'Frugal' couple getting married responds 'ok, no worries' to guests who decline over no plus-ones. AITA?
"AITA for just responding 'ok, no worries' to people who decline our wedding invite for not getting a plus-one?"
My fiancée and I are planning our 2025 wedding and are working with a relatively frugal budget. Our parents have helped a little but most of it is on us, which is fine. The venue we've chosen that fits our style and budget has a hard cap on the amount of people allowed.
My fiancée and I also both went to undergrad and grad school and have a lot of friends from different points of our lives. We want to prioritize people we know over plus ones. For the purpose of this I'm defining plus one as anyone who would accompany the guest we actually are friends with (so my buddy's wife is considered a plus one even though her name is on the invite since I barely know her).
We've made the cutoff for who gets to bring one if they are married, engaged, or live together. This describes the relationships of about 80% of the people invited. While we expected to get around a 70% acceptance rate since were getting married in peak wedding season, so far almost everyone has accepted.
So we're really coming close to the maximum allowed people. Also to be frank, we just dont want to pay $200 a person for people who are only there because of who they're dating if things aren't serious.
A few people are upset that they cant bring their bfs/gfs of around 1-2 years who they dont live with, are not engaged to, and are not married to. Ive had multiple cousins are friends who are not in the wedding party complain and text me they won't be going if I won't let them bring their partner as a date.
To not make it a case by case thing, Ive just responded to them all with a quick "Ok, no worries." Most people just dont respond, but a few people have gotten a little heated and sent some not so happy replys. So far I just havent engaged and my fiancee things I may be a little too cavelier with it all (though she agrees on our rule for who to invite).
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
throw05282021 said:
NTA. I would have replied differently, though. "Sorry to hear that. Thank you for letting us know."
Thelmara said:
NTA, but "I understand, we'll miss you" would probably work better.
Dlynne242 said:
Your cut off rule is more inclusive than my daughter’s, who is also getting married next year. Only people invited are people who are actively in their lives. I’m in full support, but am already getting blowback from a couple of people who expected to be invited because of their connection to me. I’m telling them “It’s not my wedding.” NTA.
Majestic-Issue-3999 said:
NTA if your venue has a hard cutoff and people refuse to attend because of that that’s on them. Congrats on the wedding!
Connect-Code7478 said:
NTA, but at the same time how can you say a 2 year relationship of a couple who isn’t living together isn’t as important as someone who’s been dating for a year but live together? Everyone’s circumstances are different. I could see if they were dating for 6 months or are very young. I do also understand it’s your wedding so you can make whatever decision you want.
wvtarheel said:
NTA. Everyone's wedding pictures have those "who is that guy" person who has dated a sister for a week and ended up in the pictures. You've figured out how to filter those people out while also staying in your budget.
Daddywags42 said:
NTA. Frankly everyone who brought a plus one to our wedding who wasn’t married broke up. We have a bunch of random ex girlfriend and boyfriends in our photos. They can choose to come or not. If you lose a friend over this, they probably weren’t a long term friend to begin with.
EtonRd said:
YTA. your reply was rude. A polite reply would be “I’m sorry you aren’t attending, you will be missed.” Your reply was basically intended to convey “we don’t care whether you come or not” and it did. And people dating over a year are not being unreasonable to expect to be treated as a social unit when it comes to events, and having both people invited by name.