Why Are People So Weird About Plus-Ones?
6 min read
In the world of American wedding etiquette, plus-ones are straightforward, officially speaking. According to Lizzie Post, the great-great-granddaughter of the manners icon Emily Post and caretaker of her dynasty at the Emily Post Institute, the rules go like this: Granting a plus-one to single guests, especially those who are traveling or who don’t know many other attendees, is nice—but not required. Inviting both members of a “serious” relationship, meanwhile, is absolutely essential. To split a couple up (even if you don’tknow your friend’s partner at all, even if the partner is a jerk) would be “the height of rudeness,” Post told me. Alrighty then, a definitive answer.
Putting the theory into practice, though, can get a lot more complicated. Do you owe a plus-one to your bestie who’ll know plenty of people but just got dumped and can’t stop crying? What about your friend who is now dating your ex? Will your work wife be okay on her own? Does your best man get to bring the newish Tinder date he’s excited about? And what makes a relationship “serious,” anyway? A common answer once was marriage (“No ring, no bring”), or living together; Post suggested that a more modern guideline might be whether the relationship has lasted six months or longer—though she acknowledged that defining a well-established couple isn’t so easy in real life. Hosts tend to want clear codes to follow, yet what principles could possibly please everyone? “It’s a conversation that I have with literally every one of my clients,” Kaitlin Ford, a wedding planner in California, told me. “Nobody really knows what to do.”
Plus-ones haven’t always been such a headache. In the past, weddings were usually local events with fairly obvious guest lists, Julia Carter, a sociologist at the University of the West of England, told me. You’d probably know your friends’ partners well already, so including them would seem natural. But now the average person’s social network is much more complex and geographically dispersed. You’re more likely to be close to someone who lives thousands of miles away, whose partner you haven’t gotten the chance to meet, or who wouldn’t know any other guests.
Many fiancés end up following a loose version of Post’s guidelines and give some (but not all) attendees plus-ones. The result can be a whole lot of hurt feelings. Wedding crowds tend to include a lot of people in their late 20s and 30s—a common age at which to wed, and a fraught one when it comes to relationships, Ford said. Friends can suddenly find themselves at starkly different life stages. If you aren’t married, the whole event is honoring a milestone you haven’t hit. A plus-one snub, in this context, might feel personal: Those with partners who don’t make the cut might worry that their friend thinks their relationship is frivolous or that they’ve had too many flings. Single guests might be reminded of the many privileges extended to couples that aren’t available to them. Even the hosts and other cozily paired attendees might fear being perceived as “smug marrieds,” to quote Bridget Jones’s Diary. No one is happy.
One crowd-pleasing solution would be to simply give everyone a plus-one—which could mean a platonic companion or a date. This way, couples don’t get divided and single people don’t feel left out. “There’s just so much pressure, especially on women, to have a sidekick,” Cate Doty, the author of Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages, told me. It is nice to have an ally you can take a breather with when your feet hurt from dancing, she said, or whisper with about funny moments. If couples peel off from the party in twos, having someone by their side can remind single people they’re not alone. But this sort of policy is rarely affordable without significant trade-offs. Hosts would have to either pay more for a larger guest list or invite fewer of their own friends—neither of which is an appealing prospect.
There is, possibly, an alternative—a principle that’s more taboo than I ever would have guessed before reporting this story, but I’ll bravely say it anyway: No plus-ones. You heard me. The couple invite their actual loved ones only. If that includes partners or pairs of friends who both happen to have made the cut on their own, then lovely. Otherwise, guests can do something scientifically proven to be achievable: Socialize on their own.
That’s not seen as such a tall task in every country. In Japan, for instance, plus-ones aren’t common. Only the person with the actual invitation is typically expected to come, and inviting half of a couple isn’t seen as an affront. In the United Kingdom, Carter told me, the plus-one exists, but “it doesn’t seem to hold such important symbolism.” That may be in part because the ceremony and the reception usually involve different guest lists; the former is commonly pared down to such a small group (say, just core family members and best friends) that no one would expect to bring someone along. The nighttime portion is simply a banger—so an invitation (or lack thereof) isn’t loaded with as much meaning.
In the United States, however, as marriage itself has evolved, weddings have come to embody too many things at once. Now there’s no clear answer to the question of whom or what they’re for. Are they primarily for the people getting married? For their families and friends? Are they a way to honor romantic commitments, including the guests’ own? Or are they … just parties? Of course, they mark a crucial turning point in the lives of the marrying couple (and maybe a steep drop in their savings). But guests also expend major time and money to attend. It’s not surprising that they might lose track of why they’re there—not just to have fun, or to see their own relationship status or lack thereof affirmed, but to show up for someone they love.
A plus-one-free wedding isn’t just for the hosts, though. It can also mix things up for guests—and lead to a weirder, more serendipitous, more memorable night. Hear me out. I actually empathize completely with how hard navigating an event solo can be. I recently went alone to a wedding across the country at which I knew no one but the bride, and for about three months leading up to the trip, I monologued to anyone who would listen about how anxious I was. My marrying friend was thoughtful, though, and she introduced me to two other guests in the same predicament. Had I brought a plus-one, I probably would’ve just talked to that person all night. Instead, I felt shaken out of myself and the familiar baggage of normal life, and giddy at the prospect of getting to know these new people plopped in front of me. I made new bonds. (Not to brag, but the three of us still have a group chat.)
Perhaps weddings with fewer discrete duos might have the looser energy that makes for a good party and, frankly, a good way to connect with people. Because we live in a society that idealizes romantic relationships, many of us also seek out monogamy in platonic companionship. Plus-one-free weddings might push us to try something different. Maybe the single guests wouldn’t feel excluded, because the coupled-up ones going solo for the night would be more game to mingle. Maybe those guests untethered from their partner would actually cherish an opportunity to meet people on their own—to be known for one night as an individual, not half of a whole—or to catch up with friends in the kind of intimate way that doesn’t happen on a double date. Regardless, everyone would be fine. Or more than fine: Their life, in some way subtle or significant, might expand.
One thing you hear a lot as a single young adult and a journalist writing about weddings—not that I’d know!—is that attending one is a great way to meet someone. I used to hate that sentiment. But now I couldn’t agree more: It’s a perfect way to meet a friend.
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