Who invited you?

[Thena]

There are three members of the Thena family. When a wedding invitation arrived addressed to the family, I responded that three of us would be attending.

The wedding is a week from tomorrow and my sister is out of the country. She sent a message with her flight information, but she also indicated that her long-term boyfriend is also attending the wedding with her and needs to stay at my place.

It is possible that the boyfriend received a separate invitation, but I can't be sure of that. I definitely did not include him when I sent back the RSVP. I can't get in touch with my sister and when I tried calling the bride-to-be, her voicemail was full.

What the heck do I do now? Should one of us skip the wedding and stay home?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

No. Reception centers can handle one extra meal especially as there will almost definitely be someone who didn't come at the last minute. You can RSVP for him yourself, by just notifying the couple that your sister and her boyfriend have said they are coming, and you're not sure if they managed to rsvp personally because they were overseas.

 

[Finn]

My cooperating teacher from this past spring told me to expect someone to show up "uninvited" for my wedding. Apparently she had many uninvitees show up at hers.

 

[Kestra]

Definitely notify someone ahead of time. In some settings it won't be that big of a deal if an uninvited person shows up but in others it can be difficult to manage at the last minute. They need to know to provide more food as well as putting an extra chair at a table. Like I said, it might not be a big deal but if you're already dealing with tight constraints, it would be nice to have advance notice.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I showed up uninvited at a few weddings with some friends during college. You know the type: big wedding, tons of people, boring as hell. Oh, the things you do when your are young, brazen-faced and on a stingy scholarship. As long as it was a standing buffet, they managed just fine and with food and drinks to spare at the end of the night. Also, we put some fun in the night: they should have paid us for the amusement we delivered.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

What the heck do I do now? Should one of us skip the wedding and stay home?

The one who should skip the wedding is the bf, unless he received his own invitation. (Or perhaps your sister, if she stretched the family invitation to include him. )

Seriously, this may sound terribly old-fashioned, but as I see it, it's downright disrespectful to invite additional people to someone else's wedding. You have no idea how much work they may have put into figuring out exactly whom to (and whom not to!) invite. And all those last minute changes the caterer has to make? They cost the couple money.

 

[auntiehill]

I think you should still bring him, but keeping trying to make contact with someone in the wedding party. It is a bit rude to bring a person who did not RSVP, but it is also true that many people do not show up.

I had a few people say they were coming to my wedding and then did not show, so I paid for meals that didn't get eaten. Bring your extra person, but make sure to make many apologies if you can't make contact with someone ahead of time.

 

[Thena]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to keep trying to get in touch with the bride to warn her. There's still a chance that she sent a separate invitation to the boyfriend since she met him briefly last year.

At least my sister is actually arriving two days before the wedding and a day before the boyfriend, so it might give us enough time in advance to figure things out. It just irritates me that she invited her boyfriend to stay at my house without letting me know first, and she's had many similar lapses in judgment.

 

[Aragorn]

Boyfriend can go, but in the sister's place.

 

[Thena]

^See, I'd just prefer that he skip the wedding and stay home so he won't be crashing on my couch!

 

[B.J.]

With my own wedding, we just had a buffet, so we didn't have to deal with exact numbers. Besides, we had left an open invitation to our college band, so we had to expect between 10 and 300 people from that alone!

 

[Kestra]

With my own wedding, we just had a buffet, so we didn't have to deal with exact numbers. Besides, we had left an open invitation to our college band, so we had to expect between 10 and 300 people from that alone!

Yeah, a setting like that with a buffet changes the game a bit, although I'd argue it's not just about finding another seat and meal, but about going to an event when you haven't been invited.

And weddings can easily run over $100/person, especially if we're talking open bar and things like that.

 

[Australis]

Can't reach the bride? Phone the mother of the bride, either leave a message or talk to the mother. She can get things done.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I had a few people say they were coming to my wedding and then did not show, so I paid for meals that didn't get eaten.

If that was me I would be asking for the meals to be packed up so I could take 'em home and freeze and use them like tv dinners.

 

[Finn]

^You'd be too busy to ask or notice unless their absence sticks out like a sore thumb. Plus the servers would just take away the food. I've heard of lucky couples going hungry because the catering staff kept taking away their food.

 

[Maestro]

There's something odd about this etiquette-wise right from the start. Your family, which I am taking to mean you, your husband, and your sister, has been invited. That's an odd grouping. Your sister should have gotten a separate invitation with the option of a +1.

You also don't know for sure if the boyfriend got an invitation, but he may have and had the option of a +1.

I honestly don't believe this is your problem. It's not really your responsibility to police who attends someone else's wedding, even if it's an adultish family member bringing someone not-invited, especially since you don't know that he wasn't.

It has happened where we received a Mr. and Mrs. Maestro invitation, told our daughter that she couldn't go, and then the next day, our daughter received a Mistress Maestro invitation of her own.

Seems to me that the problem was on the guest list end of things, so don't worry about it.

Unless you're really looking for a way to keep the boyfriend off your couch, in which case, I'm sure we can twist Emily Post back around to prevent that too.

 

[Thena]

Can't reach the bride? Phone the mother of the bride, either leave a message or talk to the mother. She can get things done.

Ooh, I hadn't thought of that! I'll see if I can get in touch with her.

^You'd be too busy to ask or notice unless their absence sticks out like a sore thumb. Plus the servers would just take away the food. I've heard of lucky couples going hungry because the catering staff kept taking away their food.

That happened at a friend's wedding. The servers were just too efficient and took away full plates of food whenever people got up. In one instance, the bridal party had just sat down with pieces of wedding cake when the DJ announced that it was time for the bouquet toss. When the bridesmaids returned to their seats, their uneaten slices of cake had been taken away and the caterer claimed that there was no more cake left.

There's something odd about this etiquette-wise right from the start. Your family, which I am taking to mean you, your husband, and your sister, has been invited. That's an odd grouping.

Would it help if I explained that it was actually my widowed father, my sister and I? There's no husbands in the picture.

Unless you're really looking for a way to keep the boyfriend off your couch, in which case, I'm sure we can twist Emily Post back around to prevent that too.

Yes, please! The boyfriend seems like a nice enough guy (and a saint for putting up with my sister) but there's just so much awkwardness when he's around.

 

[Maestro]

Since I don't know your age or your sister's age, but I do know you're both residing with your father, I can only conclude that the invitation was sent to you as a family for postal convenience. If this is true, it is easier for me to conclude that the boyfriend got a separate invitation. If you and your sister are of, shall we say, upper-college age or post-undergraduate age, it would be fair to conclude that you could bring a +1 because it may have been improper to send one invitation to all three of you. It is customary, at least in my experience, in the US for an unmarried adult to be allowed (encouraged?) to bring a date.

When the time comes for my daughter to marry, were I to have a family friend where the father is a widower and his 20-something daughters were living with him, I might make the same EP-faux pas to save a few cents on postage, but I would certainly include option for the daughters to bring dates (the father is another story, and not part of the debate here). Were I to fail to extend that option, I doubt I'd blink at the daughters including their own +1.

Now that I've said all that... You certainly can ask your sister if her boyfriend got an invite, and if he didn't, pull Emily Post rules that only those who were specifically invited get to go ("family" means dad and daughters), and since the invitation didn't specify a +1, the boyfriend going would be rude and tacky.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

^You'd be too busy to ask or notice unless their absence sticks out like a sore thumb. Plus the servers would just take away the food. I've heard of lucky couples going hungry because the catering staff kept taking away their food.

eh, I was thinking of myself as the relative of the bride, someone in charge of organizing behind the scenes.

Myself, I am not a wedding fan and would never have a wedding with all this traditional wedding stuff.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

...It is customary, at least in my experience, in the US for an unmarried adult to be allowed (encouraged?) to bring a date.

When the time comes for my daughter to marry, were I to have a family friend where the father is a widower and his 20-something daughters were living with him, I might make the same EP-faux pas to save a few cents on postage, but I would certainly include option for the daughters to bring dates (the father is another story, and not part of the debate here).

Maestro, I'm confused. Are you suggesting that it would be less appropriate for this hypothetical father to bring a date than for his 20-something daughters to do so? Or am I misunderstanding you?