my coworker insisted on inviting her sister to my wedding

by Alison Green on October 8, 2024

A reader writes:

This happened a while ago, but I’m still weirded out by it. I worked in a very close-knit, small office (five people), where I got along very well with everyone except one person, “Gertrude.”

Gertrude was in her first job out of school, so it’s likely she was new to working world etiquette, but it seemed like she constantly tried to put herself as someone who was doing it all, while actually doing very little (she had the lowest output of anyone). She also had a tendency to try and stir drama — she’d say, “I don’t know why Janine (our boss) didn’t put me and you on this project. I think she’s totally unfair, right?” I’d just say that I didn’t know why anything happened and it was best to just focus on my own work and move on.

After two years of working at this office, I got engaged and wanted to invite my coworkers to my wedding. Since I thought it seemed incredibly rude to invite three of them and leave Gertrude out, I included her as well.

Traditionally, wedding invitations in my circle only include a plus-one if the person is married or in a very committed long-term relationship (as in years). The venue has limited seating, weddings are expensive, etc. … It may not be a great system, but it’s what it is.

On the RSVP cards I wrote out the guest name (e.g., Ms. Sally Jones), with a checkmark box for “yes” and “no.” For internal reference, I wrote out the number of guests on the card, so when I inputted the response I could easily write down the number of attendees.

When Gertrude mailed back her response, she wrote a note in the margins saying, “Ms. Gertrude Smith and sister Ellie Smith.” She then crossed out the number where it said “1” and wrote 2, and then in the box where one should check yes or no, she wrote in “yes for me and my sister.”

I am not an etiquette expert so maybe inviting sisters is a thing in other cultures? I told her sorry, but her sister was not invited to my wedding.

She was very insulted and we had this conversation:

Gertrude: I don’t understand.
Me: Sorry, but we are not doing plus-ones
Gertrude (huffy): Why not? I’m going to be bored without anyone to talk to.
Me: Well, you will be seated with everyone from our office, so you’ll have people to talk to.
Gertrude: Well, I want someone I’m close to to talk to.
Me: Okay. I definitely understand, so if you choose not to come, I will understand.
Gertrude: Who’s going to stop me if I bring my sister anyway?!
Me: No one will physically stop you, but it’s assigned seating … so she won’t have anywhere to sit.
Gertrude: I can’t believe you’re not letting me bring a plus-one.

I didn’t even want Gertrude at my wedding in the first place! And I had to navigate a whole mess because I didn’t want to leave her out! (She was rude to me for the rest of the year she worked there, I had to escalate to our mutual boss, and she ended up leaving soon afterwards). But was there something I could have done differently here? I know mixing the workplace and personal lives is always tricky, but I honestly don’t know what I should have done better in this situation.

I wrote back and asked the burning unanswered question: “What ended up happening? Did she go? Did she bring her sister?”

She was unclear if she would be willing to come without her sister, repeating that it’s standard to expect a plus-one. I was equally firm in that there would be nowhere for her to sit.

Whenever I tried to press Gertrude if her sister’s exclusion meant that she wouldn’t come at all, she just repeated that she could not believe I was not giving everyone a plus-one. So I kept Gertrude on the “yes” list.

Gertrude did come, and coworkers didn’t mention her trying to shoe-horn her sister into their table, so I think she got the message. But she was standoffish the remainder of the time we worked together. Her behavior was bizarre with other people too so I’m not sure if it was because of the wedding (for example, at one event where she was assigned to hand out pamphlets, she told everyone she was managing the event and got really angry when people tried to correct that). When she left a few months later, she sent me an out-of-the-blue message on social media saying, “I don’t hate anyone at work, but I needed to grow as a person and out of my comfort zone.”

All in all, a weird experience and I’m not sure what I should have done to make it less weird. Not engaged on my reasons for not including universal plus-ones? Escalated to my boss when she was rude to me before? Eloped?

People are so weird about invitations.

You don’t get to forcibly invite an additional guest to someone else’s wedding. If you’re told you don’t have a plus-one, your choices are either to accept the invitation on those terms or to decline to attend. “I’m bringing a plus-one anyway” isn’t on the table.

The point of a plus-one was never supposed to be “so that you’re not bored.” Rather, it stems from etiquette long treating married couples as a social unit, where it was considered rude to invite one member of a couple to a social event without including both (and later, as it became more common to see long-term relationships without marriage, to view those long-term couples as a social unit as well). There’s certainly a whole conversation that could be had about whether or not that’s the right paradigm to use, but it’s still a very common social convention and it’s not shocking or offensive to limit your plus-one’s that way (particularly at expensive events like weddings where space on the guest list is often at a premium and hosts are having to make trade-offs).

But all that aside, Gertrude was simply rude. “I’m going to be bored at your wedding” is rude. “Who’s going to stop me if I bring a guest anyway?” is rude. Hassling you about a decision you’d already made clear was firm is rude.

You’re looking at this as “is there anything I could have done differently?” when this was really just about Gertrude being rude, which doesn’t sound out of character for her.

That said, you were on the right track with “I understand if this means you won’t be able to attend.”  Ideally you would have taken it a step further and said, “Since I know the lack of a plus-one was a concern for you, I’ll put you down as a no. Although if you do want to attend on your own, let me know today before I finalize things.” (You could also leave off that last sentence if you wanted to.)

And if she still pushed: “Okay, I’ll put you down as a no.”

If it’s any solace, I believe all the best weddings include weird drama. (I was disappointed that mine didn’t have any! Keeping it small was likely our fatal error in that regard.) In your shoes, I would cherish this story for years to come, and I recommend that you do the same.

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{ 263 comments }

{ 263 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. AnonInCanada*

    What did I just read? Wow, it’s clear the second syllable in her name (Gertrude) is definitely in play here. Be happy she’s out of your life forever. But wow, just, wow.

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    2. Purple Cat*

      Haha, I definitely pronounce it Ger-Trude. and couldn’t figure out what a “trude” was. Assumed it was mean to be a play on “‘tude” before it finally clicked that it was “rude”. It might be noon, but I think I need more cofee…

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      1. Namenlos*

        I read it with German pronounciation and couldn’t figure it out. It has three syllables in German: Ger-tru-de.

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    3. RIP Pillowfort*

      The absolute audacity of her to say, “Who’s going to stop me?” when it’s a co-worker’s wedding invite. Ma’am you are not that important and you were getting a courtesy invite. That can be easily rescinded.

      I’d have said “Oh someone will stop you right now. You’re uninvited.” And dealt with that awkward because Gertrude was gonna make it awkward anyway.

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    4. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

      It must be so hard to be Gertrude!

      Going through life with this massive sense of entitlement, and continually disappointed and angry when she doesn’t get what she feels she’s absolutely entitled to.

      Let’s all be happy not to have such a Dante-esque fate.

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  2. Ellis Bell*

    There’s always someone like this if you plan a wedding that involves at least one not-close, not-awesome person. Personally I agree with Alison and would have pushed her towards a “no” since you didn’t want her there anyway. “It’s okay if it’s too boring for you, I’ll just put you down as a no and then you can do something fun with your sister that night instead.”

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    1. Consonance*

      At my wedding, we invited one of my husband’s friends. Not a particularly close friend, but they hung out kind of regularly. We didn’t offer a plus one to him because he wasn’t in a relationship (we had the same rules as OP for figuring that out). He did the same thing – adding a friend’s name to the RSVP card. My husband let him know that he didn’t have a plus one and he agreed without argument. Come to the day of the actual wedding and he “couldn’t make it” because his car “broke down”. Obviously with the quotation marks we assume he just didn’t want to come without a friend (he drove for 100% of his job, so his car breaking down would’ve been a much bigger deal). He really wouldn’t have known anyone else there so I totally get it, but I think people are too hesitant to simply say that they can’t attend. Much better to just say “I wish I could, but I won’t be able to attend. Wishing you a wonderful day!”

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      1. Ellis Bell*

        I think a lot of these sorts of tiffs come about because some people think it’s rude to decline. A friend got told off by someone being very defensive who was a declining an invitation because she couldn’t accommodate kids at the venue: “It’s not my fault, we can’t get a babysitter!!” When she told him it was perfectly fine and they’d just see him another time with the kids, he was flabbergasted.

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      2. And so it is and so it shall be*

        I recall in my 20s feeling guilty for declining a sorority sister’s wedding (it was out of town, we didn’t stay particularly close though I was very fond of her). One of my best friends who had recently gotten married told me that the couple NEEDS people to say no, they likely can not accommodate 100% of their guest list at the venue. Ever since then, I feel like I’m easing a couple’s worries when I decline, lol.

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      3. SpaceySteph*

        Omg I had to check to see if this was an old post and you were me, because I have almost an identical story right down to the car breaking down.

        Except in our case this friend was renting a room from my husband aka LIVING IN HIS HOUSE. But he (at the time a mid-30s man) was notorious for dating women at our local university (and getting into messy situations with them, like the case of an ex boyfriend’s broken bong and small claims court) and I did not want to host his 21 year old messy flavor of the week, so we invited him with no plus one.

        Weirdest part is that my husband returned to the house after the wedding to collect some things (he moved into my house after we married) and this friend/roommate didn’t even say a word about the wedding. Not “sorry I missed it” or “how was it?” Not. A. Word.

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    2. ASD always*

      At mine it was a mid-30s-aged cousin throwing a fit that her boyfriend of three months (who I didn’t even know about) wasn’t invited. When we had a maximum venue capacity of 50 and 56 actual family members, including long-term cohabiting partners.

      She refused to attend without him. I shrugged. They broke up within the first six months of my marriage anyway.

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      1. Le Sigh*

        This is making me grateful that my biggest guest list problems were 1) getting the invite list to a manageable size within venue capacity and 2) a few guests who sent back RSVP cards without their names attached (though we had a very good idea of which two they were, since…well, it’s on brand and we love them for it). My friend numbered her RSVPs to avoid that problem, which was smart!

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        1. SpaceySteph*

          I learned this trick from my mom, who numbered my bat mitzvah RSVPs circa 2000 for this exact reason, with a little penciled number on the back.

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        2. Rainy*

          It’s easier to avoid the predictable problems when you are following on a chain of weddings. Ours was the fifth of five weddings among family and friends (all of which either Mr Rainy or I were in the wedding party for) in about eighteen months, and we took such careful note of what worked and didn’t work. Our wedding definitely went smoother for it! For example, we didn’t have speeches because the speeches had gone so poorly at literally every wedding we’d attended.

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  3. Anonym*

    OP, just want to share appreciation for you pushing back and not letting Gertrude bring her uninvited guest. That had to have been uncomfortable, but you did the difficult, reasonable thing. Plus you gave her the opportunity to correct an incorrect assumption about how the world works. Whether she took it or not, I think it was a good thing.

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      1. Consonance*

        Yeah, wedding etiquette is really poorly represented by all the TV shows and books out there. If she’d never been invited to a wedding as an adult before, I can totally understand that she thinks everyone gets a Plus One. They don’t. Some people (very social? very rich? IDK) might organize their weddings that way. But the “actual” etiquette is that the people to whom the envelope is addressed (or more formally, the inner envelope) are the people who are invited. And if you misunderstood and are later corrected, a modicum of grace is called for. “Oh I’m sorry, I misunderstood. I’ll just come myself/I don’t think I’ll be able to attend in that case. Thank you for the invitation! I wish you a wonderful day.”

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    2. Sloanicota*

      Yes, you handled it well – I’m always confused by the letters that are like, “Gertrude did this weird thing and I don’t like her and she’s mean to me – so of course I had to do the thing she wanted.” There was nothing to lose here! That said, it sounds to me like Gertrude also grew after leaving the job, and I certainly had some weird ideas and behaviors in my very first job (people kept telling me “fake it till you make it,” but that’s not always the right advice for young people IMO) so I’m willing to give her grace on that one. At least, that’s how I’d choose to interpret that last message from her.

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      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        I interpreted the last message from Gertrude as attempting to get some kind of last word in, like, “I definitely don’t HATE any of you, (especially you who I have been extra rude to for a while) I just needed to go somewhere BETTER with BETTER people.”

        And I either would’ve ignored it or responded with a plain, “Bye!”

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        1. ItWasMyWedding*

          Hello! OP here.

          Yes I definitely got that feeling from her reply. I actually wrote back “I don’t know why anyone would think that” and she was like WELL. JUST IN CASE. ANYONE THOUGHT SO. I don’t hear any of YOU hate (capitalization are mine).

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    3. ferrina*

      Yes! OP wrote to ask if they did anything wrong, but they did everything perfectly right! They were clear, they held firm against someone asking for something unreasonable, and they were an absolute role model start to finish.

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  4. VP of Monitoring Employees’ LinkedIn and Indeed Profiles*

    We made it easy: Everyone was allowed a Plus One.

    (Of course, not everyone had someone to bring, and not every +1 was a spouse or Significant Other. In one case, a coworker’s husband couldn’t make it, so I suggested that she bring her college-age daughter instead.)

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      2. doreen*

        That kind of depends on the specifics – everyone invited to my daughter’s wedding got a “plus one” but once you took out the established couples (who were always both going to be invited) the “plus ones” would have added a maximum of five people.

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        1. Ellis Bell*

          My great aunt, I’d probably only spoken to her once or twice in my life because she’s not all that close to her sister, my grandmother. I hadn’t invited any great uncles/aunts (even the one I really liked) because I have lots of them and was already at capacity with parents siblings and cousins. It was unlucky that she even had access to me during the wedding planning period but coincidentally she was at a cousin’s birthday dinner (found out later she’d invited herself). At the dinner she said “I’m not invited to your wedding, even though you’re having it on my birthday!” I said, “that’s right, have a nice birthday though”. She was super offended, but I didn’t care. My grandfather had passed away recently, so my grandmother actually did have a plus one that she could use so later on I asked my grandmother I’d she wanted her sister with her, and she just said “no way, I’m happy with my family”. I had another family member drop out, and invited the great aunt who I actually liked, and who had manners.

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    3. Person from the Resume*

      Growing up I went to a lot of weddings of family members. They were all buffet with no assigned seats.

      Apparently in other parts of the country, people assign seats to guest and purchase a meal for them. It sounds like LW wedding was one of these.

      LW was great and perfectly polite. Gertrude was not. Maybe Gertrude misunderstood ( and was unfamiliar with assigned seating and catered meals at a wedding), but she got rude and argumentative and there’s no excuse for that.

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      1. wondermint*

        Yeah, my experiences for all weddings of my friends have been assigned seating with a purchased meal (I’m in my 30s). Everything is heavily planned, curated, and detail-oriented. It takes most of my friends over a year to plan them, just for it all to be unleashed over 8 hours or so.

        Weddings today are excuses to act like a a member of the upper class for a day. They’re insane.

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        1. Observer*

          Everything is heavily planned, curated, and detail-oriented. It takes most of my friends over a year to plan them,

          Eh, you can do assigned seating with purchased meals in waaay less than that. What you do need a good caterer, and possibly (depending on the level of detail you care about) a decent party planner. My wedding (decades ago) was planned in 3 months. None of my kids weddings went substantially longer than that. And I know plenty of people who managed engagements in 6 weeks. All of them with purchased meals, many with assigned seating.

          Not that it really matters in this context.

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          1. wondermint*

            I’m not saying all weddings take over a year to plan, but there has been this pressure, maybe with the advent of social media and picturesque Pinterest boards, to get the entire ambiance *just right.* This take much more time and effort compared to decades ago. I’m glad your kids were able to move on a more abbreviated schedule. Many venues around my area are simply booked a year+ in advance.

            As another commenter mentioned, given that communities don’t stay put like they used to, there is some desire to make a nice experience for those guests who are traveling in. I believe this is why weddings have moved from one day celebrations to entire weekend affairs.

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            1. Richard Hershberger*

              More minutely choreographed events are not my idea of making it a nice experience. If I travel for a family or friend group wedding, I would rather spend time with them informally. If I don’t know anybody apart from the happy couple, I am happier making a short trip of it.

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              1. Glad I'm Retired*

                Years ago (60’s and 70’s) wedding receptions were usually in a rented hall or backyard with a buffet set up. I actually had more fun than the formal “rubber chicken” dinners and assigned seating.

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                1. Random Biter*

                  Yep, yep, yep…my grandma, who was a baker, did our wedding cake as our gift. The rest of the fam kicked in with food..stuffed cabbages, fried chicken, potato salad, etc. Reception was at my mom’s house. Done and done. No drama and good memories.

                2. Lady Danbury*

                  As someone who has been to probably more than my fair share of weddings, I prefer assigned seating. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but in my experience brides tend to be really thoughtful about assigning people who know each other and/or will get along well, so I’ve always enjoyed sitting with my friend group/similar aged cousins/other coworkers/etc. Unassigned seating can be such a crap shoot, unless you’re one of the first people to make it into the hall.

          2. Ellis Bell*

            Yeah there’s simply no way around the numbers and a buffet actually costs more money as Lost Academic rightfully points out. I love simple weddings where the emphasis is on just being comfortable, but it’s not fancy to make sure you have enough food and that the venue is safe. My aunt just planned a very simple anniversary party with a buffet at a no frills working men’s club, and they still charged her per head. People who actually think there’s such a thing as a free dinner have simply never planned a party that involves feeding people.

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          3. Chirpy*

            I mean, I have a friend who planned her wedding in a couple of weeks while evacuating from a natural disaster, but I know she’d always wanted a small wedding and it was basically immediate family only!

            Most weddings I’ve been to still need an accurate headcount even if they are served buffet style. You still need the correct number of chairs and food, even if it’s not plated for you.

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          4. B*

            Also depends heavily on location. If you want to have a wedding in NYC, for instance, you need to be booking all this stuff a year out, easily.

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          5. Panhandlerann*

            Decades ago, I had six months to get mine together, which was considered plenty at the time. But when my daughter got married one decade ago and we had the same amount of time, it was such a struggle. So many venues were already booked. That’s the real problem.

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        2. Fingus*

          This is true, AND it’s true that weddings these days often involve a lot of guests traveling (vs hometown affairs where almost everyone is local), so there’s an expectation/desire to make it a nice experience for close people who are sharing time and travel budgets to join.

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        3. TiffIf*

          LOL My sister got engaged on May 13 and then married on September 20 the same year. But my religious tradition has a VERY different wedding culture than is the mainstream In particular the wedding itself is a small event usually only close family and friends, no children no extras; and the reception is the big party and that often is done on a shoestring calling in favors from friends and family for prep assistance; I made dozens of table favors for my sister’s reception when I was 17 and made dozens of scones for my best friend’s reception when I was 30 something.

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        4. Irish Teacher.*

          Looking from Ireland…8 hours…would be short. My friend’s wedding started around midday or 1pm with the church service and we got to bed at around 5:30am. And there was an afterparty the following evening.

          I was a bridesmaid and we had a wedding breakfast beforehand while getting hair and make-up done, so I was really involved in the whole thing from about 6:30 or 7am to about 5:30 am and then a party the following evening from say 6pm to midnight.

          And most engagements are 1-2 years, at least that I know of. I do know one person who did it in about 6 months, which was noteably short. I think that’s the shortest engagement I’ve ever known anybody to have.

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      2. Lost academic*

        Even if you are doing a buffet, the food cost is based on your headcount. It’s also more expensive from a catering cost perspective to do buffet because you have to account for more food per person (learned this doing events so I knew that going into my own wedding). The cheapest option is typically a plated seating. Yes, in theory there might be an extra chair in that situation, but the reality is that every person adds to the cost of the event and it can quickly get out of control.

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      3. Ellis Bell*

        Buffet caterers still need numbers! You also want to make sure you have enough seats, even if you don’t assign them. Most venues will also get really annoyed with you if the numbers go over fire regulations, and will turn people away; no one wants that drama on their wedding day. I think this kind of thing is not just ignorance of fancier parties, but ignorance of planning a party. They think they’re the only person who would bring an extra, but almost every single would bring a plus one if they could. It’s also a lack of caring about the details; in their minds it’s no more important than any other party, so if there’s a hiccup, or not enough food they can just leave and eat somewhere else.

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      5. LL*

        the majority of the weddings I’ve been to have had assigned seatings and plated meals, but I’ve also been to buffet-style weddings and the food was still catered and the couple still had to pay a certain amount per person. Did you mean you’ve been to potluck weddings?

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        1. Sitting Duck*

          I’ve been to a Potluck wedding! It was my roommate from college , it was beautiful, and very fitting for the couple. The property was right on a river, and the bride went kayaking in her wedding dress (which inspired me 8 years later to paddle board on my wedding day in my dress!)

          The food was delicious, homey, comforting, and it added a special aspect to the wedding, where all the guests contributed to the ‘start’ of the couples future. It was a small ceremony(about 30 people?) but again, it was so perfect for them. I honestly cannot image this friend getting married in any type of traditional ‘wedding’ that most people think of when they hear the word today.

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          1. sheworkshardforthemoney*

            A friend had a catered dinner, wedding cake and then a potluck dessert table. Guests were encouraged to bring their favourite pie. It was great because people were asking for recipes.

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        2. Parcae*

          I have been to both potluck weddings and buffet weddings where the food was not catered but prepared by friends and/or family of the happy couple. The most recent (a buffet) was this summer. I think it really depends on location; in many places, venues have rules about bringing in outside food or restrictions on which vendors you can use, so catering would be a must. But others are more relaxed.

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        3. iglwif*

          Potluck weddings are great! (At least, they CAN be great.) But yeah, it’s bizarre to suppose that buffet-style catering (a) is not still priced per guest and (b) is cheaper than plated.

          People at buffets come back for second helpings.

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        4. skadhu*

          Twenty years ago this month my partner and I had a potluck wedding. Wedding and reception were both held at pur friends’ house with 75 guests (they had a big house and regularly hosted big parties). We had croquembouche instead of wedding cake. Everyone had a ball, including us; we would never have done it any other way. Both of us agreed we would have hated a traditional wedding.

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      6. ItWasMyWedding*

        LW here. Yup. Assigned tables for specific guests. Coworker table was our office people and my husbands office people. There wouldn’t have been a place for Gertrude’s sister to sit (unless she stole a place from another person ala wedding musical chairs).

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      7. doreen*

        I’ve been to all kinds of weddings – there’s not much difference between a buffet and a seated dinner at the same place. The price might be a bit lower for the buffet, but either way you pay by the person and there will be exactly as many seats set up as guests being paid for which usually means assigned seats – otherwise you might end up with multiple tables with a single empty seat and have a few couples who have to sit at different tables with people they don’t know. Now, if you rent an event space or have the wedding in a backyard and use an outside caterer where you pay by the tray , you might be able to avoid having assigned seating because in those situations you can set up a couple of extra tables.

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    4. Not on board*

      Not to mention some venues have limited space so it may not be possible to give everyone a plus-one. It’s nice if you can do it, but often difficult choices need to be made.

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      1. KateM*

        I was to a wedding with limited space so the invitation said no children. Based on the amount of shuffling (bringing extra seats and tableware) that happened on the venue, there were still two guests who thought it fine to bring their children unannounced. (There were also a couple of babies about whom the couple had been informed and who were hold by parents so took no extra room.)

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    5. cloudy*

      My venue only had space to seat 50 per fire code so there was much drama over who would/wouldn’t get invited… It made it easy to decline people who asked about invitations for distant family I’d never even met though. “We’re not allowed that many people, sorry” was pretty compelling.

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    6. IT Relationship Manager*

      I do appreciate people who are willing (and able) to give capacity to non-spouses. I tend to drag my friend to weddings of my actual friends. (I always ask if there is room for that and just in my personal experience there has been.) I just want someone to travel the distance there and back with and usually she knows the person too.

      If there isn’t room, I understand! Wouldn’t have any hard feelings and I wouldn’t try and force the issue like this person did. Especially if it was for a coworker, I wouldn’t even ask lol. Usually those are local anyway so not something I’d even try to bring a guest, even on the level of a spouse. Often those invites are to round out numbers anyway.

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      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        The one time I brought a friend as a plus-one was when a college friend who lived elsewhere and had gotten married elsewhere (it was a small wedding and sort of destination in that it was on a Caribbean island but she had grown up there so it was also her hometown) had a celebration reception in my state (where her husband is from) a few weeks later. Several members of our college friend circle were invited. I asked her if I could bring my roommate, who had also gone to college with us and while she wasn’t very close with the bride, was very close with several other people who would be there. Bride said of course! But I doubt I would have brought my roommate had bride said they didn’t have the space, and I definitely wouldn’t have argued.

        Kind of side-eyeing Gertrude’s sister – who the heck wants to go to a wedding where the only person they know is a coworker of the bride? That sounds utterly boring to me.

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        1. sheworkshardforthemoney*

          When my daughter’s best friend got married my invitation didn’t include a plus one. I was privy to a lot of wedding details/drama because my daughter was a bridesmaid so I understand the rationale. I relaxed, met new people and could see the dynamics at play during and after the wedding. Sadly, the marriage lasted less than 3 years and it wasn’t a surprise.

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      2. Dahlia*

        Yeah, honestly, as an aroace who doesn’t really plan on marrying, it’s pretty shitty to always be the person who doesn’t have a person at events and it’s another one of those places in society where romantic relationships are placed so much higher than non-romantic ones.

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        1. doreen*

          I’m not going to say it doesn’t happen to you but I am wondering if there are any other differences – by which I mean in my world, the people who get plus ones are those in long-standing relationships with one person. Maybe they live together, maybe person A has brought person B to every get-together. I don’t really know what their relationship is ( I might assume, but I’m not with them at all times) – but the person who brings person B to a BBQ in July and person C to the one in August and yet another person to a Christmas get together is not usually going to get a plus one.

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    7. bamcheeks*

      Same, and actually for me the point of +1s was very much so that everyone wasn’t bored! I wholeheartedly recommend it: several of our friends who were long-term single were absolutely delighted and touched by it, and it meant we didn’t have to do any “but how Serious is this relationship hmm?” policing. But I don’t think anyone who handles their guest list differently is doing anything wrong!

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      1. BricksDont*

        My partner and I aren’t planning on getting married anytime soon, but I totally agree with this!! One of my best friends from childhood had a casual buffet style wedding and didn’t give me a plus one because my boyfriend and I weren’t “serious enough”- lo and behold, I’m still with him almost a decade later. I love her, but I’m still a little salty about this (I was also part of the bridal party, so I shelled out many dollars for various trips, clothes, shoes, etc.).

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      2. Annie2*

        Same. We were fortunate to be able to afford that extra handful of plus ones, and it made it so much easier not to have to make some kind of judgment on each of our friend’s relationships. Also, like BricksDont, a then-close friend invited me (but not my partner) to her DESTINATION WEDDING. Of all the weddings one wants a plus one for!

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    8. Florence Reece*

      Great, OP can connect you to Gertrude so you can invite her to your wedding!

      I brought a non-partner plus one to a friend’s wedding. The thing is, I asked my friend first. If she had said no, I wouldn’t have thrown a months-long fit over it. It’s not inherently bad that Gertrude wanted to bring her sister, it’s everything about her execution of it. How would you have handled it if one of your guests RSVP’d for themself and their Plus Two (or Three or Four, whatever) instead?

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      1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        When my sister got married, one of her fiancé’s cousins RSVPed for 6 instead of 2 (instead of cousin & spouse, it was cousin, spouse, their 2 adult children and their children’s dates). Because of family dynamics, her fiancé didn’t want to make a fuss, so they let it go. None of them showed up, so my sister & her fiancé paid for 6 dinners that went to waste.

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        2. anon here*

          I just gasped, for real.

          I hope whoever is responsible for maintaining those family dynamics paid for those plates.

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        3. jtr*

          > When my sister got married,

          Lee, is that you?!? This is almost literally what happened at my wedding, except they RSVPd for seven people, and they and ONE of their adult kids did actually show up. And, yes, it was a plated dinner, although we didn’t do assigned seating.

          They also gave us super cheap printed towels, and my SIL who married a year later: a horse. Not salty at all. (all the caveats about gifts, of course!)

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        4. softcastle*

          Oh my god, yes, my ex-husband’s cousin did exactly this–we had barely interacted with them over the years and it was a small-ish wedding so we just invited her + her husband to the event.

          She RSVP’d two days later and had crossed off her “2” and wrote in “10”–she had invited all four of her stepchildren AND gave each one of them +1s so they “wouldn’t feel lonely.” I had never met 3 of the stepchildren, let alone their school-aged romantic partners. She pitched an absolute fit and my former MIL had us remove some friends so they could have seats. The cousin made sure to pull our photographer away from their duties to make sure she got formal portraits of them all with their surprise +1s “for her Christmas cards,” she said.

          Some people are incorrigible.

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          2. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

            I guess my sister could have had it worse – the cousins could have showed up and monopolized the photographer!

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      2. Jackalope*

        I also was a big +1 fan for our wedding, including people who wanted to bring someone who wasn’t their romantic partner. But clearly that wasn’t an option for this LW, and she was perfectly in the right to tell Gertrude no. It’s common to invite +1s but also common not to; if someone tells you it isn’t an option, you respect that!

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    9. Bast*

      Skipping over the point of this costing a lot more, the really odd thing is the reaction from someone who has to at least have a clue they were a courtesy invite. Gertrude is not someone who was close enough to LW who has the “standing” so to say, to pull off this type of outrage. I don’t think this reaction is appropriate at all, however, if the offended party had been LW’s best friend of 20 years, sister, or someone else who was really close to the LW and had wanted to bring someone else, the reaction would seem a bit less weird. Gertrude is a co-worker who is more on the periphery of LW’s life than the center.

      Reply ↓
      1. ferrina*

        Yeah, I don’t think that this is really a “just send everyone a plus-one!” solution. If someone wants to bring the drama at the wedding, they are going to bring the drama. Gertrude sounds like someone who would bring the drama.

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    10. Turquoisecow*

      Most of the people we invited were married couples (or in a long term relationship). I don’t remember how I worded the invitations but a few single friends brought people and some didn’t. One of my friends brought a close friend of her that I don’t think she was romantically involved with but they had known each other forever and I didn’t have a problem with that. One person bringing a plus one wasn’t going to make or break the guest list, especially because some people we invited couldn’t come.

      If Gertrude had been less presumptuous about it like “I haven’t talked about (significant other) at work but I’d like to bring them to the wedding, is that okay?” Or even “my sister is visiting me that week and I don’t want to leave her alone, is it okay if I bring her?” I would have argued for OP to be understanding about a single additional person. But the complete disregard for not just etiquette but how invitations work, plus inviting her sister, not a significant other, means I also would have put my foot down and said no, and I’m glad OP did also.

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    11. Criminally Competent*

      We also did this and one of my aunts RSVPed that she was also bringing her son, her son’s girlfriend and their kid. Uh, no ma’am. When she was informed that was not okay she declined to attend at all.

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    12. sofar*

      I did this, and it did not make things easier. Several people took that to mean they could reply with “yes I am coming” but “I’ll let you know about my plus one later.” (At least the couples we invited by name replied yes/no on the RSVP card.)

      Repeated follow-ups prompted replies of, “Well I’m single, so I’m asking around, I may or may not bring someone, maybe my sister can come, maybe I’ll ask that guy I’m dating.” Finally, we communicated the final cutoff and told folks, “If we don’t have the name of your plus one by X date, we’ll look forward to seeing YOU, but we can’t accommodate any plus ones after that, because we need to print the seating chart and let the buffet and dessert caterer know.”

      Two people thought this was a violation of the Geneva Conventions and also a commentary against “single people.”

      All this to say … you literally cannot win.

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    13. Tippy*

      As the eternally single person at a table full of couples, bless you. Because let me tell you it really feels like crap to be the 7th/9th/whatever wheel at every single wedding. And I’m fairly extroverted, I can’t imagine how it must feel for introrverts.

      But Gertrude still sounds like a jerk.

      Reply ↓
      1. Arglebarglor*

        Once I was the “single” person at a wedding of a couple who I didn’t even know well. My then-boyfriend was friends with them and had been invited and I was his plus-one, as we lived together. He was a jerk and decided he wasn’t going at the last minute (literally on the way from the church to the reception–he got a call to sub in a cover band for $50). I was too mortified to not go as well as these people were super nice and it was a small reception, they would have noticed. I went, wrote a nice check for a gift, ate dinner at a table of people I didn’t know at all, and then left the second the cake was cut. Boyfriend and I broke up shortly after that.

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  5. Lima Golf*

    Some people just don’t get wedding etiquette. I had to explain to my (college age) brother that his then-girlfriend may not automatically be invited to our cousin’s weddings the year that they started dating. He also just assumed that he would get a plus-one. It turned out that she did get invited, but couldn’t attend so many weddings in another state. And they are now married, so it wouldn’t have been a “and who was that girl in our wedding photos” kind of situation. But you can never assume!

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    1. I should really pick a name*

      Some people just don’t get wedding etiquette

      That’s probably because wedding etiquette is far less standardized than some people seem to think it is.

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      1. Observer*

        Except that this is not about “wedding” etiquette. It’s about basic politeness altogether. You don’t get to insist on inviting someone to someone else’s event. Period.

        As for telling someone “I want to come but I’m going to be bored”? What functional adult does that? To *any* event.

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        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, I think “don’t cross out the number of people on your invite and add an extra person and accept for somebody who wasn’t invited” is more just…basic common sense than specifically wedding etiquette. I could understand Gertrude thinking it odd that she didn’t get a plus one if she was used to it being the norm, but I think she must have known she wasn’t expected to just…add her sister.

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          1. Ellis Bell*

            The thing that really breaks my brain about it is they’re asking for a free dinner. I could see someone asking to bring an extra if it was a BYOB house party, but some people have absolutely no shame about freeloading. Take your friend out to dinner from your own pocket!

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            1. Irish Teacher.*

              Yes, “oh, I’ll just add another person you have to pay for.”

              That would be rude in any context. If I offered to buy my friend a meal for her birthday or to thank her for something and she said “I’m just bringing my sister along,” well, it wouldn’t be such a big deal but it would still be pretty cheeky.

              I don’t think one needs to be familiar with any specific wedding culture to grasp that you don’t do that.

              And her comment about “well, you can’t stop me if I bring her anyway” makes it clear this wasn’t a misreading of the norms.

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        2. Rusty Shackelford*

          This. You don’t have to be Emily Post to understand that badgering the host for a plus one, because otherwise your event will be boring, and being told no and threatening to bring one anyway, is rude.

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        3. Saturday*

          Yeah, some of this stuff is pretty simple.
          1. If you’re not invited, don’t go.
          2. Don’t invite other people to someone else’s event.
          3. An invitation isn’t a summons. If there’s something about the invitation that doesn’t work for you, politely decline.

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      2. MK*

        Fair enough, but is there really a country/culture/region/religion/group, in which the wedding etiquette allows you to invite a sibling to a coworker’s wedding? Wedding etiquette may vary, but I think if you receive an invitation only in your own name, everyone would understand it’s for them only.

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    2. sofar*

      My husband (then-boyfriend of two years) invited me to his friend’s wedding. I asked if I was really invited and asked to see the invitation. We looked, and I was not mentioned on the invite, nor on the envelope (which was addressed to my husband only). So he replied yes for himself and went alone to the wedding alone.

      Plot twist. There was a seating card for me! It was so awkward. My husband was like, “Well, she wasn’t on the invitation!” They couple was shocked and was like, “Well of COURSE she was invited, we just didn’t know her name. Everyone gets a plus-1!”

      I head-desked pretty hard upon hearing that. All this to say, you are so right … invitation etiquette is a lost art, apparently. Nobody knows what they are doing.

      Reply ↓
      1. Consonance*

        Oh boy. Yeah, they were simply wrong on that one. If you don’t know someone’s name you can simply say “and guest.” Or ask. Or call your friend and explain.

        Reply ↓
        1. LL*

          Seriously! I’ve had a couple close friends who gave me a plus one even though I wasn’t seeing anyone and they just addressed the invitation to “LL and Guest.” It’s not that hard!

          Reply ↓
        1. Yeah...*

          They were not responsible for the printing of the invitations? The couple did not review the invitations once they were printed? It was someone else’s job to do review the invitation and that person didn’t have knowledge of the girlfriend?

          There are plausible reasons why this happened that don’t involve less than kind intent.

          Reply ↓
        2. doreen*

          My guess is that the list given to the venue included Husband and Guest (because it has to account for 2 people) but they didn’t think to write the invitation that way.

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  6. MsM*

    Honestly, I’d have gone with “I don’t want you feeling obligated to say yes to something you’ll be bored at, so I think it’s best if you don’t attend after all” rather than just “I’ll put you down as a no” and give her the opportunity to keep pushing/waffling. It doesn’t sound like it would have made things at work any worse than they ended up.

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  7. Pterodactyls are under-cited in the psychological literature*

    LW, I am now ticked that you didn’t invite ME to your wedding and I am going to have all sorts of drama about it.

    Reply ↓
    2. Kimchi*

      I know right? I would have been a better guest than she was!!! I even would have bought you a toaster as a present ;)

      Reply ↓
        1. AnonInCanada*

          You’re just so lucky I wasn’t drinking a sip of coffee when I read that. I’d be suing you for making my monitor messy spitting it out in laughter! :-D

          Also: I believe there’s a trophy waiting for you for winning the Internet today. I just don’t know where you can go get it, because I never win that award. :-(|

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    3. Heidi*

      I’m debating whether the “Gertrude may or may not bring her sister” drama was preferable to the “I invited other co-workers but not Gertrude” drama. I understand not wanting to exclude people in such an obvious way, but I also think that you shouldn’t have to invite people you don’t like to your wedding.

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      1. Anonym*

        I think in this case OP retains the moral high ground. Excluding just one member of a group when it would be hard to prevent them from finding out would be unkind. Of course, moral high ground is only one element of comparing dramas!

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      2. Potsie*

        I personally would prefer the “Gertrude may or may not bring her sister” drama because Gertrude was very clearly the one being rude. There is no way to invite everyone except one in a group without being rude so the “I invited other co-workers but not Gertrude” drama would have made OP look like the rude one.

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        1. HonorBox*

          Yep. Gertrude could have been the one writing in to figure out how to navigate working with someone who excluded only them from their wedding. Inviting all coworkers was the right thing to do. Trying to shoehorn a plus one is not.

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        2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          OP was doing the right thing and still trying to figure out what she could have done better.

          OP it’s not you, its Gertrude. You handled it perfectly. You can’t reason with unreasonable people. There was no magic explanation you could have given Gertrude that would have made her not be rude and unreasonable.

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        3. Jenesis*

          I would have invited her, but then uninvited her as soon as she hassled me about the plus-one issue. Anyone who asked “Why are you being so mean to poor Gertrude?” would get the unedited details of how she tried to bring her own plus-one against my wishes, with a comment of “and that was weird and rude of her, and I don’t want someone like that at my wedding.”

          But then again, I’m not LW, and I don’t know how much social capital they have at this workplace. If Gertrude is best friends with the manager, it may not be worth it.

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  8. Not on board*

    Yeah, people are definitely weird when it comes to wedding invitations. I appreciate being invited when I have a relationship with one of the people getting married but unless it was a super close friend, I don’t care if I’m not invited – saving me time, money, and aggravation.
    The “plus one” situation can be a dilemma if you have limited funds/space but your coworker was both very weird and very rude.

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  9. Czhorat*

    The adding her sister as a guest and this : “Who’s going to stop me if I bring a guest anyway?” are two bits of the same attitude – that the rules not only don’t apply to her, but that she isn’t bound by the guardrails of social expectations. It’s possible to brazen through a situtation assuming someone else isn’t going to make it awkward, and sometimes you just get what you want – if the sister showed up nobody was going to physically bar her from the venue. That she’d suggest that makes her clearly the problem, and in a way that the usual means of dealing with normal people won’t work – almost everyone else would backpedal in extreme embarrassment after being told that the sister was NOT invited and that guests can’t just pencil-in a plus-one onto the invitation.

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    1. AnotherSarah*

      YES! I once asked if I could bring a relatively-recent bf to a wedding, and was told no, and that didn’t seem like a huge faux pas on my part, but like…you need to accept the answer! It’s so bizarre and even if the initial penciling in was a faux pas, wtf to the rest.

      Reply ↓
      1. Consonance*

        Yeah, etiquette does vary, and we don’t need to be completely hamstrung by it. But the point of etiquette IMO is to provide clarity and comfort for everyone. An honest question doesn’t break etiquette. Being gracious is all we really need from one another.

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    2. The Kulprit*

      Agreed, that’s well beyond normal levels of rude or bad manners. I’d wager that Gert’s age is only a small factor in her behavior.

      Reply ↓
    3. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      I made Gert’s mistake once (and yes, I was very young, and so was my marrying friend). I replied to a friend’s wedding invite by adding people to my rsvp card. More than one person. And not partners either, just friends. I don’t remember much about it except that — yes, I was thinking of it as a big party, rather than as a wedding. (It helps that it was on Oct 31 and was explicitely a costume party where the marrying couple came as a bride and groom.) And the family weddings I’d been to as a teen were backyard affairs. Anyway, my friend had to swallow a LOT of embarrassment and tell me that her Dad said he couldn’t afford all those people, and I was really embarrassed too. And while I didn’t handle it very graciously, at least I didn’t argue! (And I realized that I’d made a big mistake. I learned a lot that day.)

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    4. carrot cake*

      “if the sister showed up nobody was going to physically bar her from the venue.”
      ———-

      Actually, I think plenty of people would, including the marrying couple. Why be pushed around at one’s own wedding? Sister isn’t on the guest list. Bye!

      Reply ↓
    5. Baela Targaryen*

      Yep – you don’t want to request something you know will be denied/will make you look bad having requested it, so you just skip that uncomfortable step where you’re the “bad guy” and instead make the person telling you to knock it off the “bad guy”

      The only way to stop these people is to publicly humiliate them.

      Reply ↓
  10. Moby*

    I got married young and so it was most my friend’s first wedding to attend. I had a friend that received a solo invitation but she wrote in that she was bringing three people. when I asked her about it she said that her college roommate had always wanted to go to a wedding. I kindly told her that I couldn’t accommodate three people and she said okay just put her down for two. I assumed she had a boyfriend and decided not to push it. Of course, she ended up bringing the roommate. :-)

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  11. RCB*

    I do agree with Gertrude that people naturally expect to be able to bring a plus 1, but it’s NOT guaranteed, and she definitely did not pick up on every single clue that indicated that she was not allowed to, and then when the clues failed and she was told outright that she couldn’t bring a plus 1 that should have been the end of it, no further discussion and certainly no further pushback.

    So, yes, she could certain clarify if she was allowed to bring someone, but once told no that’s the end of discussion. And major kudos to you, OP, for sticking to your guns, because so many people cave to pushy people to avoid confrontation and the world would be so much better if people stopped doing that.

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    1. Dust Bunny*

      See, I would hope for a plus-one if the couple were someone close to me. I would not expect a plus-one from a coworker. We’re already not that close; they’re not going to be close to my SO. I can be solo for an afternoon every now and then.

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    2. Turquoisecow*

      I think if she had a significant other or if she has asked if she could bring a significant other then it would have gone down different. Like if my coworkers didn’t know I had a long term boyfriend and so invited only me, I might mention it if we were close. If I were OP I could forgive asking, even though by the time the invites go out the guest list is usually set in stone and not really open to adding more people unless a few people unexpectedly can’t attend. But just saying “I’m bringing my sister?” No.

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    3. ecnaseener*

      And that’s the thing, she could ask to clarify whether she was allowed, but she didn’t even do that. She corrected the freaking number on the card.

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    4. Bee*

      See, and I find the “I have to find a date to the wedding!!!1!” trope in movies fairly incomprehensible because the only wedding where I’ve had a plus-one was the one where I was a bridesmaid, so I’d be pleasantly surprised to receive one but would never expect it.

      Reply ↓
      1. iglwif*

        Yeah, I’ve always found that baffling, too. Why do you need a date to a wedding?

        … that said, I’ve been married since I was 23 and in a long-term relationship since I was 18, so I have not actually gotten a lot of wedding invitations that weren’t for both of us. I guess I went straight from “the invitation is for the whole family” to “the invitation is for a married couple” lol

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    5. Ellis Bell*

      When you’re just a colleague, and invited our of politeness though? I think there’s a huge difference between the much-anticipated wedding of someone you’re close to, and wanting your significant other to be a part of it and a wedding that you’re frankly admitting is going to bore you. Just don’t go! Totally agree about OP sticking to her guns though.

      Reply ↓
  12. wondermint*

    When it comes to wedding planning, it’s always something!

    The only time I was a little peeved I didn’t get a plus one is because I was in the bridal party, shelled out over $1K (in 2018 dollars) for this wedding, and it was a friend from childhood who had moved away, so I truly knew no one.

    I think if a friend is spending that much (costs included bachelorette parties, bridal parties, presents, dress, hair, makeup, hotels for all events) you should bend the rules of “plus ones for long term relationships only.” Bridal parties should be able to bring a date, no?

    A little off topic, but modern weddings have gotten out of control. I just heard that of a friend of a friend hired an engagement coordinator which was then followed by a party at a rented out brewery, all paid for by the guests of honor. Again, for an ENGAGEMENT!

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    1. Lily Rowan*

      I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but if the date doesn’t know a lot of other people at the wedding, they will have a terrible time, given that the bridal party has obligations! (My closest experience to this was going to a friend’s wedding alone where all of my mutual friends were in the wedding party and I was not — I had a lot of awkward time to kill!)

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      1. polly*

        That is true…I guess I was thinking a little selfishly. Though I still maintain that if I spent a thousand dollars on your day – thanks to modern obligations – I think its only fair to allow me a date to dance with!

        Going back to the letter, when I asked for a plus one and was denied because of the same reasons LW gave (not being in a long standing relationship) I respected the bride/my friend’s response.

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      2. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

        Yeah, this is why I didn’t bring my husband along to my friends’ weddings (even though he was invited!) when I was in their bridal parties. I had too much stuff to worry about helping my friends with!

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    2. Bruce*

      I like to pat myself on the back that both of my weddings were done a budget: my first wedding (to my late first wife) was more of a big event, but one venue, not huge, and carefully budgeted (We paid for it ourselves, other than my parents hosting the rehearsal dinner). My second wedding was done on a shoestring with a smaller invite list, a very cheap (but lovely!) venue, a lot of help from family setting up and taking down, and streamlined catering. (It helps when you have adult children you can ask to set up tables)… Saved money for the honeymoon! I’ve read there is a sad correlation between overspending on the wedding and an early break up, though happily many people I know have hosted a banger of a wedding party without bankrupting themselves.

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    3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Not really. Usually the bridal party is sitting at the head table, so your plus one would be sitting at a table by themselves.

      Reply ↓
      1. Megan Thee Scallion*

        IME, dates sit with the bridal party, even if they’re not in it. Some couples opt for sweetheart tables (where they sit by themselves).

        Reply ↓
        1. Jenesis*

          Husband and I opted for the sweetheart table, and sat the bridal party at regular tables. This way, the two friends on my side who didn’t get along with each other got to sit at opposite ends of the room, and my husband’s brother got to sit with his girlfriend and cousin instead of a bunch of people ~10 years older than him who he’d never met before.

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    4. Strive to Excel*

      I wonder how much of the ‘modern weddings have gotten out of control’ trend stems from the idea that people need an excuse to throw a big party. Or feel like they need an excuse anyways. We should normalize just throwing balls again.

      Reply ↓
    5. samwise*

      No, sorry, can’t agree with you here. And I’ve been in exactly this position. It’s a wedding, not a date or a vacation. Guests are invited to witness the ceremony and/or celebrate the marriage at a reception/rehearsal dinner/next day brunch/etc. A couple of hours –or even a whole day or even a couple of days — where you have to entertain your own self in down time, or where you have to socialize with people you don’t know? It’s not going to kill you.

      If you’re not up for that, or it’s too much money, decline being in the wedding party.

      The engagement party: haha, well, those folks were mighty generous. And if they didn’t like it, they could always have said no.

      Reply ↓
      1. wondermint*

        No, it didn’t kill me.

        I wish I had declined! It was my first time going to a wedding as an adult, and certainly the first time being in a bridal party. I was very underprepared for the costs associated with being a bridesmaid.

        Reply ↓
        1. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah, you only make that mistake once (Even the couple planning it seems to learn; it’s less common to make big asks of the wedding party when it’s a second marriage or they’re older and have been in bridal parties themselves). I had a friend who pulled out of being a bridesmaid when she realised the dress wasn’t going to be paid for; “Sorry, I’ve never done this before and didn’t realise, but I’m way too broke for this. I’ll just come to your wedding in a dress I already own.” I thought that was strong!

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    6. mm*

      do you really think that weddings were not lavish and expensive during the Reagan era or during the postwar 1950s? Or even in the 2000s? Where is this coming from that weddings are JUST NOW so over the top? Maybe when you were a kid you didn’t notice how weddings were always lavish and engagement parties were always a thing.

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      1. LL*

        yeah and just because the dollar price of weddings is higher now (which I assume it is) doesn’t mean past weddings were inexpensive. Inflation is a thing and people definitely had expensive weddings relative to the cost of everything else in the past!

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        1. VintageLydia*

          It seems like more people are having destination bachelor/bachelorette parties than before (especially in places like Nashville or Vegas) which seems to require themed single-use outfits and expensive travel costs and extra activities to pitch in for than before. The weddings themselves may not be more expensive but there are more extras for the bridal (and occasionally groom’s) party to cough up for.

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      2. wondermint*

        I’m not trying to make blanket assumptions about all weddings. I wasn’t alive during Reagan area, but I can of course imagine that there have always been weddings that always been extravagant, across generations.

        However, it is true that there are some aspects around some weddings that have ballooned. Take, for instance, the bachelorette party. What was once a night on the town has exploded into multi-day affairs complete with airplane travel. Funnily enough, this expectation of the modern bachelorette party correlates with the first airing of MTV’s Spring Break.

        It’s also not unusual for today’s brides to have dress changes during weddings. A separate dress for ceremony, reception, after party. Seems extravagant, but one day may be sold to brides as simply “tradition” – the way it always was.

        Weddings used to be completely home-grown celebrations; in a family member’s backyard, in a dress the bride had worn once and would worn again. In fact, the white dress was popularized when Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert. It wasn’t until some years later when the couple posed for reenactment photos (once the technology was developed) that the trend of the white dress, a symbol of purity and status (those who can wear white clearly don’t have dirty chores to attend to) became the go-to for brides.

        So, no. I don’t think my generation is the only one who has seen luxurious weddings. But, like the example of the dress changes and the huge engagement parties, I can see the wedding industrial complex continue to grow.

        Reply ↓
        1. wayland flowers puppet*

          for someone who has been complaining about weddings across this post, you seem to know quite a lot about them…

          Reply ↓
          2. wondermint*

            ? Weddings in my area cost, on average, $60k. I’m in a serious relationship and a wedding is something my partner and I have been considering, so I don’t mind doing research into something that could cost me as much as an SUV would. Beyond that, yea, I find the topic and history fascinating.

            I’ll make this clear: If you want to have a wedding, you absolutely should. They’re joyous, special occasions.

            Reply ↓
      3. Pescadero*

        The average wedding in the 1920’s cost about $5,000 in 2023 dollars.
        The average wedding in the USA in 2023 was just under $30,000.

        The average wedding cost has outpaced inflation by 6x in the last 100 years.

        Reply ↓
  13. CityMouse*

    I was my husband’s plus one to his childhood friend’s wedding where he was a groomsman. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t in the wedding party (who was separated most of the timel and it was totally fine. I made smalltalk with some cousins.

    Reply ↓
  14. Quinalla*

    Wedding drama is so weird! OP I think you handled it well, I like Alison’s suggestions, but you did great. Glad you held firm!

    We had no drama at my wedding either, but we did a lot of prep to make sure we wouldn’t have any. Everything wasn’t perfect of course, but it was fun and lovely and folks generally had a great time. I am always amazed the entitlement of some guests, some brides, etc. when I read stories about weddings. I get cultural differences, I really do, and some stems from that for sure, but when your cultural tradition is butting heads with someone else, you need to take a step back and come to a compromise which with a wedding usually means you either get with the program of what the bride & groom have said or you don’t attend. It’s not that difficult :)

    Reply ↓
  15. ThatGirl*

    I don’t understand why you would want to go to a wedding you would be “bored” at anyway. Weddings are great if you know and love the couple involved; if you don’t, even with a +1 why would you want to bother getting dressed up and spend money on a gift etc.

    (I know sometimes there are social obligations involved, but in general, nobody is MAKING you go.)

    I did once bring my mom as a +1 to a wedding instead of my husband, but it was for an old friend from HS who my mom knew well and my husband had never met, and she was way more interested in going than he was. Plus I cleared it with the bride first.

    Reply ↓
      3. ItWasMyWedding*

        LW here-

        Now that I think about it, no. She didn’t give a gift (unknown if she would’ve if her sister was allowed to attend).

        Reply ↓
    2. Smithy*

      I will say – when I was younger/newer to the work world, getting a wedding invitation in that kind of a situation at work would have been a bit stressful. Because I would have felt obligated to go, get a gift, and likely be bored.

      I was new to an office (outside of the US, with me as an American), where the custom of inviting the whole office made me really nervous at first on the etiquette of what I was supposed to do. I eventually figured out, and it was very acceptable to just not go and not get a gift. But the initial panic of both the cost, the desire to not be there, but also the feeling like I had to say yes was quite high.

      That being said, I do think that a) the OP took the right approach given the size of the office and b) if I was Gerturde’s friend/sister I would have recommended RSVPing no and giving a $25/35 gift from the registry.

      Reply ↓
  16. MistOrMister*

    This is so odd to me!! I think when Gertrude pushed back saying she needed her sister so as not to be bored that I would have jumped at the chance to tell her I couldn’t give her a plus one so would put her down as a no. Why she even went to the wedding after arguing about her lack of plus one for however long is beyond me. The utter nerve of someone altering the invitation to include the plus one they’ve decided they are entitled to is astounding!

    Reply ↓
  17. Observer*

    so maybe inviting sisters is a thing in other cultures?

    Maybe yes, maybe no. But not really relevant. Because I don’t think there is a culture in which it is ok to invite someone to an event with specific headcount / invitations, if you are not the host / person making the event.

    Like in current US culture, where spouses and SOs are typically invited, you don’t get to invite your spouse to someone else’s wedding. You can decide to go without your spouse or skip the event. *Maybe* you can *ask* about bringing your spouse. But that’s it. You do *not* get to just decide to bring them.

    Reply ↓
  18. Mouse named Anon*

    My husband and I got married in 2008. We married right out of college and thus we invited many friends. We decided on the same rules as OP. If we let everyone of our college buddies bring a plus one, we would have 20-30 extra guests. We just couldn’t swing it!

    Reply ↓
  20. H.Regalis*

    Regardless of what’s expected/normal/whatever, you told her no repeatedly. This was not a wedding where plus-ones were allowed. She can feel however she wants to about that, but she doesn’t get to invite guests to someone else’s wedding. She was a jerk and there wasn’t anything you could have done to head that off unless you could possess her and steer her around like a puppet.

    Reply ↓
  21. HannahS*

    I get the social convention. I do think it’s kind to extend a plus-one for guests who really won’t know anyone (like a childhood friend who is flying in from another city and doesn’t know the other guests,) but that doesn’t apply in this situation, and even if it did, Gertrude was being very, very odd. I think most people are aware that not everyone does weddings the same way. It’s kind of ignorant to stamp your feet and go, “but all the weddings I’VE ever been to had XYZ!” People all around the world have been getting married for thousands of years; you’d think some variation in practice would be expected!

    When faced with an invitation that I don’t like, I go, “Huh, interesting.” And then I decide whether to go or not. And then I issue wild and sometimes petty judgements–and this is key–in the privacy of my own head or shared with my husband. I do not hassle the happy couple. I send a polite note and token gift. I get the sense that Gertrude was a bit of a drama-llama.

    Reply ↓
      2. kiki*

        Yeah, I would get if Gertrude complained endlessly about not getting a plus one to her friends, family, and anonymous corners of the internet, but there’s no reason to bring this up to the bride. If the conditions under which you were invited upset you or make you not want to attend, just don’t go!

        Reply ↓
    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      People all around the world have been getting married for thousands of years; you’d think some variation in practice would be expected!

      Yeah, this! And the fact that Gertrude doesn’t understand this totally tracks with the fact that she also seemed to think she was the main character in a movie and everyone else was merely a supporting character or NPC.

      Reply ↓
  23. Down the Witches' Road*

    The cloddish Gertrudes of the world need firm boundaries or they’ll continue to bother us all with their clueless bullshit. Being a socially awkward dolt should mean more pushback – not less!

    Reply ↓
  24. HonorBox*

    Gertrude was awful in this situation. Asking if she could bring a plus one would have been OK, but as soon as she was told no, that should have been the end of it. Weddings can be wildly entertaining, often for reasons beyond celebrating the couple, dancing, and enjoying good food. If someone’s reason for bringing a plus one is so they’re not bored, they should choose not to attend and find something more entertaining. This brings to mind the old saying that my parents once deployed on me and my brother: “Only boring people are bored.”

    Reply ↓
  25. LCH*

    “Gertrude: Well, I want someone I’m close to to talk to.”

    she really missed that this wedding wasn’t about her.

    Reply ↓
  26. Lucy*

    Eh. Gertrude was extremely out of line. You can never ask for a plus one. You get one or you don’t. That said, as a perpetually single person who tends to cherry pick close friends based on interests and general clicking (I like to avoid big group drama and stick with people I truly enjoy!), I wish we *could* change the plus one rules to include someone for the singleton who doesn’t know anyone to hang out with. I’ve been to a few weddings where I’ve known no one but the bride, and they were lovely because I loved the bride, but I won’t pretend I didn’t have a fair few socially anxious, sleepless nights about how much of an awkward loner I was going to look, and how I could keep the bride from feeling she had to take time from her day to “look after” me (a thing I have genuinely seen happen with other guests who appear lost, though I’ve never been one of them). It would be amazing to just… Drag along a close friend to sit with at dinner, who could help to smooth along the conversation with strangers, the way couples do for each other.

    All that said though, that’s something I think would be nice, not something I expect, much less demand! And Gertrude was so incredibly out of line and entitled, I don’t know how she was functioning in society. I guess I think, it’s not weird that she wanted to invite her sister. Maybe even to politely ask (though it can be so awkward to refuse, so I would never do that). But anything beyond that is outrageous.

    Also, she *did* have the other coworkers to talk to – unless they were *all* coupled up? I must admit, if inviting coworkers to your wedding, I also don’t think it’s especially weird to just invite your coworker, married or not, if the expectation is that they’ll all be in a group together. Coworker is a specific type of relationship – with your family and friends, you tend to know their partners, at least a little. Who wants total strangers at their wedding anyway?

    Reply ↓
    1. Bookworm*

      As another perpetually single person, I don’t go to weddings anymore unless they are very close friends. It’s just gotten too expensive and the reception music is so loud that you can’t have a conversation with anyone. When some people have told me they can’t invite me because of needing space for large families, I tell them to not worry about it and I can’t wait to see photos.

      Reply ↓
    2. A Simple Narwhal*

      That’s what we did at our wedding! We took extra care to seat people we thought would get along well at tables (if their group didn’t fill out a full table) and made sure that anyone who wasn’t in a relationship was absolutely grouped with their friends. Anyone who didn’t have a partner and didn’t have a group to sit with was given a +1 so they had someone to sit and talk with. I think it ended up being only one or two people who fit that bill but we wanted to make sure that everyone would have a good time and people to talk to.

      Reply ↓
  27. Jess R.*

    I too had a very small wedding and was a little disappointed I didn’t get a good story out of it. (Although my cat did proudly and cheerfully poop in front of all my guests while making intense eye contact with some of them, since the reception was in our living room, so there’s that.)

    But LW, you were clear on the invitation, politely clarified in person, and stood firm about your guest list. You nailed it, both in terms of general etiquette and work/office-specific etiquette. This mess is all on Gertrude.

    Reply ↓
  28. CubeFarmer*

    Hopefully, GertRUDE has looked back on this situation and cringed, and continues to cringe every time the memory pops into her brain.

    Wonder where she is now….

    Reply ↓
  29. Anonymous Educator*

    People are so strange about weddings and feeling like they can skirt the rules/etiquette …. We had a similar setup at our wedding – we had a very small venue, so the only plus-ones were spouses and long-term partners. We also excluded cousins under the age of 20 (I had over 20 at the time!) and kids. Unfortunately, two people brought plus-ones who shouldn’t have (without acknowledging this prior to the wedding). One person went on the hunt for extra chairs from another reception going on in the same building (!) and shoehorned their guest into their table. The other one sat at our parent’s table (instead of the “friend” table in the back where there wasn’t room for the plus-one), displacing my close uncle and aunt who were supposed to be there (they even switched the table numbers on my aunt and uncles nameplates…). Thankfully, the “friend” and girlfriend were told to move. Lastly, I had an uncle who was mad that his 16 year old daughter wasn’t included so he decided to send her with my aunt and he stayed home after sending nasty messages to me and my family. He was told no, but they showed up anyway……

    Reply ↓
      1. Anonymous Educator*

        To be fair, they were except for the friends who kicked my aunt and uncle from their table, so I suppose overall, well behaved.

        Reply ↓
  30. A large cage of birds*

    Not a co-worker but I had someone do this too! She was very clearly not given a plus one, but aske me if her boyfriend could come. (Boyfriend of a few weeks, and I had never met him.) i said no, as I have a large family and we were in danger of going over the number of people that the venue could easily accommodate. I told her this and then she sent in her official RSVP with a plus one. I ended up letting him come because the numbers worked out, but it’s so rude to do that.

    (She has since married that boyfriend and we’re no longer friends)

    Reply ↓
  31. Unkempt Flatware*

    Would it be a more polite or less polite society if we started normalizing saying things like, “no you can’t have a plus one and it’s not appropriate that you asked”?

    Reply ↓
    1. Abigail*

      My opinion: you can say that to people as long as you can accept other people saying it to you.

      What happens most of the time is that people love love LOVE to dole out this kind of thing but absolutely refuse to take it from others. It’s not about being polite, it’s about being right.

      Reply ↓
    2. Down the Witches' Road*

      I really can’t wait for when it’s more socially acceptable to push back against the oblivious. You being a clod is not my fking problem!

      Reply ↓
  32. misty*

    Weddings cause weird, weird drama.
    I got married last year. Almost as soon as I got engaged, two assistants started constantly lamenting about how awful their marriages had been. They were both divorced decades before, but they started raging about their terrible ex-husbands in every single conversation. I figured my engagement was triggering for them, so I basically brushed it off and *never* brought up my wedding around them.
    Well, unbeknownst to me, my engagement was *so* triggering that they framed me for a mistake I didn’t make, went to HR and tried to have me fired. Shockingly, this didn’t work. I was so beyond upset, super stressed planning a wedding, and now two people try to get me fired out of nowhere?! In talking to my boss, she indicated that this only started after I got engaged, and that both assistants seemed fixated on my wedding and marriage, making comments about how I shouldn’t get special treatment “just because she’s young and pretty and engaged.” So, my only logical conclusion is that these women had never actually come to terms with their divorces, and took out their pent-up anger on me. It was awful, and honestly, they never faced substantial repercussions from it, so I started job-hunting not long after the wedding. So happy I got out of that toxic situation. Weddings can be weird.

    Reply ↓
  33. Buni*

    Everything I know about US weddings I’ve learnt from films and sitcoms, where it seems you can’t POSSIBLY go stag (doe…?) and positively MUST find a plus one, so shenanigans ensue. Maybe Gert-rude saw too many bad films too…?

    Reply ↓
    1. MsM*

      Well, but if you’ve seen the films, you know you don’t just take a relative. You hire some rando to pose as your significant other and then proceed to fall in love with them.

      Reply ↓
    2. Juicebox Hero*

      Yes, and one of their coworkers couldn’t find a date, either, so he brings his brother. Over the table Gertrude’s eyes meet the brother’s, and the sister’s eyes meet the coworkers, and it’s True Love at First Sight.

      And the film ends with a lavish double wedding… with a cut to LW sitting morosely by herself because she wasn’t allowed a plus one.

      Reply ↓
    3. Bee*

      It’s incredibly funny that the two tropes about US weddings are at such odds: there’s NO WAY you could POSSIBLY go alone, how embarrassing, but also everyone is constantly hooking up with strangers at weddings, that’s the whole point of going. It’s like Schrodinger’s Date.

      Reply ↓
  34. L-squared*

    This seems awful to me.

    At the same time, based on what I’ve read on sites like AITA, its really not as uncommon as it should be for people to think they MUST have a plus one so they have someone to keep them company.

    Somehow the plus one has gone from a nice thing to do for people to an expectation.

    Reply ↓
  35. LL*

    I know it would be awkward and weird, but I most likely wouldn’t have invited her. Life’s too short to invite people to your wedding that you don’t like

    Reply ↓
  36. Jules*

    First off I firmly believe that Gertrude was in the wrong here, like beyond rude. That said, even in the US, Wedding rules are very different depending on how/where you grew up. So I don’t think there is a hard and fast line of “Of course she doesn’t get a plus one”. I understand the not wanting to spend the money on people you don’t know, but I also understand where I grew up/my family it would be very rude not to give someone the option regardless of how many people the guest knows in attendance. I didn’t realize how much “hard and fast” wedding etiquette rules really differ across the US until recently. But never is it OK to do what Gertrude did here.

    Reply ↓
    1. Clisby*

      It’s not necessarily “not wanting to spend the money on people you don’t know” – a lot of people want their wedding celebration to involve people they *do* know, and not random strangers.

      Reply ↓
      1. Jenesis*

        I would have rather not had a wedding at all than a giant party full of people I didn’t know!*

        The only “random stranger plus one” Husband and I invited to our 20 person micro wedding was 1) married 2) to a member of the bridal party 3) who didn’t know anyone there besides the bride. I would rather not have, but I felt it would be unspeakably rude not to. As it turned out, they ended up not coming anyway.

        *The wedding itself turned out more or less how we wanted. What happened afterward was… a different story.

        Reply ↓
  37. Juicebox Hero*

    Speaking for the unwillingly dragged-along sisters of the world, thank you times a million for not letting Gertrude drag her sister along to be yammered at for four straight hours in a room full of people she didn’t know.

    One of my sisters can’t stand to be without an audience, and if my brother in law isn’t available she tries to hook me.

    Reply ↓
  38. Elsa*

    I love Alison’s suggestion to cherish the drama. Our wedding was big so we basically shrugged and accepted some of the weird additions, like my parents’ friends who announced that they would be bringing along their nine year old son, or my husband’s sister who wanted to bring a plus one but wasn’t dating anyone so she brought a random female friend who we never saw before or after the wedding. At the wedding we were kind of annoyed when the nine year old kept walking off with the wedding decorations or when the random friend kept jumping into *all* the photos, but they do make funny stories afterwards!

    Reply ↓
    1. A Simple Narwhal*

      Agree to cherish the drama! I remember planning my seating arrangements and jokingly asked my mother if there were any family members I shouldn’t seat together, and she casually dropped that two of her brothers hate each other now and should be at separate tables. I was completely shocked (I had zero idea there was beef between them) but just had to laugh at it and seat them accordingly.

      I’ve read enough horror stories about family drama at weddings to appreciate that two uncles quietly hating each other is barely worth thinking about. Nor is another uncle changing into jeans after the ceremony.

      Reply ↓
    2. Clisby*

      A different type of drama, but for years, at any wedding we attended, my sister and I desperately hoped for a Jane Eyre-like disruption when the minister asked whether anyone knew a reason these people should not be married. We had nothing against the wedding couples, we just wanted the drama.

      Reply ↓
  39. learnedthehardway*

    Gertrude was indescribably rude!!

    When I got married, we were on a serious budget – we paid for everything ourselves. My gesture to coworkers was to invite them to the dance and cake part of the reception, and to let them know that there was a limited open bar (everyone got a few drinks, but after that had to buy their own). That was as much as we could afford, and I think my team understood that.

    About 6 people from the team showed up and it was lovely to have them there.

    Reply ↓
  41. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

    I’ve seen the issue of whether or not to invite all of your work teammates to your wedding come up here several times now, and the consensus seems to be “You have to invite everyone,” and I’m going to push back on that. You don’t have to invite everyone. This isn’t like inviting your coworkers to your Halloween party, this is a massively expensive and emotionally intimate event that you might only have one chance at in life. But let me narrow that down: This is a MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE event. Yeah, not inviting that one coworker might make things awkward at work, but I prefer awkward to additional debt. I promise everyone reading this that you are free to not invite all of your coworkers to your wedding. You can leave out that one awful person.

    Reply ↓
    1. Rosie*

      Can we all agree to the standardized definition that as a Coworker Invite, we ARE the Courtesy Invite?
      I’ve worked in lovely places, have been tremendously fond of coworkers, have genuinely wanted them to be part of my life…but they are few and far between and as the ten million posts on this blog would suggest, coworkers are not your nearest and dearest. As this is ostensibly a business blog, perhaps we can all agree by consensus of common civility to recognize that an invitation to a wedding from a coworker is different than your brother’s wedding invites. Don’t bring your whole family. Don’t bring a casual plus one. Enjoy the festivities, but sit at the table dedicated to coworkers and don’t wear out your welcome at the bar. If you’re a coworker, you’re a courtesy invitation—it’s not a free party! So please, fellow humans of AAM, let us band together to respect the unspoken boundaries of coworker wedding invites.
      (Just as an aside, as a recent bride: plated meals and a seating chart are more expensive but have less waste, so it’s not necessarily about brides being grandiose—I was trying to be conscientious and the pounds of potential food waste from a buffet or totally open invites were horrifying to me).
      I had one coworker who invited all four of their children, so I had two tables of coworkers and then a third table that was basically her family—an entire extra table (!). I had another who told me that she and her husband really didn’t care about the ceremony, they were just interested in the meals and drinks, which was equally appalling and hilarious in retrospect.

      Reply ↓
    2. Sparkles McFadden*

      I think the majority of the wedding-related AAM letters are of the “How can I exclude that one person?” ilk. There isn’t much drama if you’re inviting only one or two coworkers and not just excluding one person.

      I think the “you must invite everyone at work” mentality came about because people would hand out invitations at work (old school) or send e-vites using everyone’s work e-mail address. In those situations, it becomes very apparent that one or two people didn’t get invited. Even if people’s home addresses and personal e-mail addresses get used, it’s likely that someone is going to say something, as in “What are you wearing to the wedding?” If a workplace or department is very small, it does get very awkward. That doesn’t mean you *must* invite someone like Gertrude. You just have to be prepared there may be weirdness that may impact your work life.

      I’m really impressed with how the LW handled the situation with grace and tact while standing firm.

      Reply ↓
  42. ecnaseener*

    Ha, I love the “I needed to grow as a person” line — yeah hon, you sure did! I hope she grew in a good direction.

    Reply ↓
  43. Hansfel*

    Weddings can provoke very strange behavior.

    I was recently at a wedding where a guest called the night before to tell (tell!) the bride she’d be bringing her uninvited daughter because the guest wanted to be able to leave early without pulling her husband away from the festivities. When the bride said sorry, the wedding is in less than 24 hours and we don’t have last minute capacity, the guest responded that she was going to do it anyway.

    Apparently, the guest DID bring her daughter but made the mistake of telling the daughter (in the parking lot) that her presence hadn’t been approved. The daughter then drove away, presumably mortified, and did not return. The guest did what she should have done in the first place, and called a cab when she was ready to go home.

    Reply ↓
  44. Frosty*

    I’m going to be in the minority here and say that everyone should include a plus one and it should not be contingent on if they have been dating a long time or whatever. Do we do check ups on marriages like “oh you can only come if you guys don’t get divorced in the next year”?

    It can be very lonely attending a wedding where everyone else has “someone” and you sit alone (even if you want to pretend that they will have other people to talk to). It doesn’t have to be a romantic partner, but a close friend etc. Everyone needs someone to whisper to or roll their eyes to, or smile with, to get up on the dance floor with etc.

    If you can’t afford to have all people have plus one, then invite fewer people and let them all include them.

    Reply ↓
    1. Frosty*

      I’m not sure why you would invite Gertrude in the first place if you didn’t like her, but then limit her in a way that will “other” her further. Don’t invite people you don’t like to your wedding.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bella Ridley*

        So people shouldn’t invite people they don’t like to their wedding, but they should invite people they don’t know to their wedding? Because that’s frequently what a +1 is, a stranger to the couple, and I don’t see many people opting for “wedding that’s half family and friends and half strangers or acquaintances” vice “wedding with family and friends, not all of whom can bring their partners.”

        Reply ↓
    2. ecnaseener*

      Hard disagree. If the people getting married like big parties with plenty of new people to meet, then sure, giving everyone a plus-one is a great idea. But not everyone likes that kind of party. Some couples would much rather have the room filled with people who actually know and love them, with few to no strangers. It would really suck to have to exclude loved ones just to make space for plus-ones.

      Reply ↓
      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        Bingo. I didn’t want anyone at my wedding that either my husband or I didn’t actually know and want to have there.

        Reply ↓
      2. Lady Danbury*

        This. Plus, the assumption that not having a plus one means you’ll be be lonely doesn’t match with my experience. I’ve been to plenty of weddings without a plus one (either because I was single or because my partner couldn’t make it), but I always had other friends/family/coworkers to hang out with and still had a good time. If I really felt like I would be awkward not knowing anyone (like the time my stylist invited me to her baby shower), I would simply RSVP no. Anyone who’s close enough that my presence at their wedding truly matters is someone who I’d know other people at the wedding anyway.

        Reply ↓
    3. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

      A wedding is not your personal little fun time party day, it is someone else’s extraordinarily important milestone that they paid A LOT for. The couple getting married get to decide how this even will impact their finances, and if that includes not offering everybody +1’s, then that is perfectly acceptable. Do you think the money for these random +1’s just materializes because they ask the universe nicely for it? If you think you will be lonely at a wedding you’ve been invited to, you are free to RSVP “no.”

      Reply ↓
      1. Fíriel*

        This reply seems unnecessarily hostile. And also frankly inaccurate? I struggle to imagine someone throwing a party who thinks ‘I really do not care if anyone attending my party has a good time, it’s only about me’. And if they did think that, I’m not sure I’d like them very much! After all, if they didn’t care, why did they ask us to come?

        Also, if I liked someone enough to invite them to my wedding, I would want that specific person to have a good time at it. I would be sad if I found out my friends at my wedding were lonely or embarrassed about seeming alone. Part of the issue in this letter is that LW *doesn’t* like Gertrude to begin with, and so doesn’t actually want her at the wedding or care if she’s having a good time or not. In which case, she shouldn’t have been invited (or should have been politely pushed out once she chose to be a jerk about the +1 issue), and money can be spared!

        Reply ↓
        1. ItWasMyWedding*

          LW

          I didn’t dislike Gertrude. I didn’t want to spend of my limited seats on her.

          Of course I cared if people are having a good time! There was food and dancing and music and a table full of coworkers to talk to. But if Gertrude needed a plus one to be happy at my wedding, she shouldn’t come.

          Reply ↓
      2. Spooky*

        +1 to this ^^

        It’s not weird or rude to treat people who are in a serious relationship as though they get invitations together. It’s a social convention that makes sense. if you think you’ll be lonely at the wedding, either practice, making friendly conversation with strangers, or decline to go.

        It can be nice to talk in a friendly way to strangers when there’s such an obvious entry point to conversation as a wedding of someone, you both know. Even if you don’t end up ever seeing them again, if you put aside your baggage, it can be a perfectly nice time. And I’m an introvert, too, no one’s saying it would be your favorite choice of evening ever, but if it drains you for a couple hours, you can then go home and recoup. it’s not about you. There’s a difference between having preferences versus being allergic to even momentary discomfort for the sake of someone you supposedly care about.

        Reply ↓
  45. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    People get so weird about weddings. I explicitly had a childfree wedding (no children or babies invited) and said that I totally understood if that meant people couldn’t attend.

    One woman who’d I’d worked with in the past and thought was a friend sent back her RSVP with the names of all her children scrawled on it and a note saying that she legally(?) had the right to bring her kids along.

    Told her no! Compared to some of the other drama that day entailed she was actually rather minor.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon*

      “You have to let me bring my children! It’s THE LAW.” I literally laughed out loud. I tell ya, life is a rich, rich tapestry.

      Reply ↓
  46. Forrest Rhodes*

    Gertrude, dear, if you think this wedding is going to be so boring that you have to bring along someone to talk to, then why in the brown-eyed world do you even WANT to attend in the first place? For the free cake?

    I just don’t understand her logic (if any)!

    Reply ↓
    1. ItWasMyWedding*

      LW here-

      Right? That was my logic. Like, no one is forcing you to go here.

      She just said she WANTED to come. She just was afraid of how bored she’d be.

      Main character energy indeed.

      Reply ↓
  47. Kali*

    Why are people so weird about weddings? It’s nice to get a “plus-one” invite, but it’s not required, especially when space and budget don’t allow for it. If I’d had plus-ones for everyone invited to my wedding, I would have had to go back and cut out half of them, which would have been way more awkward. As it was, I had the best man insist we invite his parents (we did – it was early enough that we could, we just never imagined they wanted to come), a very close friend who was seated at my table tell me *that* morning that she couldn’t make it because Reasons (and then I never saw her again, wtf), and someone I hadn’t spoken to in about 4 years message me afterward out of the blue and yell at me for *not* inviting her (I always wondered if she regretted it when she got married a few years later and saw the price per head).

    If I ever get married again, I’m eloping.

    Reply ↓
  48. Ann O'Nemity*

    Some people are oblivious to wedding etiquette. An ex-boss crashed my small no-kids wedding with her baby and a coworker I barely remembered.

    Reply ↓
  49. Glad I'm Retired*

    I’ve read other advice columns about guests trying to finagle a plus one. Even worse, there are guests who are insulted because they can’t bring their kids. God forbid their children are left out of something.

    Reply ↓
    1. Glad I'm Retired*

      I want to clarify that it’s nice if plus ones and children can be invited, but I think it’s rude to confront the hosts about it.

      Reply ↓
  50. Star78*

    I’m going to slightly disagree here and say I think all single guests should have been allowed to bring a plus one- however, Gertrude was extremely rude!!!

    Reply ↓
    1. ItWasMyWedding*

      LW

      If I had to give every guest a plus one, my coworkers wouldn’t have been invited at all. And I liked (most) of them. And they knew my husband socially as well.

      Reply ↓
  51. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon*

    I have personally brought my brother as a plus one to several weddings and other events, BUT:
    1. A plus one was included on the invitation.
    2. My brother and I are very close and share many friends, so he would never know only me at the event.
    3. I specifically asked the bride if that would be okay, and in at least one case RSVP’d as just me and then got a message from the bride that maybe my brother would like to come as my plus one?
    Gertrude is giving us siblings who like to attend weddings a bad name!

    Reply ↓
  52. Artemesia*

    I love your lament Alison about not having a wedding kerfuffle to make it memorable. My nephew’s wedding was fabulous except for my brother’s long time friend and his wife who were both drunk and embarrassed themselves in making speeches although my brother had specifically asked them to not do so. The friend’s wife fell off her chair when she returned to her table. Now 20 or so years late this story comes up every time the wedding does and everyone laughs.

    I eloped on a Friday 13 and our car permanently died on the way to the JP and we had to sell it for parts in the town we were eloping to — and that was just the beginning of weird stuff on that day — all of which we treasure.

    Reply ↓
  53. Bex (in computers)*

    Unrelated to LW, but as an example that all weddings include drama …

    My husband and I didn’t tell our friends we were getting married. Instead, everyone was invited over for barbecue and board games and asked to bring a side dish. Then when everyone was there, they were handed cards that said “surprise, we’re getting married … now!”

    There were at least three women crying because they were furious they were not bridesmaids (I’d met all of them in the last six months). It turned out one half of a married couple had sneaked out to see her affair partner during the meal and was found out when her husband was looking for her as everyone settled in for the three minute ceremony. I had a panic attack (people looking at me oh noooooo!!!!!) and fell asleep on a couch inside, prompting the children (all under age seven) to assume I’d eaten poisoned cake and died … who then rushed out and threw the (uncut and uneaten) cake over the wooden fence and into the street, apparently striking an older couple out for an evening stroll who called the police over the pastry assault.

    to the LW: Gertrude was just gonna be weird.

    Reply ↓
    2. Hlao-roo*

      o.O

      I am impressed by the shear mismatch in the super-chill wedding you planned for and the super-dramatic wedding you got!

      Reply ↓
  54. Jinni*

    LW is lucky. My mother did this because she didn’t want to have no one to talk to…. At the last minute she invited four extra people to the rehearsal dinner and wedding. I have zero idea why people need someone to talk to for this limited time event. It’s like having a vegan wedding. It’s literally a few hours in someone’s life. Short term discomfort (even if *I* think it’s unwarranted) is okay….

    Reply ↓
  55. Fiona*

    I think if the guest is going to know zero people at the wedding – like, literally nobody – then it behooves you to give them a plus-one. But going to a wedding with work colleagues is like the total opposite of that situation! OP handled it perfectly, IMO.

    Reply ↓
    1. ItWasMyWedding*

      LW here:

      It would absolutely be a different equation if a guest would not know another person at the wedding (I ensured every person would be a table where they knew at least 2 other people. Thanks excel!), but that was not the case here.

      Reply ↓
  56. Spooky*

    If they’re not in a serious relationship (and they’re not in a situation where they would be complete strangers to everyone else at the wedding) you absolutely do not have to include a plus one on the invitation. Your wedding is not a custom entertainment for them, it’s a sacred ritual which they are observing because they ostensibly care about you. Some people have forgotten the ability to suck it up and have two hours of their lives not be about their own comfort and entertainment.

    If it is a situation where there someone who would never have met, or have nothing in common with anyone else at your wedding (not alumni of the same school or whatever) it’s kind to try to include a plus one in that situation, but still not required by manners. People are adults; they can talk to, and be friendly with strangers, especially at a wedding where there are a lot of really standard things to say to people and things to talk about to initiate conversation (“so how do you know X?”).

    Good for you for not budging when she tried to wear you down. She can talk to coworkers for a couple hours, or she can decline to go. Ridiculous.

    Reply ↓
    1. Spooky*

      Besides, plus ones who are further out from knowing the wedding party, and not in a relationship, have kind of a reputation for being the ones who act badly at weddings- drinking too much, being rude, making a scene. Obviously bad behavior isn’t exclusively there domain, but they have perhaps fewer social disincentives for disrespecting the event.

      Reply ↓
  57. Sunflower*

    When she left her job, I would have given her an etiquette book with a bookmark in the chapter regarding invitations.

    Reply ↓
  58. Lady Danbury*

    I’ve never been to a wedding where I literally don’t know anyone else attending. At coworkers weddings, I know the other invited coworkers. At friends’ weddings, I know other friends from the same friend group. Same for family weddings. While I understand the concern about not having people to socialize with, it’s just never been my experience, whether I’ve attended with a partner or by myself (either because I was single or because my partner couldn’t make it for whatever reason).

    Reply ↓
  59. Trixie Belden was my hero*

    All these comments are great but they can’t top the coworker wedding drama from “You may also like…”

    A coworker prayed for my fiance’s death so we didn’t invite her to our wedding and now there is drama…

    That one is in my AAM Top Ten Best of All Time!

    Reply ↓
  60. Nosy*

    My husband’s (single) friend showed up to our wedding with both his sister and his sister’s best friend! The sister and best friend ended up being our unofficial hype team. They were the first on the dance floor, took the photo props around to every table and made sure people got their goofy pictures with them, and helped keep the kids (my husband’s cousins – complete strangers to them) entertained. Almost 10 years later, my husband and I talk about how glad we were that they showed up.

    Reply ↓
  61. buddleia*

    “I don’t hate anyone at work, but I needed to grow as a person and out of my comfort zone.”

    Lol ok.

    If I was OP and got that message, that’s how I’d respond in my head and then ignore it.

    Reply ↓
  62. Definitely not me*

    This is amazing! I like that LW stuck to her guns. A local couple we know was planning their child’s wedding in their backyard. Not only was space limited, but the wedding was for a same-sex couple, and the parents were a little concerned about how some relatives and acquaintances would feel about that, so they were very choosy about guests. My spouse and I were not invited, which we completely understood, because we weren’t close with the child and had never even met the soon-to-be spouse. However. Other friends in our circle were invited, but only those who were close to the child or had grown up with them. Not those individuals’ spouses. As one can imagine, this didn’t sit well with the invitees, and two of them decided to bring their spouses anyway. Which not only led to the very situation described in this letter (no place setting or chair for the extra guests, and not enough food), but it also damaged the formerly close friendships among them. We ended up being thankful we weren’t invited to that mess!

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  63. Elliot*

    OMG WHAT?! I literally cannot with people.

    Alison, if you like weird wedding drama, boy do I have stories for you…. lol. Our first wedding venue turned out to be a ponzi scheme, covid shutdowns happened a week before our planned wedding, my MOH flew to New York during covid on a whim and quit on me, and then our wedding planner got banned from our third venue we booked. We were on a podcast because our wedding drama stories were so unbelievable :’)

    Reply ↓
  64. PlainJane*

    And that is why Miss Manners recommends not using “plus-one” and just asking people if they have a significant other and addressing the invite specifically. Miss Gertrude Nosypants is invited. If she happens to say, yes, I go with my sister everywhere, then it would be addressed to Miss Gertrude Nosypants and Miss Minerva Nosypants.” But you don’t get to do it after the invite goes out.

    Reply ↓
    1. ItWasMyWedding*

      LW Here:

      That’s actually exactly what we did- we didn’t give an option of plus ones; but individually asked about SOs to add to the RSVP card. No one’s said “…and guest”.

      In the case of my coworkers husband, I specifically asked his name to address the invitation. This actually was another point of contention with Gertrude.

      “How come SHE gets a plus one (her husband), but I CAN’T INVITE MY SISTER?!?!”

      Reply ↓
  65. Sitting Duck*

    I think communication is the key here. In my experience, a plus one is typically implied.

    Because of this, the couple of friends I invited to my wedding whom I didn’t have space for a plus 1, I reached out to them before they even got the invite and explained the situation. My wedding was on a constrained capacity, we only had 40 spots, so 20 for each of us to invite. Neither of them had a problem with this, and there was no mixed communication when sending the invite as to if they could/should add their own plus 1. (It may be prudent to note that these two guests were sisters, so they had each other, but I had independent relationships with each so they were actually both invited, I had also grown up with them, so they knew everyone else I had invited as well)

    I think if you communicate these things ahead of time – spell it out clearly – people are less likely to get huffy about it. I am in NO way saying Gertrude was right to do what she did, but I think in general, more communication is better than less. Even a small card/note in the envelope with the invite saying ‘due to capacity limits, we only have space for those listed on the invite’…..or something more eloquent (words are not my strong suit).

    On another note, I did go as a plus 1 to a wedding with my sister. It was a bit odd, as I didn’t really know anyone else there, although I think she also didn’t know too many of the guests (despite being close with the bride) and so she brought me to have someone she knew there. But she was explicitly given a plus 1 invite….

    Reply ↓

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