We are 36 days away from our wedding, and about 12 days away from needing RSVP's to be turned in. We decided to have a "mostly" kid free wedding. The only children invited are my Fiance's nieces and nephews (there are 6 of them ages: 7,6,5,4, 12mo, 12mo). No other guest are under 21. We justified this since they are immediate family. Both my fiance and I have large extended families. I am the youngest grandchild on both sides of my family, most of my 1st cousins have children. We decided to draw the line on invites at 1st cousins. No second cousins.
Now the problem. On my FMIL's side of the family her brother & his wife raise their grandchildren (my fiance's 2nd cousins). The children are not exactly children anymore (ages 13, 16 & 19). We did not invite these 3 to the wedding. We were careful in addressing our invites to just the adult couples hoping to avoid any confusion. Well we received their RSVP back and they included the 3 children on the response card.
I spoke to my FMIL about the situation, she thinks we should just let the 3 children come. The only way I can justify having the 3 children come is to let everyone else bring their children. Now everyone else in our families have made arrangements for their children including out of town family members. After figuring out how many 2nd cousins we would need to invite to avoid hurt feelings it proves much too costly for us to be able to accommodate (most children are over the age of 12). My FMIL is worried her Brother & Sister-in-law may not come because their grand kids cannot come. I'm worried that we will experience hurt feeling from my side of the family as well as my FFIL's family and end up with a larger scale mess on our hands by just letting the 3 children come.
I'm hurt that my fiance's Uncle & Aunt may not attend over this. I hate to feel this way but I feel as if they are being somewhat selfish here, my fiance and I consider ourselves very selfless people and really want to make everyone happy here. I just don't think that's possible here. Does anyone have any suggestions?