No plus ones to friends wedding

[VelmaKe11y]

We live in leeds and she is getting married in Edinburgh in December. She has just told us in our friends group chat that our partners aren’t invited, and will just be ourselves.

We can all travel over there together and stay over somewhere so it’s not as if I’ll be going on my own. But I have never heard of this before. I have recently got engaged myself and it never occurred to me to invite people but not their partners?? Is this a common thing?

That’s a really sensible way of doing it. Completely agree about people who won’t know anyone else.

I think it makes sense. Especially for friends, when the friends themselves are a close knit group without the partners. It can be awkward when the friends are thick as thieves and the partners don’t know each other and sit there like spare parts. Obviously it keeps costs down with numbers using being capped, if it comes to who should be cut out I can see why parters might be first to go!
Also, and I’m not saying this is true for any of your friend group (or maybe it is and she’s being clever doing this), some people say no partners to avoid their mates bringing their boyfriend of six weeks or latest casual shag…..I hate that at weddings it’s so tacky!

Now THIS is something I really, really don’t understand.

I get it for groups of friends who you dont socialise with as couples but otherwise I would be embarrassed not to invite partners. I would rather have a smaller wedding that I could afford than be cutting costs by not inviting people. Same for guests being invited to the evening part only.

I didn’t get a plus one for a close friend’s wedding due to numbers. I did know some people there, but I had a rubbish time. It felt weird. I was engaged myself at the time. I left early.

I've not come across it, but I've not been invited to a wedding in a while. But it makes perfect sense to me. Weddings are expensive and smaller weddings often have a nicer feel. If I had a group of friends who all knew each other, but we didn't really know each other's partners, then it would seem perfectly sensible to me to invite the group of friends but not partners and keep numbers manageable.

This. ^ The very idea that a person who would rather go to a wedding with their partner is incapable of being alone, or socialising alone - EVER, and is co-dependent and needy and in a suffocating relationship, is farcical and laughable, and is an utterly ludicrous and pathetic assumption.

I think it is perfectly normal and acceptable to want to go to a wedding with someone else - preferably your husband or wife, and does NOT mean you are joined at the hip, or needy, or afraid to do stuff alone! Such silly, laughable, narrow minded assumptions!

Like you @WhatAreYouDoingSundayBaby I also do things regularly without DH, with friends, my cousin, one of my adult DC, and gasp even on my own! But big events like weddings, or a big 40th, 50th, or 60th birthday party, I do prefer to go with DH.

Personally I actually think it's bloody odd to prefer going to a wedding, without your husband or wife. (Like a few people on here....!) As I said, (on another similar thread,) I do wonder if some posters on here actually even like their partners! 😬

@VelmaKe11y It's absolutely fine to do this. I went to one a couple of years ago which was exactly like this and it was great. The bride was an ex-colleague and 6 of us used to still meet up 3 or 4 times a year. When she got married, the venue was very restricted numbers wise, so she invited us all and said to us from the get-go that we were all each others partners.

It was absolutely fine, we all knew each other and we had a lovely time. It would have been different, obviously if we didn't know each other and were expected to attend on our own without someone or a proper group of people who we could sit with that we knew.

Just remember to not give her a +1 when you get married.

I don’t think it’s sad. I think it’s perfectly reasonable. People don’t always have to come as a twosome to everything. If only one half is friends with the bride and groom then why invite the other half unless it’s to keep their partner company in the case of not knowing any other guests.

I think this is really fair. She's not asking you to come alone. She's asking you to come as a friendship group. Thats reasonable.

Yes, very common. Even 30 years ago I was attending weddings without my husband - eg, weddings for my work colleagues.

It's always been common for people I know to invite groups of friends without plus ones, providing they don't socialise with the partners too. But close, long term friends they see a lot of and know the partners of, not so much.

i think I prefer it when a group of girlfriends are invited without partners.. the partners don’t necessarily get on or know each other and the friendship is based around the group dynamics without the partners.

From my experience this is normal, especially if there is a group of friends and the couple getting married don’t necessarily know their partners.
Im really close with a small group from work, we socialise a lot together outside work, have a WhatsApp group etc, I don’t see them as colleagues I see them as my friends. There’s 9 of them who would 100% be invited to be wedding but I’d expect them to come as a group, I don’t really know their partners that well. Having their partners there would change the dynamic for them and just wouldn’t be necessary. Same with a group of friends from home, three girls I’ve known since school and we get together a few times a year for spa days or afternoon tea. I’ve been to two of their weddings and partners haven’t been invited, we just go as a group.
Whereas I have a lot of other friends who’s partners I know really well, and we would double/triple date etc, so it would be weird for their partners not to come. I think it just generally depends on different group dynamics, but is very normal.

I am in the same boat OP but an evening only invitation.

I mean, I love a good few too many glasses of wine and a party and I love my friend and our mutual friends, I am not complaining about that part.

But, It's 70 miles away, so will involve a hotel or a sober evening while everyone is sozzled and a long drive back-neither of which appeal.

I am sure the bride has very valid reasons of course, I do understand. But a long drive and/or a hotel stay costing ££, for what is essentially a couple of drinks?

Bit 'meh', isn't it?

I think if the invitee doesn’t know anyone else, then they should get a plus one. If they know a few people, and all those people are invited without plus ones, then that’s fine.

It's not at all unusual nowadays apparently. Especially when there will be a lot of guests at the wedding.

You'll have a good time, just girls travelling and staying together.

We invited our friends then their partner/spouse by name if we were also friends with them, which felt pretty standard. I have been to weddings without my husband/boyfriend with my friends with no shared history with him, he has been to a few without me and then we have been to some together.

I would have found it weird to pay for everyone to have a "plus 1" for no real reason tbh - it isnt as though you don't know anyone else! It would also have meant that we would have potentially had a load of randomers in the wedding photos whereas as it happens, a decade on, all the couples we invited are still together and are still our friends. Just go and have a lovely girly weekend, don't over think it.

We have also only ever been to "full day" weddings. No one invited "evening only" guests and they were all weddings of around 60 people where everyone had travelled a distance (sometimes internationally) to be there for their friend/close relative.

I think it's pretty normal (and fine) especially when it's groups of friends who can all go together.

Married or partner makes no difference IMO.

I got married a long time ago but I would say most venues round here can only hold a certain number of people for the sit down meal. So it's not just cost per head...it's also how many people will actually fit.

Lovely to read this thread, on which almost everyone is agreeing it is a sensible, and normal thing to do, and it is great that it has become more normalised to do this, compared with the other thread running where some people hold a very different opinion.

The only time I have been in this situation is when it was a colleagues wedding, there were no plus 1s and to be honest it was basically a works night out which dh would not have wanted to attend anyway.

Any family or close friends though and I would expect an invite as a couple or I would politely decline and so would DH.

@BatchCookBabe - I prefer it because at that event I am the only person my spouse would know.

As he's not exactly the gregarious sort in crowds (fabulous bloke, but on the quiet side) I would need to spend most of my time socialising with him and including him in all conversations rather than having a bloody good gossip with my gang of mates.

I spend most evenings and weekends with him. I rarely get together at a big bash with pals. So I'd prefer that.

All the weddings I have been too with a friend marrying has always been just the friends on one table and no partner. I love it and much prefer it without my husband there! My wedding day I wanted to sit on my friends table (again no partners) because they were all having fun and a laugh and I was on top table being sensible around my parents and in-laws!

Another piece of advice that's become outdated is to mix up groups at tables - married couples used to be put on tables sat separately from each other at the table, with a bunch of people they don't know so people could mix.

I've been to 30 weddings in the past decade and only two separated friends and only one separated partners.

People live far apart from their friends, often moving for university then work. Weddings are more of an opportunity to socialise with your friends than to meet new people.