Guest’s Response to Bride Retracting Plus One 2 Weeks Before Wedding Backed

A woman has been supported for her decision to back out of attending a wedding just two weeks before the ceremony, after her plus one offer was rescinded.

The woman, who did not give her name but writes on Reddit under the username klay-stan, took to the r/AmITheA*****e sub to ask if it would be wrong of her to not attend the wedding, after initially saying she would go.

This is because she believed she would have a plus one, and asked her friend to attend with her—but then the bride called and let her know, in no uncertain terms, she was not to bring a plus one.

The woman explained the bride is a friend from college, and she will not know anyone else at the ceremony, as a mutual friend was unable to attend.

The online invite via a website gave her the option to add a plus one, so she invited a friend along, as she is “very socially anxious” and “very nervous about attending the wedding on my own.”

But she then got a call from the bride, saying “I don’t have a plus one and shouldn’t have added my friend and that I cannot bring her.” The bride said she herself was still invited, but she has to attend alone and should make friends with the other guests.

Wedding expert and editor of Hitched.co.uk, Zoe Burke, told Newsweek it was a “difficult situation” as “whilst the plus one may have been given in error, it might not be possible for the couple to actually honor it, as they might be at their limit for the venue—whether in capacity, budget or both.”

She added, however: “I don’t think the guest would be in the wrong to change her RSVP, but it will depend how it’s done. Changing your response to a wedding invitation at short notice should be [avoided] wherever possible, as it will impact details such as the seating plan and the catering, and cause extra admin for the couple, but I think in this case it’s an acceptable reason to do so.”

Burke added: “It’s tough attending a social event when you don’t know anyone, even if you don’t suffer from anxiety, so I completely empathize with the guest no longer wanting to attend. I think if she explains the situation to the couple, hopefully they will be understanding, or able to reach a compromise that works for both parties.”

The woman suspects the bride and groom gave her a plus one by accident, but the couple never apologized or explained. They just told her she was not welcome to bring a plus one.

“I get very uncomfortable in situations where I don’t know anyone, and now I don’t really want to use my PTO [paid time off] to attend a last-minute wedding where I’m not going to know anyone,” the woman explained in her Reddit post.

She said she felt “trapped” because she has already RSVP’d saying she would attend, but only did so because she thought she would have a guest to keep her company. She asked if she would be in the wrong to tell the couple, two-and-a-half weeks before the wedding, that she would no longer be coming.

Nick Leighton, an etiquette expert and host of podcast Were You Raised By Wolves?, said this was an “unfortunate etiquette experience,” but backed the woman should she decide not to attend.

“If the bride didn’t want this guest to bring a plus one, then they shouldn’t have configured their wedding RSVP website to allow it,” he said simply.

“Given that there’s been some sort of mistake, it’d be perfectly reasonable for the OP [original poster] to decline to attend since the terms of the invitation have changed.”

“At a minimum, the bride should have apologized profusely for this website error and not attempted to shift the blame to the guest,” he went on. “But ideally, the bride wouldn’t have even brought this up with the [Reddit poster] after realizing the error and would have just tried her best to accommodate the plus one”.

Reddit users also responded in a big way, with klay-stan’s post gaining over 6,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments in just two days since being shared on November 3.

One commenter assured her: “You can absolutely change your mind..”

They added, however: “Frankly, the lateness of the invite heavily implies that you are a seat filler for others who either cancelled or said no. It’s likely, however, that your relationship with your friend will never (fully) recover—considering you were not a first choice I doubt this will have much impact on your life going forward.”

Another agreed: “OP stay at home, you don’t need the stress of getting to know strangers for a whole day/night.”

And as one put it: “Change your rsvp, don’t bother giving an excuse.

“You were invited 2 1/2 weeks before the wedding, which means you were a B or C level guest, who only got an invite because not enough A levels decided to attend.”

According to a report from The Knot Worldwide, in 2023 there was an average of 115 guests at a given wedding, down from 117 in 2022. Conversely, the average wedding cost for the ceremony and reception was $35.000, up from $30,000 the previous year.

Newsweek has contacted klay-stan on Reddit for comment on this story. We could not independently verify the details of this case.

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