Sticky Situation- Ettiquette

koriemo

So I'm kind of in a sticky situation.

We're having a small (40 people) wedding inviting our parents, grandparents, siblings, and bridal party. My grandma lives out of state and isn't comfortable travelling alone. I spoke to her after we set the date and from our conversation, she said that she couldn't travel alone and my aunt (who lives by her) would fly with her and they were booking plane tickets to come up here. At this point, we hadn't definitively decided the guest list, but indicated that it would be kept very small.

We ended up addressing the invite to "Grandmother and guest" because we knew she would need help and that Aunt was escorting her. I knew that my aunt thought she might be invited, but figured the lack of invite would make that clear.

However, I found out that my mother had a phone call from my grandma, and my grandma had told her that Aunt and Uncle and their kids (adults that live on the other side of the country than all of us) were SO excited about the wedding. My mom said that she didn't remind grandma that they weren't invited because sometimes my grandma doesn't really get what is going on anyways. I told my mom that she should have told grandma that only SHE was invited. Nevertheless, we hadn't talked to Aunt, Uncle, or Cousins at all until this email.

Grandma RSVP'd. We then got an email from Aunt saying, "I'm RSVPing for me, Uncle, Cousin, and Cousin."

Now, when I talked to grandma it didn't sound like Aunt AND Uncle bought tickets, or else I would have explained that only parents and grandparents are invited. If Aunt had RSVPed for just Aunt and Uncle, I could probably understand that it was a lack of communication and since they already bought plane tickets, we could handle it.

However, both cousins are RSVPed too! The wedding is only 4 weeks away, and I'm pretty sure they've arranged travel already.

To make things even more complicated, the maximum at our wedding is 48 people, and we now have 49 people. We could probably squeeze in an extra chair, but still.

I'm mostly annoyed at my mom for not correcting grandma right away with that phone call. At this point I'm not really sure what the best option is. Any thoughts?

Jen4948

Yeah, that's annoying. I'd tell your grandmother that her invitation to bring a guest is limited to one person of her choice, but not a whole family, and let your aunt and uncle know that due to confusion, the invitation to your grandmother allowed her to bring only one person and not their whole family. That said, if you want your aunt to be your grandmother's escort, it's probably best to also invite your uncle by way of respecting that he's her SO. I don't think you're rrquired to invite their kids though.

Unfortunately, you probably will get a lot of resistance if you don't invite all these people, but if it's important to you not to invite them all then stand your ground.

QueridaSara

Ugh.

I guess you really have 2 options.  You can suck it up (which, if it puts you over the max at your venue, you might not want to), or you can call up your Aunt, and offer her some variant on 'Hi Aunt, thanks so much for thinking of us, but I'm afraid invite was for Grandmother, and 1 guest only.  I'm sorry we won't be able to accommodate you, uncle, cousin and cousin'.

And bean dip her if she puts up a fight.

Also, don't tell her WHY you can't accommodate anyone, just tell her you can't.

If they have already booked travel, however, you may want to invite them anyways.

Me, if they put up a fight, and said 'but I already bought tickets', I'm that kind of snarky sometimes, where my response would be 'I'm sorry for the confusion, but unfortunately only guests who received invitations are able to attend.  I'm sorry we aren't able to accommodate you, but we simply cannot add any additional guests'.

How close are you to them? Is there a change grandmother won't come without them?

May I also, add: Rude, Rude, Rude.

koriemo

QueridaSara said:

Ugh.

I guess you really have 2 options.  You can suck it up (which, if it puts you over the max at your venue, you might not want to), or you can call up your Aunt, and offer her some variant on 'Hi Aunt, thanks so much for thinking of us, but I'm afraid invite was for Grandmother, and 1 guest only.  I'm sorry we won't be able to accommodate you, uncle, cousin and cousin'.

And bean dip her if she puts up a fight.

Also, don't tell her WHY you can't accommodate anyone, just tell her you can't.

If they have already booked travel, however, you may want to invite them anyways.

Me, if they put up a fight, and said 'but I already bought tickets', I'm that kind of snarky sometimes, where my response would be 'I'm sorry for the confusion, but unfortunately only guests who received invitations are able to attend.  I'm sorry we aren't able to accommodate you, but we simply cannot add any additional guests'.

How close are you to them? Is there a change grandmother won't come without them?

May I also, add: Rude, Rude, Rude.

Thanks! I'm sure my grandma won't come alone. I'm also pretty sure that they might all still make the trip over to our state and just not attend the wedding.

I'm pretty close to my aunt and uncle, but I'm close with ALL of my aunts and uncles. It's actually really sad for me to get married without them coming- but we knew with our budget and timeline, this worked best.

I'm thinking I might call my aunt and tell her we can accommodate her and my uncle. I do feel like if my aunt is escorting my grandma, it isn't TOO unreasonable for her to assume my uncle can also come. It's just including her two sons that REALLY doesn't work.

novella1186

For anyone lurking, I talked to a friend about this exact situation cuz she recently got married. To prevent this from happening, she put on the RSVP card: "We have 2 seats reserved in your name" so that people would realize they don't get to bring all their kids, friends, neighbors, cousins, whoever the hell else. I liked that idea a lot. 

For OP, I would recommend just calling your Aunt and explaining that you can't accommodate her whole crowd, as other PPs have said.  

koriemo

novella1186 said:

For anyone lurking, I talked to a friend about this exact situation cuz she recently got married. To prevent this from happening, she put on the RSVP card: "We have 2 seats reserved in your name" so that people would realize they don't get to bring all their kids, friends, neighbors, cousins, whoever the hell else. I liked that idea a lot. 

For OP, I would recommend just calling your Aunt and explaining that you can't accommodate her whole crowd, as other PPs have said.  

Yes, that would have made sense. My grandma RSVPd separately, for only herself.

My aunt didn't even GET an invitation! She just made up and sent an RSVP.

anjemon

This might depend on your family, but I would also explain to Aunt that you had to cut the guest list for budget/space reasons and you didn't get to invite other aunt, uncle, cousins either. You're really sorry everyone can't be there, but that is what fit your circumstances. Maybe if Aunt realizes nobody else is getting to come she will be okay with everything. She might not realize the situation if she's the kind of person who will RSVP themselves to an uninvited event.

NYCMercedes

anjemon said:

This might depend on your family, but I would also explain to Aunt that you had to cut the guest list for budget/space reasons and you didn't get to invite other aunt, uncle, cousins either. You're really sorry everyone can't be there, but that is what fit your circumstances. Maybe if Aunt realizes nobody else is getting to come she will be okay with everything. She might not realize the situation if she's the kind of person who will RSVP themselves to an uninvited event.

I agree. If she understood that this is not a family reunion, then maybe she'd leave everyone else at home.

novella1186

koriemo said:

novella1186 said:

For anyone lurking, I talked to a friend about this exact situation cuz she recently got married. To prevent this from happening, she put on the RSVP card: "We have 2 seats reserved in your name" so that people would realize they don't get to bring all their kids, friends, neighbors, cousins, whoever the hell else. I liked that idea a lot. 

For OP, I would recommend just calling your Aunt and explaining that you can't accommodate her whole crowd, as other PPs have said.  

Yes, that would have made sense. My grandma RSVPd separately, for only herself.

My aunt didn't even GET an invitation! She just made up and sent an RSVP.

That is really unfortunate that your aunt doesn't seem to understand invitation etiquette, but it happens. Good luck!