The guest list, hands down, had to be the worst part of planning our wedding. Such a source of constant and continued drama, and literally up until two days before our wedding! You've heard people tell horror stories of their mother inviting their hairdressers cousins and the like. Its true, that wacky, crazy stuff happens and more than you realize. Everyone does love a wedding, as you'll soon find out yourself!
Right from the start, Eddie and I agreed that we wanted a smaller wedding and not only from an affordability factor, but from an intimacy factor. We agreed, the only people we wanted in attendance were to be those whom we really wanted there, and not because we had to or were obligated to invite them. We didn't want kids at our wedding, other than the sole exceptions of Eddie's young nephews who were in the wedding party. And we decided from the get-go that we were not going to do an "...and Guest" wedding, too. For any invited couples, they needed to be either engaged or living together to be included on the wedding invitation envelopes.
Let me just get on my soap box and say I think its really important for the bride and groom to discuss what they are going to do on the subject of the guest list, in advance, so they can be a truly united front going forward. Kids? Girlfriend/boyfriend of the week/month club? Extended acquaintances of your family members whom you don't even know? Trust me on this, it will come up, and typically, from those people whom you'd least expect it from.
Cases in point:
Let me just get on my soap box and say I think its really important for the bride and groom to discuss what they are going to do on the subject of the guest list, in advance, so they can be a truly united front going forward. Kids? Girlfriend/boyfriend of the week/month club? Extended acquaintances of your family members whom you don't even know? Trust me on this, it will come up, and typically, from those people whom you'd least expect it from.
Cases in point:
We had one instance, where right after we were engaged Eddie was put on the spot by an aunt and uncle. Unbeknownst to them, they had not made the cut on our upcoming guest list. We were at a casual family party and at one point when we weren't standing next to each other, he was asked point blank, if they were invited. Caught off guard and on the spot Eddie stammered, "Yes." To which he quickly found me afterwards, confessed and apologized his blunder. Fortunately, his mother took one for the team and called her brother later in the week to tell them they were subsequently now uninvited, as well as to admonish them for doing such a thing to their nephew.
You GO, future mother-in-law!
You GO, future mother-in-law!
Little did we know, that this would be the simpler of tasks to rectify surrounding our guest list up until our wedding day.
Our wedding shower in CA was a co-ed wedding shower that included our friends and E's family invited to the wedding. This party was set in late summer, just prior to our actual wedding invitations being sent off to our invited guests in the mail.
Wrong!
She was of the "more the merrier" variety and didn't think (or know?) of how her/this attitude could totally cause a guest list catastrophe that reflects on the bride and groom, not the shower hostess. E had an uncle close in age who was dating someone whom he was off-and-on with during our engagement period. We had not planned on inviting his GF since they were neither engaged nor were they living together. (And we knew what a slippery slope it is if you allow one person to bring a guest and not another!)
Said relative brought on-again-off-again girlfriend to the co-ed wedding shower. We learned about this as we were driving to CA for the shower itself. Shower hostess called on the drive down to mention this little detail. Additionally, she let other invited guests, bring dates as well.
Ugh! Like I mentioned earlier, a "more the merrier" attitude should never be applied to anything more than a casual get-together. Did I mention, this was a wedding shower? If you allow folks to attend the wedding shower, they pretty much [incorrectly] assume they are then invited to your upcoming wedding.
We sent out our invites as planned, and E's uncle called to RSVP for he and the girlfriend. [And yes, the invite had only been addressed to the uncle.] When E told his uncle that his girlfriend wasn't invited, his uncle told him that he wouldn't come to the wedding unless she could, too. E told him, "I'm sorry you can't make it, we'll miss you..." and hung up the phone. This wasn't an easy task for him, to say the least but I was proud of him for being the united front we'd agreed upon from the start. If we allowed one relative to bring a guest, we knew word would quickly get out and we'd need to do it for the rest of the family.
The fallout from standing our ground on the guest list now meant that Eddie's grandmother wouldn't be able to attend as she had planned to ride to NV from CA with her son, E's uncle. Our not including on-again-off-again girlfriend in the standoff ultimatum ended up with E's grandma unable to attend, now. We held firm on our decision, though.
Interestingly, literally two days before the wedding, his uncle called and said he'd be coming to our wedding (solo) after all, and grandma would be coming with him!
Maybe future-mother-in-law had a hand? Who knows.
I had to make quick, last minute arrangements to accommodate the additional attendees with the hotel and florist, but we were thrilled to gain both E's uncle and grandma. (Grandma's own wedding day picture was on the wedding dinner menu's, after all!) In the very end we were lucky this worked out how it did. And it would only be fair to update that the on-again-off-again girlfriend is now married to E's uncle. We attended their wedding many years ago and they have a lovely, growing family themselves, now.
Our wedding dance dancing instructor? Another unexpected guest list surprise. He received his invitation (addressed just to him) and he announced in our next lesson after receiving it that his female friend, whom he was bringing with him, loved weddings! I totally lost my concentration for the rest of our lesson. Eddie and I discussed the situation the following week and then at our next lesson, very delicately but tactfully, let our instructor know that we'd only invited him, and we were sorry, but it was not an "and guest" event. In the end, our dance instructor RSVP'd that he was coming to our wedding, up to our last lesson. The day of the wedding, he was a no show. In our follow up lesson after our honeymoon, he gave us a lame excuse for his non-attendance. It was either he got mixed up on the day or time or location or wasn't feeling well. All these years later, I can't remember the exact excuse. My point (and I do have one!) is people assume they can bring some one with them when they are invited to a wedding.
They shouldn't assume, anything.
Finally, I had another friend who called to ask if her husband could bring a friend of his with them to our wedding. He hadn't seen this friend in years and the friend happened to live in the same city we did and where we were getting married. Evidently, her husband thought he'd just kill two birds with one stone and use our wedding as the way to do this. I thanked my friend for asking me in advance, but gently explained that it was a small wedding (with a multi-course plated dinner) and no, we couldn't accommodate her husbands friend as well. She got it. I think that she had to just go through the motion of asking because her husband had put her in a corner with the request.
Let me leave you with this AWESOME Miss Manner's question/answer on the very subject matter. She always does such a great job getting the point across:
Dear Miss Manners,I have noticed lately, that amongst women of the same age group as myself who are engaged and planning large, expensive weddings, that my single friends are invited to said weddings without "and guest" added to their invitations.
It is almost as if the engaged women, in an attempt to keep cost down, have decided that the single women, whether they are dating someone or not, do not get the option to bring someone along to the wedding and reception.
Is this rude? I feel that just because these women are not married or engaged, they still should have the opportunity to bring a date to the wedding and that by assuming their dates just aren't as important if not legally bound by law, the engaged woman is being presumptuous and rude. What are your thoughts?
Gentle Reader,That the invitation is to a wedding, not to an evening out on the town, and it is not rude not to be married in front of strangers who mean nothing to them and not much to you. If you must scour up a date, Miss Manners suggests looking over the single gentlemen at the wedding, who would not have been asked to bring along "and guest" either.
