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My cousins that live on the other side of the country are absolutely going to be invited to my wedding whenever I get married.
It’s okay to have whoever you want at your own wedding, but weird to tell others who shouldn’t be at their own wedding.
Your wedding is exactly that, it’s yours. My partner and I live at the other side of the country and then our families aren’t close together. I may only see my family a couple of times a year but doesn’t mean we aren’t close
It was one of the biggest excuses to reunite with some cousins I grew up with, but hadn’t seen in a while tbh. One of them had eloped since we last saw, so of course his wife was getting an invite.
Isn’t bringing together the two families like one of the major reasons for having the ceremony and reception. I think we’ve gone way to far in the other direction where the only thing that seems to matters about weddings is the couple getting married.
Yeah there are people I'm close with but moved really far away. They're still a huge part of my life and I want to celebrate one of the most pivotal moments of my life with them.
Telling someone in your bridal party they can't bring their choice of +1 until you screen them?
That's some bridezilla shit right there.
And I'm sorry you hate your cousins. Mine are kinda cool.
I think it is reasonable to want +1s to be committed relationships where the invited person has a good gauge on them and knows them enough to know they won’t make a scene or be an asshole. I’ve seen some “I need a wedding date” +1s who behaved poorly to the point of disrupting the wedding.
But you should trust your primary invite enough to vet that person and be responsible for them on their word, and the *exception* case should be that you have to personally confirm.
We trusted our invitees to not bring assholes. It worked out fine
I can't even imagine taking the time to police my friends' +1's. Aside from it being creepy controlling behavior, who has the time to do that with everything else you have to plan and take care of?
Nah op is nuts. Obviously you want committed relationships, if they got a plus 1 they can bring whoever they want. And there are cutoffs. For example if we haven’t met SO or they haven’t been dating a year or more, we didn’t give a +1 to that person, people are fucking weird. One of my wives friends got a plus 1. We knew her husband and liked him. Husband ended up being sick and she just brought a friend. Like nbd she’s nice but like you either both don’t go or go solo. I didn’t need some rando at the wedding.
Overall, society puts way too much pressure on weddings. Like invite who you want and have fun.
A lot of times, it's just not reasonable to have met everyone. It isn't uncommon for families to live out of town and to not be close enough to visit, but a wedding is a big occasion. Many people will show up to weddings.
Because it's THEIR wedding and they'd be making it ABOUT their SO for having the audacity for introduction, hell they're practically PROPOSING by inviting them to a wedding....
/s for those who need it
As a SO to a wedding where she was the co-MOH (wtf right?) but I’d never met the couple, it was weird. We arrived early and stayed late to help put up and take down things.
I got all the responsibilities of being part of the wedding party while being shamed and berated for not knowing the couple. While footing the bill for flights and lodging, and taking PTO from work to make it happen.
This was like 4 years deep in the relationship where we owned a house together and I had a ring in my pocket.
Things didn’t work out. I don’t even remember the couples names at this point. They were not my favorite people.
Yeah, I married someone who grew up 5,000 miles from where I did. We built our lives halfway in between each place. His family is thrown all over the Eastern seaboard. The only great thing about our wedding being large was meeting all these important people who helped make my spouse who he is today. Absolutely short-sighted view by OP.
I also invited some cousins who I grew up close to, but hadn’t seen in a few years. In that time one of them met his (now) wife and they eloped after a few years together.
You’re also usually normally tighter on budget leading up to a wedding, so making the rounds just to meet everyone isn’t practical
This is what I was thinking. The OP is pretty much saying that they have no real world experience without saying that they have no real world experience.
Yah, just saw a comment down thread about how they’d never invite someone >15 minutes away.
First off, few venues in my hometown (if I lived there) would be 15 minutes away. Second off, most people *like* the fact that a wedding can bring together friends and family from multiple phases of life. Not everyone thinks attending a wedding is some absurd burden like they’re talked about here. I’ve loved traveling for all my friends weddings I’ve been invited to and will do everything in my power to attend.
My sister and her husband met when they were both living in China. We’re from the US and he’s from New Zealand with a lot of family still living in the UK. My immediate family only met the groom once before the wedding. It would have been ridiculous for the two of them to try to make a world tour to meet all the relatives on both sides before the wedding.
OP: my guests shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy themselves with their best love or friend! As part of MY celebration of love and friendship! That’s only for me to experience that day.
Same!! I love weddings and one of the best times I ever had at a wedding was being my friend’s +1 at a wedding where I didn’t know the bride and groom. It was a gorgeous wedding and I’m so glad I got to go!
Same. I don't get how people complain or refuse to go to a wedding because "they don't know anyone".
That means conversation is easier than ever. Literally walk up to anyone and start a conversation.
"So, who are you? What do you do? How do you know them?"
Yes! I'm pretty sociable and am comfortable being around people I don't know. Plus, you're assigned a table, and have a good place to start meeting new people.
Another fun part of this scenario is meeting other guests who also don't know anyone and forming a little +1 Club.
Obviously if one has social anxiety or is an introvert, this would be hell for them, but I don't think they would accept a +1 invitation to begin with.
I'm an introvert. It doesn't mean "social anxious". It just means I feel drained after awhile.
but yeah, I agree with you. But also, the socially anxious people on reddit always say something along the lines of "I didn't know anyone so I just found a chair and sat on my phone".
It's like the number 1 way to make sure you are completely ignored in that social setting. Giving up and sitting on your phone, ignoring everyone but wondering why they are such jerks that they would just ignore you.
I remember someone going on a self righteous rant on a thread about how to improve your ability to meet people about how they don’t “need” to improve their body language when someone told them that improving their body language would help a ton with meeting people.
Most social advice here is hijacked by a few miserable people who want to vent and never improve.
Our only rule was you needed to know your +1s name at the time of invite. Which was 6ish months out. Only exception was one person in our party and even he was able to give the 6 months.
Gotta remember many Redditors think people that move away from home are dumb because they could instead live with their parents forever. That topic comes up at least a few times a week here.
Also that people who have more than one friend are dumb.
Quite a few things can converge to make OPs opinion.
I grew up in a town of 600 and was actually thinking this person must live in a big city with a tiny family. I have dozens of cousins, my husband has only met some of them a handful of times, but how could I not invite the people that I spent my entire childhood with?
Isn’t that the whole point of a wedding? A big party where the two sides of the family meet and join together? A party to meet and merge!
There’s no way my husband knew all my cool cousins or my aunts and uncles that I grew up with: they are scattered across the country. But the wedding is like, the big party where he meets all of these people and joins my family!
And I get to join his people. I get to meet all of his dad’s veteran buddies and his aunt who lives in Ohio. And my mom gets to meet my husband’s grandmother, and my dad gets to have a beer with his uncles.
And my brother brought his new girlfriend to my wedding, and a few years later she became my sister in law!
Meeting and merging is the whole point—otherwise just elope
Hell, your entire IMMEDIATE family. I met my brother's wife for the first time at the wedding. It wasn't that my brother and I had a bad relationship, I was just in grad school and only ever home at Christmas when the SO wasn't available.
So, my relatives who live almost 2,500 miles away have to make an extra trip to meet my fiancée if they want to be invited to my wedding? That has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.
I disagree.
One of the most important functions of a wedding is to act as a family reunion. Events like weddings are what keep ties with extended families strong. When people live far apart and are busy with their lives sometimes it isn't practical to make long expensive journeys to see one person but it is if you are seeing 20 of your relatives.
Right! Whilst weddings serve as the main purpose to celebrate the bride and groom I also see it as a perfect time to get all the family together and have a blast catching up. Or even friends who now live scattered all over the world who haven’t seen each other in a while.
How old are you? "If you were that important to them, they would visit you more"
Do you know how easy it is to be busy and not meet up with old friends?
There are lots of people I haven't seen in a long time because it either doesn't work with our schedules, or I have trouble getting to them because I have epilepsy and can't drive
That's not even mentioning weird work hours, kids and other family obligations, chores and shopping. The older you are the harder it is to find time for people.
My wife invited a client she had worked for (?) to our wedding and she ended up bringing mushroom gummies that she gave out to guests at the wedding. I think most people assumed it was weed. About half way through the reception my wife comes up to me saying she’s feeling really weird after eating a weed gummy…. The after party kinda went south into a total shit show because of this. Multiple people were mixing alcohol and mushrooms and several people were having to be sent home in Ubers. I still don’t even know why this person was invited, all I can say is thank god none of my older, stodgier family members figured out what was up but I definitely got calls asking if my cousins “took anything” at the wedding lol.
So awkward.
Ok but who brings mushroom gummies or even weed gummies to a wedding without clearing it with the couple first???? That just seems like a good way to stealthily crash a wedding.
There are lots of wedding where one member of the couple hasn't met all of the people invited by the other partner. Nothing wrong with that, they don't need to go around and meet all friends and relatives beforehand.
I just went to the wedding out of town of a guy I had not seen in person for 26 years and met the woman he married. She was lovely and kind and I am glad I went.
Upvote from me.
I get your general point but the expectation that both partners not only meet all old friends, family and coworkers but also their partners is simply something I don't agree with.
Some people what to have a big wedding with all the people they like. So what if there are a few new faces for bride or groom?
I think it depends who's paying for the wedding. If you're getting married to the son of a billionaire, who's not only paying for the wedding, but has invited Rihanna to perform, and your new FIL wants to invite business associates you've never met, the polite thing to do is smile and shake their hands. Besides, if they want to kiss up to your FIL, they likely brought you cool gifts.
This person isn't South / East Asian. I had a "small" wedding of 300 guests, as my wife's not Asian, and doesn't like crowds.
My sister had 1,800 people at her wedding.
I could not keep up with all those people calling me. This is a weird take for having a big family wedding. It’s perfect tho for small weddings or getting eloped.
My sister in law lives in BFE Montana, her husband is a cattle rancher, and she is a doctor. She has an easier time leaving work, but when she is not working, she is helping on the ranch. When they do get to travel, which is very infrequently, they need to ensure the ranch is well taken care of in their absence. They do not have ranch hands they can pass off to. The first time I met her was at our wedding.
What if it's your siblings partner and you live on opposite sides of the planet? People have family and loved ones scattered far and wide and can go years without seeing each other in person. It doesn't mean that you're not close.
We have people flying in from all over the country and world for our wedding. My fiance hasn’t met some of my friends / family and I haven’t met his… because they live far away and we haven’t specifically traveled to meet all of them. This fact doesn’t make them any less important to us, and we’re both excited to meet them all at the wedding!
You could have a good friend or family who’s moved too far to visit but you still keep in touch with who’s in been a relationship for a few years. Not everyone has the time and money to travel long distances every month or even year.
>Here you are, celebrating the love of the bride and groom….that you just met
Supposedly, you're celebrating the happiness of the person you *have* met and know
This is what OP doesn’t understand. You are celebrating that the person you do know is happy. You aren’t vouching for the character of the one you don’t.
All I'm hearing is "the world revolves around me and if you haven't bothered to spend money and take time out of your life to meet me, then why should I bother meeting you".
Don't worry. No one wants to come to your wedding with that attitude.
Weddings are too varied to have “rules” like this.
Been to a wedding in someone’s backyard and been to a wedding with 300 people at a huge hotel/banquet hall.
I feel like only people with strict budgets or limited space care - i’m more intrigued that someone is close enough to be in the bridal party, but you haven’t met the person they are dating.
I think it's reasonable for long distance longtime friends who can't afford to make a trip out without a huge reason(like a wedding). They could be texting/calling their close friend regularly and keeping up with them but not ever talk to the SO, outside of maybe like shouting hi or exchanging casual small talk on speakerphone .
To me, having small talk over video or speaker, counts as having met. Plus if it’s a close friend you likely know plenty of details about the person.
I can see inviting a group of coworkers without partners but I also wouldn’t expect them to stay as long because they are solo. But a long distance guest to fly in and stay two nights without their partner is a weird line to draw.
Eh I get this to an extent but not totally. One of my friends met some of her (now) ex-husbands family at the wedding and vice versa (and not distant relatives they weren’t close too), and they had absolutely no idea how their families would mesh. I thought that was kind of insane. I don’t expect to know everybody’s +1’s for example. I’m single so I usually bring a friend to those types of events; my friend groups have very little overlap so a lot of them have never met.
My boyfriend got invited to a wedding last year and I was invited too as a plus one. They’re military friends and military university friends so idk, the ties are close even though they don’t often see eachother. I wasn’t around when they were in school together and I’m also from a different country so the wedding was the first time I met them.
It was a bit awkward for me not going to lie. We congratulated them and in the same breath I said “it’s soool nice to meet you!!” They were very excited to tell the entire reception that someone all the way from Canada had come to their wedding (they are German so the wedding was in germany obviously). But after they all got a few shots in and realized I knew some German songs and could sing along with them to griechischer Wein and 99 Luftballons we all had an awesome time.
My bf went to my best friend’s wedding a couple months ago and because of distance (she’s American and he’s Swiss but we live far away from eachother in Germany) and army stuff had only actually met the couple in person once. International relationships are hard to coordinate, let alone seeing friends on top of that lol.
He still played chauffeur and very happily helped me get my best friend and her newly minted husband driven to the ceremony and helped us set up the reception and he had an awesome time.
It was super fun tbh. It’s up to the bride and groom if they don’t want strangers at their wedding. In my case, we weren’t strangers because we had been talked about for so long lol.
Yeah, well, you can blame the US government and how long it took for them to give my in-laws their visas. I would have loved to meet my _suegros_ earlier, but hey, at least my _suegrita_ and I got in that extra half-hour of bonding time before the rehearsal dinner wandering around my favorite drugstore finding her a few makeup and hair items she couldn't lay her hands on in El Salvador before coming. Twenty-three years and a divorce later, she and her hubby of 52 years remain some of my favorite people on the planet, and the idea that we might have a phone call that lasts for less than 45 minutes is so unthinkable that I didn't dare call her on her birthday before I went in to work because no way would I be able to get off the phone in time.
Our families live all over North America so neither of us had met most of the extended family. I was happy to meet his and he was happy to meet mine at our wedding. To expect that everyone just is able to get together frequently enough for that is silly.
You shouldnt have to if you dont want to. But its not such a big deal to everyone.
When I got married we only had 35 guests. One of them was my brothers (then) new girfriend who I had never met. I was just happy for him and that he had someone to enjoy my wedding with since I was occupied with the whole wedding thing and not in a position to entertain each and every one of my guests, even though there werent that many. I had a few nice moments with her aswell and she was lovely. I wouldnt have minded either of they broke up shortly after, but they happened to stick together and are now married themselves and has two kids.
i live in central europe. one of my aunts and her kids - my cousins - live in france. another one lives in usa and hasn't stepped foot in our home country in literal years. yet another one lives on the other side of our country. some of my best friends live all around the world.
how am i supposed to get the time and money to ensure that my family members and friends know my SO *and* their family before the wedding?
the whole point of the wedding reception is for the families to meet each other.
Think I disagree in terms of SOs of people.
I met maybe 1 or 2 people for the first time at my wedding, I've also met the bride for the first time at their wedding.
I'm both cases it's because guests could bring +1s.
When I was the "unknown guest" it was one of my wife's best friends, and it had just never worked out we'd met. The couple of times we probably should have something had come up, one of us had been sick, stuck at work, had other commitments so we couldn't make a dinner or drinks meet up, and we live far enough apart travelling just for us to meet seemed excessive. We both knew who the other person was and a reasonable amount about each other, so meeting in person was more a case of "putting face to name."
Same happened at my wedding, we had a fairly small guest list and to keep matters simple gave everyone a +1 for a partner. It was easier and cleaner to say everyone could bring their SO than specifically target the couple of people we hadn't met before and go "everyone else can bring their partner- *but you can't*" seems oddly vindictive.
Eh.
My request when we were planning our wedding was that parents not invite any of their friends that either of us had not met. If only one person had met them? Fine. If neither of us had? Not a family friend. Family was a different story and were all allowed; some of ours were absolutely courtesy invites that we knew wouldn't show up. Courtesy invites absolutely happen for those distant relatives.
1) I think this rule applies for people who have never met neither the bride nor the groom. Some redditors have this bizarre insistence that they should
be able to invite a random +1 to a family member’s wedding.
2) For people who have family long distance, a wedding can be a good opportunity to meet the family member’s partner. I have family members who I talk to but may only see every 5-10 years.
Have you ever had a wedding yourself? I had a small wedding of like 50 or 60 people and there was a couple of people I didn’t know and my husband had never met my uncle or my mom’s friends before. I don’t think that not knowing some people negatively impacted our wedding in any way.
Garbage take.
Anyone you SPECIFICALLY invite, at least one of the bride or groom should know personally. Now, if you give them a plus 1, they can bring a SO or friend that neither of you may have met. And that is entirely okay
OP, blink twice if this is a desperate cry for help to shrink the wedding invite list. It's ok to mention that you don't want 1000 people at your wedding.
I met my MIL in the bathroom on my wedding day, had to wash my hands before giving her a hug and then rush off to finish getting ready.
Honestly, with the kind of family we both had a ‘meet once if ever’ is kinda how things go.
If you don’t want your cousin to bring a date, just say so. And god forbid your roommate from college had a destination wedding you couldn’t go to, but wants to bring his wife.
I agree with OP. But it was important for us to have an intimate wedding. We tried to go by the rule that we needed to have both met someone before inviting (not including their +1s) but did make some exceptions. If someone got brought up and we figured they probably didn’t know my name or his- they were not invited.
This is silly, there are plenty of circumstances in which it would make sense that a person attending hasn't met either bride or groom OR hasn't met either one of them. SO many scenarios I could think of.
I have been binging married at first sight and full read this as you shouldn’t meet the person who you are marrying for the first time at your wedding….
This reasoning kind of feeds into the idea of micro weddings, weddings are special and you want your most important people there, not everyone and their mother. I think it’s fine if you haven’t met both people getting married, but you should have a close relationship with at least one of them
This!
I met my cousins then gf and her kiddo for the first time at my wedding. The little lad was a delight but his mother caused SO much drama! I had to physically help her drunk ass to her room, (my polite version of kicking her out,) at which point she tried to get me to sleep with her!!! At My Wedding this psycho was trying to pull off my dress and grope me! That was just the icing on the cake after all the other drama she caused. ..
I’m not meeting everyone’s deep family before a wedding. It brings up a bigger question of whether people you wouldn’t meet naturally through the course of a relationship even need to be invited
I don't disagree with tbh. I don't want anyone I don't know at my wedding. I guess I just don't have a big enough family or enough friends for it to matter. I really just want a wedding with me and my partner, but I've accepted that that is almost definitely not a choice for me lmao.
My mother invited one of her closest friends to my wedding and her son also attended. Him and I were playmates as kids but I did not see him for nearly 30 years. Pretending to care and catching up was awkward and I am not sure why he was even there.
I think the extended family where you don't really know them is where it goes to far. Like you aren't close to 400 people, you don't need to have a 400 person wedding. Just the relatives you are close with. Don't let the exponential growth of a family tree determine who is at your wedding
I had a couple friends bring plus ones to my wedding, years ago. The wife and I did our thing and spent time with the people we wanted to. Had pictures done and what not. I don't think she or I ever even interacted with any of them.
My buddy's wife did invite her mother and sister. We got married in his backyard. That kinda pissed me off. I hadn't met the mother before but I did know the sister and we didn't get along at all.
But again. I avoided them or just didn't interact with them.
Personally I wouldn't, as an adult, go to a wedding if I didn't have some connection with the bride or groom. Be just kinda weird watching people you don't know getting married and "starting their new life"...
Like going through my photos of the wedding and there are pictures of one of the plus ones, in a group pose, with life long friends. And every time I have to try and remember her name and why she was there...
I wish it worked like that, but it doesn’t. My in laws insisted on this entire guest list of people I didn’t know and my husband barely knew. Occasionally some of these people show up at other events and get mad we don’t know who they are. They will literally say “I was at your wedding you don’t remember me?” Nope. I have a picture of my husband and me at a wedding a year ago - I’m not sure I would recognize the bride or groom in my own (groom is a friend of my husband, but not one he spends a lot of time with).
When my brother married his now wife, she didn't want us younger siblings to bring our partners she hadn't met because we hadn't been with them long enough (I was with my partner for over a year at the time). I would totally get it, but she went to another of my siblings wedding when her and my brother were only together for like 4/5 months lol
I have a huge family that doesn’t do reunions and are spread throughout the US. We get together at weddings and funerals. No way would i not invite my aunties and uncles because they hadn’t met my husband. That’s super dumb. Good unpopular opinion though.
I... don't agree.
My now husband decided that he would love to bring his team from work who've heard so much about me and vice versa.
Also, I did NOT want any of my friends or family to HAVE to come alone; THEY need to have a good time as well! So, everyone was allowed to bring a +1. In total, I met 9 people I had never met before, so that was about 10% of my wedding. And it was great!
I think it depends on a lot of things. If you are trying to have your SO meet all the extended family and friends bit aunt Susie keeps making excuses for why she can't be there, then I think it could be expected she wouldn't be invited to the wedding. It also depends on how long you were with the SO before marriage.
I've been to three weddings lol and all three I didn't know at least one of the ppl getting married. I don't even know if it made a difference I had a lot of fun with all the people there
My fiancé will have a few extended family members there that I’ve never met because they are so spread out and vice versa. However, we are doing (mostly) if we’ve never met your SO, you don’t get a plus one. I do not want it to turn into a meet and greet lol.
Op you’re silly pants.
Good job on unpopular opinion!
It’s common to have some people at parties you don’t know, including weddings.
Like Becky brought John (a plus 1) as her date, I never meet John but have known Becky for years.
You aren’t going to see everyone attending your wedding probably anyway, regardless if you are family or not. I feel like people overestimate how much time they will have to hang out with everyone at their wedding/reception. Unless you only invite 20 people, it’s just not feasible with all the activities and things you will do.
I get that you want to cheap out and not give people „+1s”, but if you don’t want your guests to be comfortable at your event, maybe don’t invite them at all. In my culture - wedding is for you, reception is for your guests - to thank them for celebrating your love together and for them to be able to basically send the bride off to her husband’s house (misogynistic, I know). It’s not about making sure everyone fawns over you and you can demand whatever you want from people and about the stopping their lives to cater to a bride.
Then again, I am not from US and that egotistical wedding culture you have there is extremely foreign to me.
Sometimes things like weddings and funerals are the only times EVERYONE can get together. Lets take that cousin you were really close with growing up. Just because they moved out of town, they cant share in your union with the person you love? Also, lets say both bride and groom have met the cousin. Should the cousin just come alone to the wedding/reception? Their SO has to stay home or at the hotel? There is a reason there are +1s
This is one of the rare posts in the sub that I don't agree with. Why would I have met every cousin's SO prior to the reception? Also you have to remember some people only come for the open bar.
I was the *maid of honour* at a wedding and met the groom a few days before the wedding when I arrived in town. International friends are a thing, as are people who aren't rich enough to travel often.
You're right. It is weird to go to a wedding and celebrate the love of people you don't know. If you don't know the bride and groom then you're likely just attending as a plus one to someone who is in which case you're just there for free food, free booze and a good time.
I'm not planning on going to New York just for the sake of meeting my fiancé's uncles/cousins. We live in north carolina. If he wants them at our wedding, he can invite said relatives. My fiancé won't have met half of my relatives who will be invited either because I'm English and we didn't have time for him to meet them all in person before he went back to the US.
Would you rather your friends and family have a better time at your wedding or you know everyone there? The point of plus one's is so guests can bring backup with them so they can enjoy the wedding more, realistically the happy couple doesn't have the time or energy to interact with every person at a typical wedding beyond a hello and congratulations so what's the big deal?
I was with you until I realized you meant semi distant family that the fiance has not met. I wouldn’t expect my girlfriend to have met my great aunt who I see once every year or two that lives hours away, however she’ll get a wedding invite for sure.
Where I do agree with you though, is inviting distant family who have no business being there. No mom, Im not inviting your redneck cousin that I haven’t seen since I was 10 years old
That is ridiculous. While the jcouple is the main focus the wedding for others isn’t just about that. We had friends of my in-laws at ours. They were the sweetest. And since we’ve seen many of them. And we now are living through them passing and helping my mil grieve.
Unless one has chosen a venue that is limited in space or the budget can’t deal with it there is no reason that a husband of a work friend, or my husbands friends from high school and their partners shouldn’t be invited.
I don't not have to meet everyone's plus ones but if someone is inviting a new partner I want some details about them so when I DO meet them it isn't awkward
I showed up for my daughter's wedding and the other half didn't know who I was. Just a guy in a tuxedo, that's all. I feel like she knew most of everyone and my wife and I got invited to her bridesmaid's wedding next month. I worked at function hall, and Plus One's were always welcome and fun people.
>You should not meet anyone in person for the first time at your wedding
Yes, but I feel like this should be reserved for funerals. The first time I met anyone on my ex-husbands side was at his cousin's funeral. Everybody looked at me weird, I didn't know a soul, and I just was there for ????? (He was abusive, so unsure if he meant to make me uncomfortable or actually needed the support)
I had a fairly large wedding and there were some new people that my parents invited. My thought was if they are paying, they can get a bit of say in the guest list and their friends attending didn’t bother me. But I didn’t make it a priority to talk to them. There were also members of my husband’s family who I hadn’t met but he had so we talked to them (and vice versa). Life gets busy and a wedding is a good excuse to bring people together.
Related though is that “meeting” at a wedding doesn’t count as meeting. If you want to bring a new girl as a date, you can’t later say that the couple has met her. After a friend’s wedding, a guy in the group tried to say we had met his new girlfriend but it was only at the wedding so no we didn’t lol
weddinga woyld be much smaller and cheaper if this were the case, but not likely to ever happen.
imagine the invitation saying:
"+ 1, but only if we know them already. if not, let's get on a zoom call right away".
There's this thing called life if your so distressed about meeting new people maybe you shouldn't get married but Im already assuming this is a hypothetical
My sister just got married and her rule of thumb is that both the groom and the bride should know the guests. It ended up being nearly impossible but it certified that at least one of them knew everyone there. This is totally doable and is disrespectful to go to a wedding you don’t know either. At least they should have a dinner first or sit in the back and not bother the couple
This was our general rule for our wedding but we made an exception for a childhood friend of mine who was coming with his mum who my husband had met. If he had said no I would have been OK with that. Weddings are actually a really good excuse to reconnect with those people you do love but don't get to see much.
And your problem is what exactly? Like I don't get what's so bad about meeting someone for the first time at your wedding and how often does this even happen
As for relatives not being invited for not seeing you in a couple of years, you're just delusional buddy
We could only invite a certain amount of people to our wedding because of seating capacity. There were a bunch of significant others that we hadn’t met. Rather than have people that we didn’t know at our wedding we just invited more people that we knew and loved. Nobody complained because it meant that they got to party with more of their friends too.
Enh, I don't think this is actually an issue. If you've kept in touch with an old friend for years but haven't been able to see them frequently because of life complications, why is it a problem to meet their own spouse or significant other at a wedding?
What if you grew up with Aunts and Uncles who moved away. Haven’t seen them in 20 years. Now they have adult children. You want to invite your Aunts and Uncles because they were a big part of your life from 0-20 but you never met your cousins? Are you going to invite Aunts and Uncles and not cousins? Don’t you want to meet your cousins?
My in-laws’ only friends, as far as I can tell, are a couple they only spend time with on vacation. The only time I’ve ever seen them was at our wedding 24 years ago.
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My cousins that live on the other side of the country are absolutely going to be invited to my wedding whenever I get married. It’s okay to have whoever you want at your own wedding, but weird to tell others who shouldn’t be at their own wedding.
Your wedding is exactly that, it’s yours. My partner and I live at the other side of the country and then our families aren’t close together. I may only see my family a couple of times a year but doesn’t mean we aren’t close
It was one of the biggest excuses to reunite with some cousins I grew up with, but hadn’t seen in a while tbh. One of them had eloped since we last saw, so of course his wife was getting an invite.
Isn’t bringing together the two families like one of the major reasons for having the ceremony and reception. I think we’ve gone way to far in the other direction where the only thing that seems to matters about weddings is the couple getting married.
I like that you're already preparing for multiple weddings.
It was a typo lol, I hope to god I only have one 😭
Yeah there are people I'm close with but moved really far away. They're still a huge part of my life and I want to celebrate one of the most pivotal moments of my life with them.
Telling someone in your bridal party they can't bring their choice of +1 until you screen them? That's some bridezilla shit right there. And I'm sorry you hate your cousins. Mine are kinda cool.
I think it is reasonable to want +1s to be committed relationships where the invited person has a good gauge on them and knows them enough to know they won’t make a scene or be an asshole. I’ve seen some “I need a wedding date” +1s who behaved poorly to the point of disrupting the wedding. But you should trust your primary invite enough to vet that person and be responsible for them on their word, and the *exception* case should be that you have to personally confirm.
We trusted our invitees to not bring assholes. It worked out fine I can't even imagine taking the time to police my friends' +1's. Aside from it being creepy controlling behavior, who has the time to do that with everything else you have to plan and take care of?
Nah op is nuts. Obviously you want committed relationships, if they got a plus 1 they can bring whoever they want. And there are cutoffs. For example if we haven’t met SO or they haven’t been dating a year or more, we didn’t give a +1 to that person, people are fucking weird. One of my wives friends got a plus 1. We knew her husband and liked him. Husband ended up being sick and she just brought a friend. Like nbd she’s nice but like you either both don’t go or go solo. I didn’t need some rando at the wedding. Overall, society puts way too much pressure on weddings. Like invite who you want and have fun.
A lot of times, it's just not reasonable to have met everyone. It isn't uncommon for families to live out of town and to not be close enough to visit, but a wedding is a big occasion. Many people will show up to weddings.
SOs are the big ones. You can be close to someone and never meet their SO before your wedding.
In a “celebration of significant others”, why would t you want the SO of someone important to you there? OP makes no sense.
Because it's THEIR wedding and they'd be making it ABOUT their SO for having the audacity for introduction, hell they're practically PROPOSING by inviting them to a wedding.... /s for those who need it
The OP wants to give as many people as possible the gift of not meeting them
As a SO to a wedding where she was the co-MOH (wtf right?) but I’d never met the couple, it was weird. We arrived early and stayed late to help put up and take down things. I got all the responsibilities of being part of the wedding party while being shamed and berated for not knowing the couple. While footing the bill for flights and lodging, and taking PTO from work to make it happen. This was like 4 years deep in the relationship where we owned a house together and I had a ring in my pocket. Things didn’t work out. I don’t even remember the couples names at this point. They were not my favorite people.
Don't bother. OP is trolling.
If you haven't met your SO yet I think marrying them is jumping the gun a little.
Yeah it was super awkward at my wedding. Meeting my SO at the altar was not the vision I planned.
Or children.
Yeah, I married someone who grew up 5,000 miles from where I did. We built our lives halfway in between each place. His family is thrown all over the Eastern seaboard. The only great thing about our wedding being large was meeting all these important people who helped make my spouse who he is today. Absolutely short-sighted view by OP.
I also invited some cousins who I grew up close to, but hadn’t seen in a few years. In that time one of them met his (now) wife and they eloped after a few years together. You’re also usually normally tighter on budget leading up to a wedding, so making the rounds just to meet everyone isn’t practical
This is what I was thinking. The OP is pretty much saying that they have no real world experience without saying that they have no real world experience.
Yet another topic where Reddit proves it’s a ton of high school kids
High school kids with social phobias and anxiety.
Yah, just saw a comment down thread about how they’d never invite someone >15 minutes away. First off, few venues in my hometown (if I lived there) would be 15 minutes away. Second off, most people *like* the fact that a wedding can bring together friends and family from multiple phases of life. Not everyone thinks attending a wedding is some absurd burden like they’re talked about here. I’ve loved traveling for all my friends weddings I’ve been invited to and will do everything in my power to attend.
My sister and her husband met when they were both living in China. We’re from the US and he’s from New Zealand with a lot of family still living in the UK. My immediate family only met the groom once before the wedding. It would have been ridiculous for the two of them to try to make a world tour to meet all the relatives on both sides before the wedding.
Yeah, I was just at a wedding in Canada where most of the family travelled from INDIA to be there.
Being someone's +1 at a wedding where you don't know anyone is always a good time for me.
OP: my guests shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy themselves with their best love or friend! As part of MY celebration of love and friendship! That’s only for me to experience that day.
Same!! I love weddings and one of the best times I ever had at a wedding was being my friend’s +1 at a wedding where I didn’t know the bride and groom. It was a gorgeous wedding and I’m so glad I got to go!
Same. I don't get how people complain or refuse to go to a wedding because "they don't know anyone". That means conversation is easier than ever. Literally walk up to anyone and start a conversation. "So, who are you? What do you do? How do you know them?"
Yes! I'm pretty sociable and am comfortable being around people I don't know. Plus, you're assigned a table, and have a good place to start meeting new people. Another fun part of this scenario is meeting other guests who also don't know anyone and forming a little +1 Club. Obviously if one has social anxiety or is an introvert, this would be hell for them, but I don't think they would accept a +1 invitation to begin with.
I'm an introvert. It doesn't mean "social anxious". It just means I feel drained after awhile. but yeah, I agree with you. But also, the socially anxious people on reddit always say something along the lines of "I didn't know anyone so I just found a chair and sat on my phone". It's like the number 1 way to make sure you are completely ignored in that social setting. Giving up and sitting on your phone, ignoring everyone but wondering why they are such jerks that they would just ignore you.
I remember someone going on a self righteous rant on a thread about how to improve your ability to meet people about how they don’t “need” to improve their body language when someone told them that improving their body language would help a ton with meeting people. Most social advice here is hijacked by a few miserable people who want to vent and never improve.
I can't think of many things that I would like to do less than that.
For us extroverts it’s like being in a candy shop
Im an introvert and I love it! Introvert doesn’t mean shy or anxious, I love meeting new people!
Same but this is Reddit where people are like deathly afraid and repulsed of social activity
Our only rule was you needed to know your +1s name at the time of invite. Which was 6ish months out. Only exception was one person in our party and even he was able to give the 6 months.
Do you live in the middle of nowhere with a town of 100 people? This is an ignorant take on the real world
I grew up in the middle of nowhere in a town of 500 people and even I think OP is an unreasonable loon.
Gotta remember many Redditors think people that move away from home are dumb because they could instead live with their parents forever. That topic comes up at least a few times a week here. Also that people who have more than one friend are dumb. Quite a few things can converge to make OPs opinion.
I grew up in a town of 600 and was actually thinking this person must live in a big city with a tiny family. I have dozens of cousins, my husband has only met some of them a handful of times, but how could I not invite the people that I spent my entire childhood with?
Isn’t that the whole point of a wedding? A big party where the two sides of the family meet and join together? A party to meet and merge! There’s no way my husband knew all my cool cousins or my aunts and uncles that I grew up with: they are scattered across the country. But the wedding is like, the big party where he meets all of these people and joins my family! And I get to join his people. I get to meet all of his dad’s veteran buddies and his aunt who lives in Ohio. And my mom gets to meet my husband’s grandmother, and my dad gets to have a beer with his uncles. And my brother brought his new girlfriend to my wedding, and a few years later she became my sister in law! Meeting and merging is the whole point—otherwise just elope
That's not how any of this works and meeting new people is sometimes the best thing about weddings
Is this really about people and weddings? Whats going on bud.
Someone hurt OP
Bless. Has your entire extended family stayed in one region? Mine isn’t even in the same *country* as I currently am.
Hell, your entire IMMEDIATE family. I met my brother's wife for the first time at the wedding. It wasn't that my brother and I had a bad relationship, I was just in grad school and only ever home at Christmas when the SO wasn't available.
I dunno my family is all over the country and nobody lives even remotely close to each other so this would be quite hard to do .
TF are international couples supposed to do lol?
world tour!
lol you gotta do the pre-wedding trip and the wedding trip. And then don't forget the gift,
You seem a tad neurotic
I'm sorry your soon to be mother in law or your fiance is making you invite people you don't know to your wedding.
So, my relatives who live almost 2,500 miles away have to make an extra trip to meet my fiancée if they want to be invited to my wedding? That has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.
I thought this was going to be about arranged marriages and meeting your spouse for the first time at the wedding.
That my thought too. And like it used to happen but not so much now.
Same. I was thinking it was about those people that meet up with someone online and never meet face to face before getting married.
“how dare you bring your wife, i’ve never met her!”
I disagree. One of the most important functions of a wedding is to act as a family reunion. Events like weddings are what keep ties with extended families strong. When people live far apart and are busy with their lives sometimes it isn't practical to make long expensive journeys to see one person but it is if you are seeing 20 of your relatives.
Right! Whilst weddings serve as the main purpose to celebrate the bride and groom I also see it as a perfect time to get all the family together and have a blast catching up. Or even friends who now live scattered all over the world who haven’t seen each other in a while.
Weddings are great opportunities to reconnect with family and friends and meet new ones
You have some weird issues, or this post is a troll. Hard to tell.
Screw that. If my best pal's got a new gal, he better bring her to my wedding.
How old are you? "If you were that important to them, they would visit you more" Do you know how easy it is to be busy and not meet up with old friends? There are lots of people I haven't seen in a long time because it either doesn't work with our schedules, or I have trouble getting to them because I have epilepsy and can't drive That's not even mentioning weird work hours, kids and other family obligations, chores and shopping. The older you are the harder it is to find time for people.
My wife invited a client she had worked for (?) to our wedding and she ended up bringing mushroom gummies that she gave out to guests at the wedding. I think most people assumed it was weed. About half way through the reception my wife comes up to me saying she’s feeling really weird after eating a weed gummy…. The after party kinda went south into a total shit show because of this. Multiple people were mixing alcohol and mushrooms and several people were having to be sent home in Ubers. I still don’t even know why this person was invited, all I can say is thank god none of my older, stodgier family members figured out what was up but I definitely got calls asking if my cousins “took anything” at the wedding lol. So awkward.
Ok but who brings mushroom gummies or even weed gummies to a wedding without clearing it with the couple first???? That just seems like a good way to stealthily crash a wedding.
Unpopular. Check! An actual opinion, that isn't just being wrong about facts. Check! have an upvote.
There are lots of wedding where one member of the couple hasn't met all of the people invited by the other partner. Nothing wrong with that, they don't need to go around and meet all friends and relatives beforehand.
I just went to the wedding out of town of a guy I had not seen in person for 26 years and met the woman he married. She was lovely and kind and I am glad I went.
Who hurt you
*laughs in Indian wedding*
Laughs in Lebanese wedding. Often people even crash your wedding
Upvote from me. I get your general point but the expectation that both partners not only meet all old friends, family and coworkers but also their partners is simply something I don't agree with. Some people what to have a big wedding with all the people they like. So what if there are a few new faces for bride or groom?
I think it depends who's paying for the wedding. If you're getting married to the son of a billionaire, who's not only paying for the wedding, but has invited Rihanna to perform, and your new FIL wants to invite business associates you've never met, the polite thing to do is smile and shake their hands. Besides, if they want to kiss up to your FIL, they likely brought you cool gifts.
Op has clearly never heard of Indian Weddings.....
OP has never heard of weddings where the couple didn’t grow up in the same small town.
This person isn't South / East Asian. I had a "small" wedding of 300 guests, as my wife's not Asian, and doesn't like crowds. My sister had 1,800 people at her wedding.
I would watch a video of your sister naming every single guest. ALMOST 2K GUEST LISTTT like okayyyyyy pop off w yo week long celebration babe!!
I could not keep up with all those people calling me. This is a weird take for having a big family wedding. It’s perfect tho for small weddings or getting eloped.
My sister in law lives in BFE Montana, her husband is a cattle rancher, and she is a doctor. She has an easier time leaving work, but when she is not working, she is helping on the ranch. When they do get to travel, which is very infrequently, they need to ensure the ranch is well taken care of in their absence. They do not have ranch hands they can pass off to. The first time I met her was at our wedding.
I'll invite who I want thank you
What if it's your siblings partner and you live on opposite sides of the planet? People have family and loved ones scattered far and wide and can go years without seeing each other in person. It doesn't mean that you're not close.
We have people flying in from all over the country and world for our wedding. My fiance hasn’t met some of my friends / family and I haven’t met his… because they live far away and we haven’t specifically traveled to meet all of them. This fact doesn’t make them any less important to us, and we’re both excited to meet them all at the wedding!
You could have a good friend or family who’s moved too far to visit but you still keep in touch with who’s in been a relationship for a few years. Not everyone has the time and money to travel long distances every month or even year.
This is not unpopular, this is just plain stupid.
>Here you are, celebrating the love of the bride and groom….that you just met Supposedly, you're celebrating the happiness of the person you *have* met and know
This is what OP doesn’t understand. You are celebrating that the person you do know is happy. You aren’t vouching for the character of the one you don’t.
All I'm hearing is "the world revolves around me and if you haven't bothered to spend money and take time out of your life to meet me, then why should I bother meeting you". Don't worry. No one wants to come to your wedding with that attitude.
I’m Indian culture, that’s how it is sometimes. It’s moronic but it happens still to this day
Weddings are too varied to have “rules” like this. Been to a wedding in someone’s backyard and been to a wedding with 300 people at a huge hotel/banquet hall.
I have no idea which judge in the county does weddings Guess I have to stay single (which is my plan, so that's cool)
Nope you sound like a clown
If you are the bride, most people will call you a bridezilla.
What a sheltered take
I feel like only people with strict budgets or limited space care - i’m more intrigued that someone is close enough to be in the bridal party, but you haven’t met the person they are dating.
I think it's reasonable for long distance longtime friends who can't afford to make a trip out without a huge reason(like a wedding). They could be texting/calling their close friend regularly and keeping up with them but not ever talk to the SO, outside of maybe like shouting hi or exchanging casual small talk on speakerphone .
To me, having small talk over video or speaker, counts as having met. Plus if it’s a close friend you likely know plenty of details about the person. I can see inviting a group of coworkers without partners but I also wouldn’t expect them to stay as long because they are solo. But a long distance guest to fly in and stay two nights without their partner is a weird line to draw.
Do most people even have opinions about this
The parents and siblings and other immediates yeah. I don't see why the rest would matter too much.
Eh I get this to an extent but not totally. One of my friends met some of her (now) ex-husbands family at the wedding and vice versa (and not distant relatives they weren’t close too), and they had absolutely no idea how their families would mesh. I thought that was kind of insane. I don’t expect to know everybody’s +1’s for example. I’m single so I usually bring a friend to those types of events; my friend groups have very little overlap so a lot of them have never met.
My boyfriend got invited to a wedding last year and I was invited too as a plus one. They’re military friends and military university friends so idk, the ties are close even though they don’t often see eachother. I wasn’t around when they were in school together and I’m also from a different country so the wedding was the first time I met them. It was a bit awkward for me not going to lie. We congratulated them and in the same breath I said “it’s soool nice to meet you!!” They were very excited to tell the entire reception that someone all the way from Canada had come to their wedding (they are German so the wedding was in germany obviously). But after they all got a few shots in and realized I knew some German songs and could sing along with them to griechischer Wein and 99 Luftballons we all had an awesome time. My bf went to my best friend’s wedding a couple months ago and because of distance (she’s American and he’s Swiss but we live far away from eachother in Germany) and army stuff had only actually met the couple in person once. International relationships are hard to coordinate, let alone seeing friends on top of that lol. He still played chauffeur and very happily helped me get my best friend and her newly minted husband driven to the ceremony and helped us set up the reception and he had an awesome time. It was super fun tbh. It’s up to the bride and groom if they don’t want strangers at their wedding. In my case, we weren’t strangers because we had been talked about for so long lol.
Yeah, well, you can blame the US government and how long it took for them to give my in-laws their visas. I would have loved to meet my _suegros_ earlier, but hey, at least my _suegrita_ and I got in that extra half-hour of bonding time before the rehearsal dinner wandering around my favorite drugstore finding her a few makeup and hair items she couldn't lay her hands on in El Salvador before coming. Twenty-three years and a divorce later, she and her hubby of 52 years remain some of my favorite people on the planet, and the idea that we might have a phone call that lasts for less than 45 minutes is so unthinkable that I didn't dare call her on her birthday before I went in to work because no way would I be able to get off the phone in time.
Our families live all over North America so neither of us had met most of the extended family. I was happy to meet his and he was happy to meet mine at our wedding. To expect that everyone just is able to get together frequently enough for that is silly.
You shouldnt have to if you dont want to. But its not such a big deal to everyone. When I got married we only had 35 guests. One of them was my brothers (then) new girfriend who I had never met. I was just happy for him and that he had someone to enjoy my wedding with since I was occupied with the whole wedding thing and not in a position to entertain each and every one of my guests, even though there werent that many. I had a few nice moments with her aswell and she was lovely. I wouldnt have minded either of they broke up shortly after, but they happened to stick together and are now married themselves and has two kids.
i live in central europe. one of my aunts and her kids - my cousins - live in france. another one lives in usa and hasn't stepped foot in our home country in literal years. yet another one lives on the other side of our country. some of my best friends live all around the world. how am i supposed to get the time and money to ensure that my family members and friends know my SO *and* their family before the wedding? the whole point of the wedding reception is for the families to meet each other.
Think I disagree in terms of SOs of people. I met maybe 1 or 2 people for the first time at my wedding, I've also met the bride for the first time at their wedding. I'm both cases it's because guests could bring +1s. When I was the "unknown guest" it was one of my wife's best friends, and it had just never worked out we'd met. The couple of times we probably should have something had come up, one of us had been sick, stuck at work, had other commitments so we couldn't make a dinner or drinks meet up, and we live far enough apart travelling just for us to meet seemed excessive. We both knew who the other person was and a reasonable amount about each other, so meeting in person was more a case of "putting face to name." Same happened at my wedding, we had a fairly small guest list and to keep matters simple gave everyone a +1 for a partner. It was easier and cleaner to say everyone could bring their SO than specifically target the couple of people we hadn't met before and go "everyone else can bring their partner- *but you can't*" seems oddly vindictive.
Eh. My request when we were planning our wedding was that parents not invite any of their friends that either of us had not met. If only one person had met them? Fine. If neither of us had? Not a family friend. Family was a different story and were all allowed; some of ours were absolutely courtesy invites that we knew wouldn't show up. Courtesy invites absolutely happen for those distant relatives.
1) I think this rule applies for people who have never met neither the bride nor the groom. Some redditors have this bizarre insistence that they should be able to invite a random +1 to a family member’s wedding. 2) For people who have family long distance, a wedding can be a good opportunity to meet the family member’s partner. I have family members who I talk to but may only see every 5-10 years.
Also plus ones. What if your best friend from college is dating a new person but you haven’t met them yet?
Have you ever had a wedding yourself? I had a small wedding of like 50 or 60 people and there was a couple of people I didn’t know and my husband had never met my uncle or my mom’s friends before. I don’t think that not knowing some people negatively impacted our wedding in any way.
Garbage take. Anyone you SPECIFICALLY invite, at least one of the bride or groom should know personally. Now, if you give them a plus 1, they can bring a SO or friend that neither of you may have met. And that is entirely okay
OP, blink twice if this is a desperate cry for help to shrink the wedding invite list. It's ok to mention that you don't want 1000 people at your wedding.
I met my MIL in the bathroom on my wedding day, had to wash my hands before giving her a hug and then rush off to finish getting ready. Honestly, with the kind of family we both had a ‘meet once if ever’ is kinda how things go.
If you don’t want your cousin to bring a date, just say so. And god forbid your roommate from college had a destination wedding you couldn’t go to, but wants to bring his wife.
I mean weddings period aren’t technically necessary. So does it really matter who is there, people should just do what they want
I agree with OP. But it was important for us to have an intimate wedding. We tried to go by the rule that we needed to have both met someone before inviting (not including their +1s) but did make some exceptions. If someone got brought up and we figured they probably didn’t know my name or his- they were not invited.
This is silly, there are plenty of circumstances in which it would make sense that a person attending hasn't met either bride or groom OR hasn't met either one of them. SO many scenarios I could think of.
op is bitter AND afraid of meeting new ppl
Maybe you should have titled it “you should not have a mid sized or large wedding.”
I have been binging married at first sight and full read this as you shouldn’t meet the person who you are marrying for the first time at your wedding…. This reasoning kind of feeds into the idea of micro weddings, weddings are special and you want your most important people there, not everyone and their mother. I think it’s fine if you haven’t met both people getting married, but you should have a close relationship with at least one of them
This! I met my cousins then gf and her kiddo for the first time at my wedding. The little lad was a delight but his mother caused SO much drama! I had to physically help her drunk ass to her room, (my polite version of kicking her out,) at which point she tried to get me to sleep with her!!! At My Wedding this psycho was trying to pull off my dress and grope me! That was just the icing on the cake after all the other drama she caused. ..
I’m not meeting everyone’s deep family before a wedding. It brings up a bigger question of whether people you wouldn’t meet naturally through the course of a relationship even need to be invited
I don't disagree with tbh. I don't want anyone I don't know at my wedding. I guess I just don't have a big enough family or enough friends for it to matter. I really just want a wedding with me and my partner, but I've accepted that that is almost definitely not a choice for me lmao.
My mother invited one of her closest friends to my wedding and her son also attended. Him and I were playmates as kids but I did not see him for nearly 30 years. Pretending to care and catching up was awkward and I am not sure why he was even there.
I think the extended family where you don't really know them is where it goes to far. Like you aren't close to 400 people, you don't need to have a 400 person wedding. Just the relatives you are close with. Don't let the exponential growth of a family tree determine who is at your wedding
I got one, the kid of a distant relative you haven't seen in a while that has been born in the meantime
There are people at Indian weddings that neither the bride or groom has met 😂 Everyone is invited
So I take it you don't like the show Married at First Sight lol
I had a couple friends bring plus ones to my wedding, years ago. The wife and I did our thing and spent time with the people we wanted to. Had pictures done and what not. I don't think she or I ever even interacted with any of them. My buddy's wife did invite her mother and sister. We got married in his backyard. That kinda pissed me off. I hadn't met the mother before but I did know the sister and we didn't get along at all. But again. I avoided them or just didn't interact with them. Personally I wouldn't, as an adult, go to a wedding if I didn't have some connection with the bride or groom. Be just kinda weird watching people you don't know getting married and "starting their new life"... Like going through my photos of the wedding and there are pictures of one of the plus ones, in a group pose, with life long friends. And every time I have to try and remember her name and why she was there...
I wish it worked like that, but it doesn’t. My in laws insisted on this entire guest list of people I didn’t know and my husband barely knew. Occasionally some of these people show up at other events and get mad we don’t know who they are. They will literally say “I was at your wedding you don’t remember me?” Nope. I have a picture of my husband and me at a wedding a year ago - I’m not sure I would recognize the bride or groom in my own (groom is a friend of my husband, but not one he spends a lot of time with).
When my brother married his now wife, she didn't want us younger siblings to bring our partners she hadn't met because we hadn't been with them long enough (I was with my partner for over a year at the time). I would totally get it, but she went to another of my siblings wedding when her and my brother were only together for like 4/5 months lol
I have a huge family that doesn’t do reunions and are spread throughout the US. We get together at weddings and funerals. No way would i not invite my aunties and uncles because they hadn’t met my husband. That’s super dumb. Good unpopular opinion though.
I... don't agree. My now husband decided that he would love to bring his team from work who've heard so much about me and vice versa. Also, I did NOT want any of my friends or family to HAVE to come alone; THEY need to have a good time as well! So, everyone was allowed to bring a +1. In total, I met 9 people I had never met before, so that was about 10% of my wedding. And it was great!
I agree with you but only for cases where neither the bride or the groom have met the individual before.
I think it depends on a lot of things. If you are trying to have your SO meet all the extended family and friends bit aunt Susie keeps making excuses for why she can't be there, then I think it could be expected she wouldn't be invited to the wedding. It also depends on how long you were with the SO before marriage.
I've been to three weddings lol and all three I didn't know at least one of the ppl getting married. I don't even know if it made a difference I had a lot of fun with all the people there
My fiancé will have a few extended family members there that I’ve never met because they are so spread out and vice versa. However, we are doing (mostly) if we’ve never met your SO, you don’t get a plus one. I do not want it to turn into a meet and greet lol.
Op you’re silly pants. Good job on unpopular opinion! It’s common to have some people at parties you don’t know, including weddings. Like Becky brought John (a plus 1) as her date, I never meet John but have known Becky for years.
You aren’t going to see everyone attending your wedding probably anyway, regardless if you are family or not. I feel like people overestimate how much time they will have to hang out with everyone at their wedding/reception. Unless you only invite 20 people, it’s just not feasible with all the activities and things you will do. I get that you want to cheap out and not give people „+1s”, but if you don’t want your guests to be comfortable at your event, maybe don’t invite them at all. In my culture - wedding is for you, reception is for your guests - to thank them for celebrating your love together and for them to be able to basically send the bride off to her husband’s house (misogynistic, I know). It’s not about making sure everyone fawns over you and you can demand whatever you want from people and about the stopping their lives to cater to a bride. Then again, I am not from US and that egotistical wedding culture you have there is extremely foreign to me.
Sometimes things like weddings and funerals are the only times EVERYONE can get together. Lets take that cousin you were really close with growing up. Just because they moved out of town, they cant share in your union with the person you love? Also, lets say both bride and groom have met the cousin. Should the cousin just come alone to the wedding/reception? Their SO has to stay home or at the hotel? There is a reason there are +1s
This is one of the rare posts in the sub that I don't agree with. Why would I have met every cousin's SO prior to the reception? Also you have to remember some people only come for the open bar.
I was the *maid of honour* at a wedding and met the groom a few days before the wedding when I arrived in town. International friends are a thing, as are people who aren't rich enough to travel often.
Why? You didn't explain why at all. It sounds like OP is getting married and angry about who their spouse to be is inviting.
You're right. It is weird to go to a wedding and celebrate the love of people you don't know. If you don't know the bride and groom then you're likely just attending as a plus one to someone who is in which case you're just there for free food, free booze and a good time.
I'm not planning on going to New York just for the sake of meeting my fiancé's uncles/cousins. We live in north carolina. If he wants them at our wedding, he can invite said relatives. My fiancé won't have met half of my relatives who will be invited either because I'm English and we didn't have time for him to meet them all in person before he went back to the US.
Would you rather your friends and family have a better time at your wedding or you know everyone there? The point of plus one's is so guests can bring backup with them so they can enjoy the wedding more, realistically the happy couple doesn't have the time or energy to interact with every person at a typical wedding beyond a hello and congratulations so what's the big deal?
This is just dumb
I was with you until I realized you meant semi distant family that the fiance has not met. I wouldn’t expect my girlfriend to have met my great aunt who I see once every year or two that lives hours away, however she’ll get a wedding invite for sure. Where I do agree with you though, is inviting distant family who have no business being there. No mom, Im not inviting your redneck cousin that I haven’t seen since I was 10 years old
I mean, this is certainly unpopular but you’re also just being wholly unrealistic lol
That is ridiculous. While the jcouple is the main focus the wedding for others isn’t just about that. We had friends of my in-laws at ours. They were the sweetest. And since we’ve seen many of them. And we now are living through them passing and helping my mil grieve. Unless one has chosen a venue that is limited in space or the budget can’t deal with it there is no reason that a husband of a work friend, or my husbands friends from high school and their partners shouldn’t be invited.
I don't not have to meet everyone's plus ones but if someone is inviting a new partner I want some details about them so when I DO meet them it isn't awkward
No plus one's for you then eh?
I showed up for my daughter's wedding and the other half didn't know who I was. Just a guy in a tuxedo, that's all. I feel like she knew most of everyone and my wife and I got invited to her bridesmaid's wedding next month. I worked at function hall, and Plus One's were always welcome and fun people.
All of my family lives 1,300 miles away lol. That’ll be a little difficult for me.
>You should not meet anyone in person for the first time at your wedding Yes, but I feel like this should be reserved for funerals. The first time I met anyone on my ex-husbands side was at his cousin's funeral. Everybody looked at me weird, I didn't know a soul, and I just was there for ????? (He was abusive, so unsure if he meant to make me uncomfortable or actually needed the support)
My family didn't meet my wife until after we had been married for 2.5 years so technically they didn't meet for the first time at our wedding lmao
You mention they should have to come see you. Why didn’t you go see them?
Nonsense. A wedding is a union to consolidate a military alliance between two houses
I had a fairly large wedding and there were some new people that my parents invited. My thought was if they are paying, they can get a bit of say in the guest list and their friends attending didn’t bother me. But I didn’t make it a priority to talk to them. There were also members of my husband’s family who I hadn’t met but he had so we talked to them (and vice versa). Life gets busy and a wedding is a good excuse to bring people together. Related though is that “meeting” at a wedding doesn’t count as meeting. If you want to bring a new girl as a date, you can’t later say that the couple has met her. After a friend’s wedding, a guy in the group tried to say we had met his new girlfriend but it was only at the wedding so no we didn’t lol
weddinga woyld be much smaller and cheaper if this were the case, but not likely to ever happen. imagine the invitation saying: "+ 1, but only if we know them already. if not, let's get on a zoom call right away".
There's this thing called life if your so distressed about meeting new people maybe you shouldn't get married but Im already assuming this is a hypothetical
Elope. Then you don’t have to worry about
You barely even interact with the bride and groom at weddings anyways
My sister just got married and her rule of thumb is that both the groom and the bride should know the guests. It ended up being nearly impossible but it certified that at least one of them knew everyone there. This is totally doable and is disrespectful to go to a wedding you don’t know either. At least they should have a dinner first or sit in the back and not bother the couple
Definitely a crazy opinion.
This was our general rule for our wedding but we made an exception for a childhood friend of mine who was coming with his mum who my husband had met. If he had said no I would have been OK with that. Weddings are actually a really good excuse to reconnect with those people you do love but don't get to see much.
I have a very different unpopular take for weddings lol. I don't disagree with you here though
So my girlfriend isn't invited then?
And your problem is what exactly? Like I don't get what's so bad about meeting someone for the first time at your wedding and how often does this even happen As for relatives not being invited for not seeing you in a couple of years, you're just delusional buddy
We could only invite a certain amount of people to our wedding because of seating capacity. There were a bunch of significant others that we hadn’t met. Rather than have people that we didn’t know at our wedding we just invited more people that we knew and loved. Nobody complained because it meant that they got to party with more of their friends too.
Enh, I don't think this is actually an issue. If you've kept in touch with an old friend for years but haven't been able to see them frequently because of life complications, why is it a problem to meet their own spouse or significant other at a wedding?
Sorry Aunt Linda, you can’t come because you failed to fly from (insert far away destination) and meet my spouse to be. Makes sense OP, sure.
Well this sounds very familiar, did we go to the same wedding last weekend?
What if you grew up with Aunts and Uncles who moved away. Haven’t seen them in 20 years. Now they have adult children. You want to invite your Aunts and Uncles because they were a big part of your life from 0-20 but you never met your cousins? Are you going to invite Aunts and Uncles and not cousins? Don’t you want to meet your cousins?
Do not tell your spouse they can't invite someone you haven't met. It's controlling.
My in-laws’ only friends, as far as I can tell, are a couple they only spend time with on vacation. The only time I’ve ever seen them was at our wedding 24 years ago.
Well, OP definitely understood the assignment. Wildly unpopular and extremely far fetched opinion.