Bringing a date

[AMusing]

My fiancé and I are getting married this fall. We're having a tiny, casual wedding: we only invited our 5 parents and 4 friends. Because nearly all our guests are from out of state, we rented a fancy house in the mountains for a long weekend. We are having our ceremony at the house, and planned to spend the rest of the weekend relaxing & hiking with our closest friends & family.

 

It was very hard to choose just 4 friends, but we wanted an intimate wedding and that's all our rental will be able to hold. One of the guests we invited is my friend from college. He was the last person we invited, after quite a bit of debating.

 

When I talked to him last night, he mentioned bringing a date. I reminded him there was no room in our house, to which he replied he'd prefer to camp near the house anyway, so surely it would be fine to bring a girl along. This isn't even a girlfriend he wants to bring--he's single--just some random date to be chosen later.

 

I was totally thrown off guard, so reluctantly agreed he could bring someone. But this morning I'm feeling even more put off by the whole thing. It felt super rude of him to push after I'd said no, especially given the size of our wedding. What should I do? Frankly, I'm regretting inviting this friend to begin with. I keep thinking of all the friends and family we refrained from inviting, and how much I'd rather have them there than a friend's booty call.

[d0nnivain]

You already said yes. He's getting accommodations elsewhere. Focus on the parts of your wedding that make you happy & be gracious when you meet her.

[beyond]

It's your wedding, you get to call the shots.

Tell him, after giving it some thought you want to keep to the original plan and have an intimate wedding surrounded by those closest to you. Say you would love him to come as he is a close friend and hope he understands those conditions.

Then it is up to him - come alone or don't come.

[Tayla]

I think Donnivains' response is more in tune with the scenario.

 

He was invited.

 

Be a gracious and hospitable bride.

[Lois_Griffin]

I understand your need/preference to have a small, intimate wedding of maybe 10 people or so, but I have to say it's incredibly rude to insist that your 4 friends come alone. You're basically asking them to foot the bill to travel to this retreat alone, take time off work, spend money on clothing for the occasion, make plans at home for pet sitters (or whatever their needs may or may not be), incur the expense of a wedding gift or monetary offering, and for all that, they can't even bring someone along to enjoy it with them for all they've spent.

 

It's your wedding and your call, but it seems incredibly unfair to insist that they can't even bring a guest.

 

I would have zero interest in traveling alone to a friend's out of state wedding where everyone ELSE is coupled off except myself and the other 3 friends. Ridiculous.

 

JMHO.

[AMusing]

Ok, I won't say anything to him bringing a date. If this is the worst thing that happens on our wedding, we'll certainly count our blessings. I do want to clarify a couple things, though, in order to address Lois' "incredibly rude" accusation:

 

1) Only 4/11 of us are part of a couple (us, and my fiancé's parents), so I'd hardly say "everyone else" is coupled up.

 

2) Since my friend pushed for bringing a date, I've asked the other three friends if they'd prefer to bring someone. They each said that since they're single, it would be "weird" to try to find someone who'd want to travel with them for this kind of thing. The fourth friend isn't worried about being bored/lonely--he's traveled the world solo, he loves the area we live in, and is good friends with another guest--he just wants to use our wedding to get lucky with a local girl (his words, not mine).

 

3) We have tried to be as minimally demanding on our guests as possible. Everyone coming was planning to visit us this summer/fall anyway. We chose the date so that only one guest will be taking any time off work. The ceremony/weekend is casual; certainly nobody would need a new outfit in order to come. We don't want gifts. Our guests do have to get to our city (and we're actually helping a few people on that end, too), but we're taking care of everything else for as long as they're staying. I hardly think we're placing undo burden on our friends.

 

Anyway, I guess I feel even more fortunate now that we have friends who love us enough not to think of this weekend as some obnoxious obligation they need a date for in order to make it bearable. And who knows, maybe the random date will become a new wonderful friend.