the guest list part 3: the plus-one conundrum

We want to celebrate with everyone in the world. But where to draw the line?

For parts one and two, click here and here.

Sooner or later, each engaged couple must face the harsh truth about their friends' relationships: do we like the new person enough that they make the cut for the wedding? Moreover, are you allowed to not invite a friend's boyfriend because he's a rabid conservative? What about the girlfriend that blacks out at every single function that serves alcohol?

Unfortunately, friends, we can't pick our friends' significant others and we also can't pick and choose which specific girlfriends/boyfriends/friends with benefits get the look. (Sidenote: the "look" is my new favorite term from the financial world. It basically means the invite/access/golden ticket.)

Well, you can choose, somewhat, but you have to be consistent to avoid hurt feelings. In our situation, with a wedding as large as ours ballooned, we couldn't give every single guest a plus one. And honestly, I don't think most brides and grooms want to dedicate a huge portion of their night to meeting new faces. That being said, there will brand-new people to us at our reception, BUT, they are important enough to our friends (people who we aren't meeting for the first time) that it would feel wrong not to invite them. And hey, that means when we get invited to their weddings down the line, we'll have already met!

Our criteria -- which a lot of our friends shared at their own weddings -- was either that the couple was living together or engaged. Now this obviously doesn't apply to every couple: just ones where we haven't yet met the other half. We have plenty of friends who are dating someone with whom they don't yet live, but if they also live in New York, we've probably already had the chance to get to know their new girl or boy toys. Or maybe we like their girlfriends/boyfriends better than them but just haven't said anything yet.

There is one huge caveat to this rule: if anyone would like to bring Joseph Gordon Levitt as your date, you have my express permission.