Dear Dáithí: How do I tell my boyfriend about my friend's 'no ring, no bring' rule?

The first of the wedding invites arrived this week, and I was somewhat taken aback when I realised that my friend had invited me to the wedding, but not my boyfriend.

Dear Dáithí,

A good few of my friends are planning to tie the knot this year, and so over the last few months my boyfriend and I have been putting aside a few euro to help with the costs.

Thankfully, a few of them will be local, but there are one or two further afield — so we expected to have accommodation costs as well as all the usuals: The gift, the outfits, the spending money.

We have a good idea when all the weddings are happening so have booked off time accordingly.

The first of the wedding invites arrived this week, and I was somewhat taken aback when I realised my friend had invited me to the wedding, but not my boyfriend.

She has met him many times. I thought maybe she wasn’t asking partners, so I called one of my other friends, who I knew would also be invited.

She received an invite for herself and her fiancé, and said she thinks our mutual friend has a ‘no ring, no bring’ policy and is only inviting partners if the couple is already married or is engaged.

I would totally get it if I were only seeing my boyfriend a few weeks, but we have been together over a year. We’re not engaged, but I wouldn’t rule it out in the future.

I feel really awkward about the whole thing.

My boyfriend has already booked time off for the wedding as I fully expected we’d both be going. Do I call my friend and ask if it’s an oversight and can she add him to the list?

Or do I tell my boyfriend he hasn’t been invited?

Well, you have brought me back around 15 years with this one, to a time when I, and a good few of my friends, got married. There were around four weddings all within five months. The craic was only mighty, but we were all happy to be done with them at the end. We were lucky in the sense that all partners, wives, and husbands were all invited, so none of the drama you have been faced with.

It is kinda crap that your boyfriend has not been invited.

You know this person well, and she knows you too and knows you would be bringing him. It’s not like she doesn’t know he exists; she has met him loads of times. You have been together for a year, which in my book would say he should have been invited.

You are all adults here, and she really has muddied the water on this one and might have damaged your relationship going forward. However, the thing is, it’s her party and she can cry if she wants to, as the song goes. It’s her wedding, and she makes the rules. If it’s ‘no ring, no bring’, you have to go with it — that’s if you still want to go at all.

That’s the next question you have to ask yourself before you do anything else. I think she is after pissing you off enough to ask yourself if you want to go. If you don’t, you can just make up an excuse and not go. I’m leaning towards this at the moment.

Your boyfriend might be delighted to hear you are not going, and with the money saved you could both head off to Portugal for a week — how nice would that be.

You can be too long living by other people’s rules — people need to start putting themselves first. If she didn’t have the cop-on to invite your boyfriend, what kind of a friend is she really?

Maybe I need to pull back a little... she might want to keep the numbers down, and that’s ok too. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, but if this is the case, she should have spoken to you beforehand, and then you wouldn’t be in this mess.

You asked in your letter if you should call and see if this is a mistake: Don’t! She has been over this list a thousand times and she even knows where people are sitting. Now, I don’t think it’s anything personal against your boyfriend, it’s the policy she has for the wedding.

You haven’t told him yet he isn’t invited, and you are right to take the time and think about how you will tell him, and you will have to tell him. I think he will respond like you, and be a little puzzled about it and maybe down about it. 

He might think he is not good enough for your friends and you need to make sure he doesn’t go down this road, not even for a moment. I’m at a stage where if Rita was invited to a wedding with no partners, I’d be delighted, but you both are at a different stage of your life though. I see a wedding invitation now as a summons!

You need to find out if you want to really go now. You’ll be going alone, no two ways about that if you do go. If you are unsure, speak to your boyfriend and explain what has happened and tell him you are very annoyed about the whole thing.

This is not your fault at all, by the way. It doesn’t reflect badly on you — these are not your rules, and I think your boyfriend will feel good you are not happy with this situation. He’ll definitely know now, if he didn’t know already that you really care for him.

I still think to hell with the wedding and off on holiday with both of you. You have the time booked off and a few bob saved, what’s stopping you? Like, if you go, what happens then, does your boyfriend even get to go to the afters and would he even want to go to them?

Your friend has really put you in a place where you are asking lots of questions that should never have to be asked, not to mind answered!