Inviting friends' spouse to wedding

I was in a similar situation and invited my friends’ spouses in the knowledge that, since my wedding was not in the same country as any of them lived, only my friends would come… However, I did write notes on the invitations thanking the spouses for letting my friends come.

Totally fine.

The way I do it is like this: I invite two couples on one invitation, and tell them they have 2 seats among the 4 of them and that they can work it out however they choose. They get the point.

that would be strange to just write one of the people on the invitation w/o the spouse in my opnion.

If I was the spouse of your friend, you would be doing me a great favor by not inviting me.

Etiquette is nice, but the Torah is chas on the mamon of Klal Yisrael. However, if your friends are within their own respective shanim rishona, I would think one should ask one’s LOR about splitting up these couples for the evening and that might be a reason to invite the both members of the couple.

Don’t the guests who come (with or without their spouse) give a gift that at least covers the cost for their meal at the wedding?

I am not understanding what does the whole gift giving thing have to do with a chattan or kallah inviting their friends w/ or w/o spouces? I don’t thing it had anything to do with the gifts unlesss some1 could tell me im mistaken, and y?

Since when do therapists get invited to or come to family simchas? (Assuming the relationship is only as a therapist.) Unless you mean she was invited to do an evaluation on your son at the wedding. In which case why on earth would you think you need to invite the therapists spouse?

snow, it was meant to be funny, ha ha NOT.

k, got it…

rebdoniel hit the nail exactly on the head and straight to the point, just as s/he does in just about all of his/her postings to this coffee room.

It is clear as daylight, that his entire etiquette of not inviting a married or engaged person to a social function with his/her souse/fiance[e] stems entirely from the culture of mixed seating, where it is entirely unheard of, not to seat a married/engaged person next to his/her spouse/fiance[e]. In fact it can be considered so embarrassing for a married man to attend a function without his wife, that there are Halachic rulings allowing an “Isho Aveiles” in mourning to attend a Simcha as part of her marriage obligations to her husband.

Clearly this social etiquette’s reasoning is absolutely obsolete in separate seating functions, and more often than not, the spouse who doesn’t know the other party is so bored and feels so out of place in such scenarios.

147,

Thank you so much. Your words mean a lot to me. My approach is generally to be forward and tell things like it is.

I am not afraid to express myself, since I don’t tow the party line for any group. I am proudly frum and grounded in my worldview, but learn from seforim and rabbonim of all atripes and feel at home among many different kinds of yidden. My mentors/teachers include YU-trained Jewish Studies Professor-Rabbis, Litvish roshei yeshiva, the Richmonder Rebbe, the Tyrnava Rav, and Sephardic hakhamim, all of whom I love and have learned a great deal from.

It looks strange but the spouse would be happy he/she didn’t get invited.

if you know the spouse would get insulted send him/her to a doctor