Look, weddings can be boring if you don’t know anyone there. That’s one of the reasons why the plus-one is important. The other reason? Respecting your friends’ and families’ relationships. But what if you just don’t want to compromise?
One Redditor with pretty strict rules about who can come to their wedding is facing some backlash from family, with people saying that she is being too harsh for no meaningful reason.
“I’m getting married and like every other bride, I too have certain rules I want for my wedding to go smoothly. One of them is the no plus ones rule. Only people named in the invitation are invited,” the OP says.
“The criteria I have for people who will get to bring their partners are: 1) BOTH me and my fiancé know of your partner and have met them. If I know your partner and my fiancé doesn’t, that disqualifies them and vice versa. 2) If I’d personally go to dinner with you and your partner. 3) If I’d invite your partner as a separate person anyway and not just because they’re your partner. 4) If your partner is also a friend of mine. Those who meet that criteria get to bring their partners. If they don’t, then they don’t bring them. Simple.”
“That also excludes long term relationships, engaged couples, and married couples as well. We know it might seem harsh but those are the rules we’ve decided to set so we can be more comfortable. It has nothing to do with budget or venue capacity. Purely our choice.”
“Several people have denied the invitation to our wedding due to these rules. One of them is also my cousin. My cousin has been engaged to this girl for 1 year now and he was upset we didn’t include her. The reason she was excluded was because my fiancé hasn’t met her and she’s not a person I’d personally be friends with either. I told my cousin how heartbroken I am that he will not come to the wedding due to this and I expressed my distaste for the fact that he can’t be away from his fiancée for few hours to honor me and my fiancé. Couples don’t have to be together the whole time.”
“Then he basically told me I’m being extremely disrespectful and a huge AH. I asked him to explain and he said word for word: ‘Let me get this clear. You want me to come to honor you to your wedding, honor your love story and all that, but you can’t respect me enough to invite my fiancée? I can be without my fiancée for several hours. Heck we even spend days apart in vacations with our own separate friend groups sometimes. What bothers me is not me being away from my fiancée for some hours, but the fact that you excluded her for those reasons.'”
“I told him those are the rules. Take it or leave it. He says he finds my rules extremely disrespectful but since it’s my wedding he has no say in it. I told him good, and to stop bullsh*tting me then and show his support and respect by attending. He said that while he respects my extremely exclusive and disrespectful rules, I am a fool to believe that he will care more about valuing my wedding over his fiancée.”
What do Redditors think?
“YTA – for guilt tripping your cousin and anyone else you try to pull this sh*t with. Your wedding, your rules, BUT people are allowed to not attend for not liking your rules. Suck it up,” said pissingoffpeople.
“Look, for the millionth time: weddings aren’t JUST for the couple. They are COMMUNITY affairs. They’re celebrations of marriage and coupling ITSELF, not just this particular marriage. No one should come to a wedding who doesn’t support that particular marriage, but also who doesn’t support marriage and the kind of family-building marriage represents, in general. But there’s a reverse logic as well: attendance and invitations must also respect coupling and marriage and the family-building created by unrelated people who come together to form a new family. If you forefront the particular couple’s desires above the institution of coupledom or marriage itself, THEN WHY ARE YOU HAVING A TRADITIONAL WEDDING? You could go in front of a clerk at city hall instead or dance naked under the moon or have a couples mudbath accompanied by a drum circle and solemn swearing. OP wants the benefit of all the traditions without sharing that benefit around, and you can’t get without giving. YTA,” explained JadieJang.
“YTA. You want people to come celebrate your marriage and your relationship by asking them to leave their spouse or long term partner at home? You are misusing the word plus one. That is intended for truly single people. Established couples are to be treated as a unit. Sure. Your wedding and your rules and all that bullshit, but if you create bullshit rules like this you have to expect people to decline. If I had a relative tell me my spouse wasn’t invited because circumstances hadn’t allowed the two of them to meet yet, I’d decline, too,” said MaroonFahrenheit.
“OP gonna be real pissed in the future when her spouse is not invited to family gatherings, but she did it to herself,” said forestfairygremlin.
“YTA for insisting he come. Your rules don’t matter, you get to invite (or not invite) whoever you want. But he has the option to decline the invitation,” noted devlin94.
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