But the invited guest didn't decide on inviting the new plus-one, the MOB did. Maybe the SIL didn't want to go with the LW's wife. I have a lot of SIL's, and some are fun, some not so much. I think that it should be left to the originally invited person to pick her plus one.
Not necessarily.
If the original invitation literally just said 'plus one', meaning 'any random person you like to bring, even if it's a casual date who we don't know from Adam', then yes, if the guest's first choice cancels, logically they are entitled to pick another random person. But very often in this kind of discussion 'plus one' is used as a catch-all term for 'guests' significant others, whatever their legal status'. If this was the case here, and the invitation was actually sent to 'X and Y, your steady boyfriend who we only vaguely know', then if it turned out that Y couldn't make it, X would have been very wrong indeed to take it on herself to choose a substitute herself.
Well, Miss Manners doesn't agree with this. She says that if you want specific people there, you invite them *by name.* So, instead of giving your friend a "plus one" invitation, you invite them with their partners, if you know they have any. Using "Jenny + One" when you know that your friend Jenny has been dating Jackie exclusively for a year is just being lazy.
She further said that if you do give a "+one" invitation to anyone, you have abdicate *any* say in who your guest brings. If you wanted them to bring a specific person, you should have told them.
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