guest minefield- brother's girlfriend and aunt's boyfriend

If it's just to the ceremony, and inviting them won't mean that you have to not invite other friends/family, then I probably would invite them. Especially since they're invited to the meal afterwards

The problem would be that they'll be loitering (assuming they travel up together) until the ceremony is over. You don't have to have them in the family photos

Do you feel close enough to your brother and aunt to ask them what they think? If so, why not say (to your brother) 'We can invite X if you want us to but it leaves us really tight in terms of numbers. Are you happy to stand?' - same with your Aunt but suggest her fella should stand. If that makes them feel awkward then they may suggest just bringing them along afterwards.

Good luck!

Some registrar offices will not allow standing people as they set the numbers based on fire safety..... you need to ask. I know someone who had to ask two people to leave the room before the registrar would proceed and marry them.

If you're leaving out family member s and close friends from the register office, then I wouldn't feel obliged at all to invite these very new people. If you had wanted people to stand you would have invited people you actually wanted to be there, I would imagine.

The ceremony itself will only be for a short time, at which point they'll then get to join in with the rest of the day's festivities - I know it's the most important bit, but if they don't really know your or your OH then they won't really feel like they belong there anyway maybe.

If I had got a new partner and knew the numbers were tight, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he wasn't invited to someone's wedding ceremony.

Good luck with it though, family matters are the worst thing about this whole wonderful process

xxx

"Six months minimum when we sent invites out" was our cut-off date for partners we didn't know of distant people. Less than six months, evening only if there's space.

I think it would be prefectly ok not to invite them to the ceremony. I'd probably either write them a note or most likely phone to say " we'd like to be able to invite everyone, but space dictates that we can't and we really look forward to seeing x in the evening when we can celebrate together"

Could you wait a bit on sending their invites out in the hope that a couple of people can't come?

Personally... and I appreciate this is probably quite an old-fashioned view... I would not invite the brother's girlfriend but I would invite the aunt's boyfriend. Reasoning being that your brother's girlfriend is still pretty new, and he did say himself that she wouldn't be offended. However (and this is the old-fashioned part) I wouldn't ask people in the generation above me to come alone. For me, it's quite a different matter going alone when you're in your 20s to going alone in your 40s or 50s.