Wedding WTF: This Guest Did Several Insulting Things in a Single Response Card

Brides and grooms: You don’t have to invite anyone you don’t want to for any reason. And if an invited guest asks to bring someone you didn’t invite, you absolutely have the right to do this…

My pal who’s getting married e-mailed me to ask what he should do about the sticky situation a wedding guest unfairly put him in.

He invited a friend without a date. He and his groom are trying to keep the wedding intimate (as in, no guests they’ve never met before, a rule I should’ve followed), and this guest who was invited solo will know 80% of the other wedding guests in attendance. In fact, she’s technically married to one of them, though they’re not together anymore.

On her response card, she indicated that she’d be a party of two because she’d like to bring her new boyfriend, whom my friends haven’t met.

Faux pas #1: There are so few acceptable circumstances to ask to bring a guest when you’re not invited with one. This is not one of them.

Faux pas #2: If you really, really HAVE to ask, writing your request on a response card is not the way to do it. A question like that warrants a phone call.

As if that weren’t enough, she wrote that if my friends couldn’t afford to pay for her date, she could go solo.

Faux pas #3: Way to insult the grooms by assuming that the only reason she wouldn’t be able to bring a plus-one is because they’re destitute.

And faux pas #4: She didn’t even offer to pay for the guest she wants to bring.

My buddies didn’t know how to handle this–were they within their rights as the hosts to deny a guest her request to bring a date? And if so, what’s the best way to break the news? Should they justify their rationale?

Since she didn’t bother to make any personal contact with the grooms, I suggested they respond via e-mail or text with: “We’re sorry, but we’re keeping our wedding intimate. I’m so glad you’ll have (insert name of person she knows) and (insert name of person she knows) there” and leave it at that.

I get that it could be hard to face your ex at a wedding, but he wasn’t invited with a guest, either, so the playing field is level. Plus, they’ll have multiple friends around as buffers. She doesn’t need to rub her new beau in her estranged husband’s face.

I really hope the grooms introduce me to this girl with gall!