Guest advice

Hello!

My fiancee and I decided to do the adults only reception as well, and have a similar issue with family coming from out of state. We decided that we are going to feed the kids and have them leave after dinner with some other family that won't be staying for the reception. We have children in the wedding party as well (my fiancee's kids, my soon to be step kids) and they will be heading out after dinner with the rest of the kids (all their cousins). We've told family that we plan to have an adults only reception that way everyone can have fun and not worry about keeping tabs on their kids. So far we've had very positive responses.

As far as plus one's we decided if someone is in a long term relationship, or engaged/married, then they would get a plus one. If someone is not dating or hasn't really been dating for long, we aren't including them as a plus one. My biggest thing was that I don't want strangers at our wedding, so if I don't know or have never met a boyfriend/girlfriend, then they aren't invited. (I made one exception, to a friend that lives out of state, who's been dating a guy for awhile, but I haven't met him. Since she has to travel so far I thought it was fair to include him).

With all that being said, our guest list was 200. We've narrowed it down and got down to 160, but recently a few friends have gotten pregnant and we know won't be making it. We are considering inviting a few extra now. My thing is, you shouldn't care if people are offended. It's your day. Make it fun and memorable. Good luck!

You’re going to get different answers for this because everyone has different levels of etiquette they follow.


We didn’t have any children in our wedding ceremony, but decided to still invite ALL of them because we didn’t want our guests having to worry about getting a babysitter (also, all the kids we know are super well-behaved). Our wedding was semi-destination so it was nice for parents to be able to take their kids with them and have a vacation. On the flip side, those who didn’t bring their kids were able to have a couples’ getaway. We invited around 50ish people under 21 y/o and had around 25 of them come (about 10 of those were children under the age of 13).
Everyone that was in a relationship (dating for a month, engaged, married) got to bring their significant others regardless of if we’ve met them or not. We addressed the invitations with both names. If we didn’t know the SO’s full name, we would ask our friends. Etiquette-wise, if someone is in a relationship, you should invite their SO. By not inviting their SO, you are saying that you don’t recognize their relationship as “serious” and in reality, only the couple has the authority to determine the level of their relationship.
When it came to single friends, we still gave everyone a plus one. We wanted all our guests to have a good time and be comfortable. Neither one of us has ever NOT gotten a plus one to a wedding and we’ve always appreciated that. Also, for us, a lot of our friends came at different stages of our lives so some may not know as many people at the wedding. We didn’t want those guests feeling weird about not knowing anyone. We just wanted ALL our guests to have the best experience. About 1/2 of those with plus ones brought one and the others went solo probably because they knew enough people there that it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I know many brides on here probably won’t agree with the way we did it, and will say “do what you want, it’s your day!” Which I really do agree with— it’s your money, spend it the way you want to! However, in our specific case, we went into our wedding planning knowing that it wasn’t necessarily for us. Our wedding was more of a “treat” we wanted to give our loved ones— our main focus was our guests and their experience. We knew inviting children and plus ones was important for that so we included it in our budget. For us, the most important thing was having all our family and friends in one place.
I also know my experience is a bit different than some brides since my husband and I got married in our early 30s and have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to our finances.

So...you’re not really having an adults only wedding at all? Yes people will be offended and yes you should care. It’s fine to have the kids that are in the wedding at the reception, but other than that, kids should be an all or nothing thing. Of course someone will be bothered that you excluded their child when there’s clearly kids there.


What your friend did is incredibly rude. We had very few single guests, but they were all given plus ones. Obviously that’s not in the budget for everyone. At minimum, guests in relationships should be invited with their significant others (this isn’t a plus one,) and guests who won’t know others at the wedding should be given a plus one. You mentioned that some people will be traveling to attend your wedding, I would also never expect someone to travel and attend a wedding alone.

View Quoted Comment I love this ❤️❤️

To be honest I know etiquette says everyone in a relationship should have their partner invited but I didn’t do that aha. I couldn’t afford to due to my space. So I also picked and chose. No one really got offended because I chose whomever was extremely shy and didn’t super know people there vs ones who were going with a group of friends. Mine all came down to space issues

Technically, there are no "levels" of wedding etiquette--you're either sticking to it or not. Modern wedding etiquette is basically taglined as "don't be an a-hole to your nearest and dearest family and friends." Getting married is not an excuse to be rude. I work in the wedding industry and I'm a bride myself.

In your case, letting some people bring kids and not others is rude. I'd be pretty pissed if I found a babysitter because I knew you didn't want kids there, only to show up and see a bunch of kids there. The exception to the rule is family children (unless you have a huge number of family members with kids and then don't let a few friends bring their's), kids in the wedding party (if they're the only kids there, people will get it), and small babies/infants.

Plus ones (like children) are usually all-or-nothing situations as well. Each person in a relationship should be invited with their significant others by name, and if you want to extend plus ones to single guests, that's cool. You also don't have to give truly single people plus ones either. The exception to this rule would be single who are traveling far distances and/or will know basically no one at the wedding. As long as the other single people have close friends at the wedding and/or not traveling far distances, they'll typically understand another person being given a plus one.

Personally, I take the all-or-nothing very seriously. While making our guest list, we budgeted plus ones for each person to factor into the total invited. Kids are also invited to our wedding, but I will say, my situation is a bit different that, in our entire 150-person guest list, only two children even exist. We're basically the first of our friends to get married, and we're not close with many family members who have kids.

View Quoted Comment I think everyone’s standard of etiquette for weddings these day. Unless there’s some magical lists that’s the be-all and end-all list that I seemed to have missed. If you even google it, everyone has a different definition of etiquette... this forum is riddled with contradicting opinions.


I do agree not inviting all kids may come off as “rude” to guests, but at the end of the day, it’s her money and she’s free to spend it any way she wants. She does have to think about the repercussions of her decisions and how’ll they affect her relationships with those slighted guests. However, as another PP mentioned, she did the same with plus ones and no one batted an eye. I think it comes down to “knowing your crowd” type of thing.
Different situations call for different solutions. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all for weddings. Though I really wish there was!

View Quoted Comment Let me elaborate a little ...

I honestly thought it would be rude to not include the out of towner’s kids only because they are coming from the other side of the country. (We live in PA, they are coming from CA and there are 5 kids all under the age of 12. I thought people might be understanding because of the fact that they are coming such a ways away from their home. For the record, I am totally against the picking and choosing of who gets to bring a plus one and who doesn’t. I was one of the ones who did not get a plus one at my friends wedding. Obviously, if someone is in a long term relationship their significant other is invited. I have 3 first cousins with 7+ children and counting! I wish it were in our budget to have everyone including kids but it just is not. If you are fortunate enough to be able to have everyone including all of the children that is a blessing you should count twice.

Kids are all or none. Yes people do get offended when you tell one group they can't do something and another group they can.


I've never understood the idea of plus ones but it isn't something that should be a special privilege some guests and not others. Keep it consistent for everyone. But most people don't want random strangers at their wedding who don't care about the couple. Most guests have no problem mixing with the ones already on the guest list without bringing a friend.

I personally think that kids should be an all or nothing thing, because people are bound to get offended (kids in the wedding itself, i.e. flower girls and ring bearers, are the exception). People travel across the country all the time to attend adult-only weddings and simply get a babysitter to come to the hotel for the evening. We had a bunch of guests travel across the country for our wedding, and it was very easy to help get them set up with babysitters. We did invite all the kids to our rehearsal dinner and day-after brunch though, just not the wedding itself. Plus ones should also be all or nothing, in my opinion.

I invited a plus one for all of mine too and only invited close friends and family. People typically feel more comfortable with a plus one. If they don't want to bring someone its their choice but I think etiquette wise that is the thing to do especially friends that may not know your whole family it is nice for them to have someone to be with. I feel I didn't want to be selfish on that matter. If you don't want their plus one to be there then maybe you shouldn't invite them at all then. It goes both ways in my opinion. I agree all or nothing in my opinion.

I had a few people invite their plus ones without me knowing and asking it it was okay nieces/nephews I didn't know were dating anyone. I figured it was the right thing to do to say it was okay because they are family. I'd rather spend a few more dollars to feed them then not invite them because there are more important things than money to me and family is most important. People should want to celebrate with you and that is special they want to spend time to celebrate with you. If you dictate they cannot bring their SO then you are saying their life isn't as important. How would you feel if someone invited your spouse but not you because you aren't married yet even though you are committed to be married. It causes hard feelings in families if you exclude people. If it is a problem and you don't feel it important enough to include the SO in their live then don't invite them. That is my feeling on the topic cut down on the number of people you invite.

It's absolutely up too you and your FH. We too are having close family and friends and if thru didn't advise of a plus one when they accepted there are mo add ins because on the end that's a cost that my FH and I would obtain and we don't have time for that...

View Quoted Comment

Totally agree with this. We are having a wedding so that all of our friends and family from all of our stages of life can be together for one weekend. We want them to feel as comfortable as possible, so everyone is getting a plus one. But we are also only inviting people we are close with and REALLY want to be there. I may have felt different about giving people a plus one if we were inviting like people we don't know that well or talk to like second cousins and friends we haven't spoken to in years.

We invited all SO’s by name and gave plus ones to a few single people who didn’t know anyone else. I believe it was only 2. If our guests were going to have friends there already, they didn’t need a plus one. It went perfectly and everyone had a blast.

Kids are all or none. Either get a babysitter (we did) to handle the kids at the reception or the hotel, or don't invite kids. People will make it work if they want to come.

In terms of plus-1s - we operated on length/seriousness of relationships. The BM suddenly has a girlfriend AFTER invites went out? LOVE you, dude, but no, we haven't met her at all. Ditto with my bridesman (and then I met her... after invites went out... and given how that relationship went, I feel just fine about it). People who complained to me were either ignored, or I pointed out that I was dealing with some major family drama, and I just wasn't going to entertain it from other people. (This usually made people remember that it's rude to ask for a plus one.)

If you make one rule for one set of guests, and one rule for another, that's going to cause problems.

Make one rule, apply it to everyone, and then if they get upset... nope, that's the way you're doing it, everyone is in the same boat.

Generally kids need to be an all or nothing thing, even with out of town guests. If they ask, you can suggest local babysitters that can sit at the hotel where they stay, or something like that.

Same thing with plus-ones - generally you need to have a rule and stick to it, no matter what that rule be. Making exceptions, even if they seem like good ones to you, will upset people.

Etiquette is a funny thing, especially on forums like this. Everyone has different standards of etiquette based on culture, family expectations, and location, and a lot of it is a "know your crowd" situation. One thing that's almost always constant, though, is that making groups of people within the guest list will hurt feelings.

Honestly It's Your Wedding. You Invite Whoever You Want To.