Best Man's Plus One?

When are you getting married?

Does your best man not know other people coming to the wedding? If he does and he doesn't have a partner then I wouldn't have thought he would need to bring a guest. But it would be courteous to give him a plus one since he is such a big part of the day.

We have gone with a rule that if you have not been with your partner a year then they are not invited as we do not want random people who we have never met or see again in our wedding photos, also not paying to feed random people who just walk off the street.....

I don't think it is mean at all but then maybe i am just a scrooge lol

I have been to a wedding where the best man's plus one shared our table. Although we tried very hard to make her welcome (no "in" jokes, etc), she seemed excrutiatingly uncomfortable (and clearly quite shy generally) and left after dinner. Would have been a nicer time for her to come for the party at night, I suspect.

Anyway, I don't think a best man (or any guest) should bring a casual date (assuming they know others at the wedding, of course) and nor should it be assumed that plus ones are a given. Steady partners are a different matter, although I am not inviting anyone I don't know (and even excluding some I do).

The only thing I wonder is if the best man doesn't have a distraction, will he be overly focussed on the groom and wanting a drinking buddy all night?

Could you give him a +1 for the evening? Therefore no awkwardness over dinner for her, no having to find someone to 'babysit' her whilst he's doing his BM thing but someone for company in the evening for him.

In terms of a drinking buddy, we'd hoped that the similarly single-invited friends in our social group would cover that already. The BM regularly goes on holidays with these people so we were hoping that this would negate his need to feel as though he 'has' to have a plus one is there isn't a significant plus one (if you know what I mean!) Plus the BM has known the groom's family for donkey's years so he's not going to be should of people that he knows.

In that case then I don't think he needs a plus one.

Yes, we were thinking this, although she would probably have a hour journey if she is from his home area. I just don't like the idea of him inviting an any-old 'she' to our wedding.

I think you should follow the same rules that you're applying to anyone else. Different people have different ideas about plus ones, but as long as you're consistent, I think that's ok.

Our Best Man is single, but our wedding is still almost two years away. If he gets a girlfriend in the meantime, depending on how long he's been with her, she'll get an invitation. We're a little bit different though, as we're getting married abroad. If he finds a girlfriend that he's serious enough about to bring abroad with him, then she'll definitely have an invitation. I guess it's a bit different taking a casual fling for two weeks in Australia than taking her to a one day wedding!

I wouldn't worry about it. I have been to a number of weddings where bestman is single and gone on his own- like you said, there were other people there he knew...

Our bestman is single and I don't think he is likely to meet anyone any time soon, we are just inviting him and haven't given it a second thought. He is part of our social circle (some of whom are also single).