner to the whole day.

Nothing to do with the price of fish, but everything to do with the treatment of the bridesmaid.

Not sure how it makes you a cheapskate to stick to your budget and "only" spend £20 000 on your wedding, rather than going on and on spending, on people you don't even know.

I stuck to my budget whilst also making sure that my guests actually had a good time. 🤷‍♂️

If you’re close enough to the bride to be a bridesmaid, I can’t see how it’s impossible to have a good time without your partner there.

Your friend isn't being rude at all. She's never met him. And we have no idea if you've ever mentioned anything about him to her that would rub her the wrong way. The fact that he doesnt want to go and meet some of the people important to you for the first time after 3 years should tell us a little something. Let this one slide.