Dear Blake,
My fiancé and I are being married next month in a private ceremony. We’re having a small family/closest friends barbecue reception the following weekend. We do not want any uninvited guests, but we also don’t want to come across as rude. What’s your suggestion for polite wording on invitations asking that there be no “extra” guests brought to our reception? Our budget is very tight.
Signed, Millie
From Rock Island, Illinois
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Dear Millie,
In private wedding ceremonies, some friends and family will feel left out. But the ones you do invite should honor your request, or you should treat them as your worst enemy. If you do not want any uninvited guests, here are some suggestions to put on the invitations. Warn them that “additional” people will be treated as trespassers, promptly arrested, and can get bailed out by the idiot that brought them. Or you can tell them that uninvited guests will be strip searched, while it is being streamed on Facebook and YouTube. And this idea might work, tell the people that you want there, if they decide to bring someone, make sure that person is over 18, because the person performing the wedding has been instructed to expose some very explicit facts about “you”, if they bring a person that’s not on the guest list. However, there is nothing wrong with you being a little flexible, by trying to accommodate the additional people. So consider putting on the invitation that the extras will be served a meal, but you are suggesting that they bring their own paper plates… unless they don’t mind using the same plates someone else used, when they select what they want to dine on when you give them access to the garbage can. I hope this helps.
Blake