People inviting their other halves!

Your wedding, your rules. You just need to be prepared for people not to come if their partner is not invited.

I think it's a lot harder these days when so many people live together for years before marrying (or who choose not to marry at all). Years ago, you could just limit partners to those who were married or engaged which guaranteed that all the 'serious' partners would be invited. But now, you can have a couple getting engaged after a year's dating, while another couple have been living together for 20 years but not marrying from choice, and it makes it much harder to decide where the cutoff should be!

Obviously at the end of the day it is your wedding, so you do what is best for you, but perhaps consider the long term impact not inviting partners might cause. I think it is a tough line with partners, especially as it is the norm for people to be together a long time before marrying and some people don't want to get married, even when together for a long time. So, you could risk damaging some family relationships by not inviting your cousins long term partners.

My personal opinion is that partners should be invited, but only if they have been together for at least 1 year. I personally would be quite offended if I was invited to a family wedding and my partner wasn't. I probably wouldn't go. I feel like isn't respectful to other peoples situations and relationships. Just because they aren't married or engaged, doesn't mean they shouldn't be invited. My cousin had never met my fiancé until their wedding day and they still invited him. In a similar situation I have never met one of the groomsmen's girlfriends but they have been together for a couple of years and therefore I feel it respectful to invite them.

I understand it is difficult when there are a lot of cousins as that can double their invites, however, I think you need to be prepared for declines and/or some people being offended if you don't invite their long term partners.

We decided to invite all long term partners in the end as it would be rude not to. We made it clear on our invitation insert that no additional plus ones would be invited unless they were already specified in the invitation.

I find guest lists the hardest part of the wedding to deal with. It's a nightmare.

It's your wedding so do what is best for you. :-)

You are entirely in your rights to have who you want at your wedding. We didn't have any cousins to the day as I have 18 of them so that alone was a huge chunk of our numbers, and in honesty, we are not close and I don't see them so wanted people at our wedding who were actually part of our lives. I wouldn't put a holding statement out saying you are reviewing the numbers as this only kicks the issue down the line. You need to be honest now and say no. Maybe you can invite the partners to the evening?

Maybe send something like the below, it makes it clear , but as others have said, you may get further declines, but for me that is their choice and if they cant spend one day without the partner then that is quite selfish, as it isn't like they wont know anyone else at the wedding.

Thanks for reaching out regarding your partner. I am sure you can appreciate we have a limited number of seats and whilst we would love to extend the invite to your partner we simply don't have the capacity to do this for everyone. We understand that other family members have told you they have declined the invite, which makes it seem like there are spare seats, however, we already have people in mind that we will be inviting to fill those seats. We are sorry if this upsets you but as this is our day we would ask that you respect and understand our decision to have guests at our wedding that we choose, this is extremely difficult for us but we just don't have the space to invite everyone. we really hope you are able to attend and celebrate with us and we are happy for your partner to attend the evening reception

You are entirely in your rights to have who you want at your wedding. We didn't have any cousins to the day as I have 18 of them so that alone was a huge chunk of our numbers, and in honesty, we are not close and I don't see them so wanted people at our wedding who were actually part of our lives. I wouldn't put a holding statement out saying you are reviewing the numbers as this only kicks the issue down the line. You need to be honest now and say no. Maybe you can invite the partners to the evening?

Maybe send something like the below, it makes it clear , but as others have said, you may get further declines, but for me that is their choice and if they cant spend one day without the partner then that is quite selfish, as it isn't like they wont know anyone else at the wedding.

Thanks for reaching out regarding your partner. I am sure you can appreciate we have a limited number of seats and whilst we would love to extend the invite to your partner we simply don't have the capacity to do this for everyone. We understand that other family members have told you they have declined the invite, which makes it seem like there are spare seats, however, we already have people in mind that we will be inviting to fill those seats. We are sorry if this upsets you but as this is our day we would ask that you respect and understand our decision to have guests at our wedding that we choose, this is extremely difficult for us but we just don't have the space to invite everyone. we really hope you are able to attend and celebrate with us and we are happy for your partner to attend the evening reception

You are entirely in your rights to have who you want at your wedding. We didn't have any cousins to the day as I have 18 of them so that alone was a huge chunk of our numbers, and in honesty, we are not close and I don't see them so wanted people at our wedding who were actually part of our lives. I wouldn't put a holding statement out saying you are reviewing the numbers as this only kicks the issue down the line. You need to be honest now and say no. Maybe you can invite the partners to the evening?

Maybe send something like the below, it makes it clear , but as others have said, you may get further declines, but for me that is their choice and if they cant spend one day without the partner then that is quite selfish, as it isn't like they wont know anyone else at the wedding.

Thanks for reaching out regarding your partner. I am sure you can appreciate we have a limited number of seats and whilst we would love to extend the invite to your partner we simply don't have the capacity to do this for everyone. We understand that other family members have told you they have declined the invite, which makes it seem like there are spare seats, however, we already have people in mind that we will be inviting to fill those seats. We are sorry if this upsets you but as this is our day we would ask that you respect and understand our decision to have guests at our wedding that we choose, this is extremely difficult for us but we just don't have the space to invite everyone. we really hope you are able to attend and celebrate with us and we are happy for your partner to attend the evening reception

I would just say that you already have a reserve list of friends you’ll be inviting in place of anyone who RSVPs ‘no’, so their sibling’s space isn’t available, however you’re happy to add their partner to that list and you’ll let them know if there are any other spaces available once all your loved ones have been invited.

I am very much with Kirsty here. It's a bit difficult because you've already gave out invites and, yes, I don't really think it's helpful if lots of people are asking the question now but I very much believe partners should be invited to a wedding (unless they are extremely new). I see it as being disrespectful to invite others to celebrate your relationship whilst not acknowledging theirs.

I would not go to a wedding my husband to be wasn't invited to (unless perhaps it was a work wedding) and I have, for example, both my bridesmaid's partners coming despite the fact neither have been together particularly long (just about a year) and I've not met either. There will also be a few other partners from longer relationships invited that we haven't met before.

So I guess it depends how long the guests have been with their partners.