UGH!!! Small rant. Just need to get this off my chest.

thefanciestbeckler

So I have read all over this board (and I agree) that it should be you and your FI doing the work of planning the wedding - nobody else. Well, my sweet FI is in pilot school and has been for the majority of our engagement. He will be done in about a week and a half, and our wedding is in a month.

For a little background info, FI's dad has Alzheimer's. His mom was killed by a drunk driver when he was 4. He is an only child and all extended family lives hours away. He grew up in a very small town where everyone knew everyone. When we got engaged in December, he and his cousin made me a list of people who needed to be invited to the wedding; extended family, long time family friends, etc. Totally fine - except they included NO addresses. I asked FI and his cousin to contact them for their addresses back in December. Please understand that I have not met 99% of these people as they live out of town and have no contact information for them whatsoever. All of them are elderly and do not use Facebook, email, etc.

Fast forward about 8 months - I am addressing envelopes and am still missing addresses for some key people - FI's godparents. I have asked him several times to call them. He still hasn't... and invitations went out last week. I got a message from his best man tonight saying that FI's godparents had mentioned that they hadn't gotten an invitation yet. Thankfully FI's best man gave me their address. I put the invite in the mail tonight.

Please no criticism - I am just so stressed. I am at a loss. And I am so frustrated. It is really difficult to plan a wedding with no help from your FI whatsoever.

AddieCake

You need to tell him that when it comes to things like this, he MUST help or people won't get invited, or certain things won't be taken care of, and then he can be the one explaining to them why.

lovesclimbing

I had the same problem. H would not get addresses from his mom for his side. We ended up having two mailings of invitations at about eight weeks (my side) and six (his side). We also had several take even longer than that because it took so long for his mom to get them even though he had asked a couple times. Not much you can do at that point. Oh well, I guess.

ETA: oh and there was one family that I knew growing up (go to my parent's very small church) that I asked my mom a couple times for the address. She never ended up getting it to me, and they ended up not getting invited.

APDSS22

Yeah this would have been a good time to have that come to Jesus talk with your FI.  Face-to-face or skype or something where he can see just how crazy him not picking up a phone is going to make you.  If he still doesn't want to help...well.  Since this situation has handled itself, I'd focus on other things that are more positive and anything small that comes up from here to wedding day, don't sweat it.  As long as you and your FI and an officiant with a marriage license come together, it will all be okay.  Good luck!

CMGragain

Try using www.whitepages.com for addresses.  Most older people still have a land line, and they will be listed in the local telephone directory.

thefanciestbeckler

I will definitely be trying whitepages.com for addresses - thank you @CMGragain

I just got off the phone with my fiance and let him know how much this is stressing me out. I also let him know that we are at risk of seriously hurting some peoples' feelings if he doesn't help me with addresses. He said he will either come home this weekend or make time while he is away to call people. We'll see!

TheCheeseWench

If he wants HIS people invited, HE needs to help obtain the address for the person doing all of the work to get shit done. Seriously you shouldn't have do it all by yourself, school or not. I ended up having to scrape together a few of FI's important ones from whitepages.com because I got impatient and it was time to mail, but all of his beer trading/brewery festival meetup buddies from around the country were on the "they'll get an invite if I get an address" list.

julieanne912

I had the same issue w/ my FI.  He travels for work a lot and wasn't getting me what I needed to send everything out.  What finally worked was telling him that I would just remove those people from the invite list altogether if he couldn't get me their address.

wandajune6

I had a similar problem. DH was working full-time and in school full-time. Basically, he had no free time during most of our wedding planning. His family was not involved in wedding planning nor would they be helpful in gathering addresses.

When we were doing STDs, I made it very clear that his people would not be getting them unless he produced the addresses. Very simple. Because he was in school (and I wouldn't have been this nice otherwise), I just let him give them to me in any way that was easy. He texted or Facebook messaged pretty much everyone then copied the responses to me to add to the spreadsheet. It took him all of 2 hours (max) and was easy.

Ultimately, it's his decision: if these people are important, he'll do it.

NowIamMrsKlein

My FI is a Pilot so I totally get it. In fact he leaves on Monday and will only be home for about 3 full days before we leave for our wedding in September.

Because we knew he would be out of town alot we had a longer engagement, it really helped us with planning things when he actually was around. When he is out of town if there is a task he can do he brings it with him. He did all photographer and DJ research from a hotel room in another province and called and skyped with them.

Just sit down and talk with your FI about what you need him to do. It's as much his wedding as it is yours and he should be able to find ways to help. Maybe because of time constraints he doesn't call each person for their addresses, but copy/pastes them each a facebook message. Should take him no time at all to send those messages.

novella1186

Ugh I get the frustration. H's parents insisted on adding a bunch of people H didn't even really know to our guest list, and then wouldn't give us their addresses. I couldn't get H to get on the phone and call these people, and he kept nagging his parents to get on it but they took several months and several reminders, which I found really stressful. 

In the end we were still missing one address but it was time to send the invites, so I just went ahead and sent them. H decided not to bother inviting those people after all, but his mother didn't know this (he didn't tell her) so she invited them to my shower. I felt really bad about that. But at the same time I kept telling H that if he or his parents wanted someone to be invited, I needed their address and I needed it on time. 

Have a glass of wine! It will be ok. 

Casadena

CMGragain said:

Try using www.whitepages.com for addresses.  Most older people still have a land line, and they will be listed in the local telephone directory.

This.  I don't understand why it's so hard to get addresses - I only had to ask for about 15 out of 275 invites.

princessleia22

CMGragain said:

Try using www.whitepages.com for addresses.  Most older people still have a land line, and they will be listed in the local telephone directory.

This.  There were are few people invited to my shower (mom's friends) that I didn't have addresses for (weren't invited to wedding).  After I asked my mom 2-3 times to get me addresses, I finally started searching on my own.  And I found all of them on whitepages.com.  If you know first & last names and city of residence, you should be able to find them.  The only time I had any issues was if it was a very common name (like Smith) in a larger city.  But, seeing as you said FI comes from a small town, you should have some luck finding them.  I even have cell phone (and haven't had a landline in 13 years and have moved 4 times in that time frame) and it still shows my current address on there.

arrippa

I just checked myself in the white pages and my full address and phone number is in there. How do I block this? I want my info gone.

princessleia22

arrippa said:

I just checked myself in the white pages and my full address and phone number is in there. How do I block this? I want my info gone.

http://www.fightcyberstalking.org/remove-whitepages-com-public-listing/

arrippa

princessleia22 said:

arrippa said:

I just checked myself in the white pages and my full address and phone number is in there. How do I block this? I want my info gone.

http://www.fightcyberstalking.org/remove-whitepages-com-public-listing/

Thank you! I freaked out because I live alone and I am very private about my information. I hate knowing that strangers know exactly where I live (they give you a handy stalking map too!)

princessleia22

arrippa said:

princessleia22 said:

arrippa said:

I just checked myself in the white pages and my full address and phone number is in there. How do I block this? I want my info gone.

http://www.fightcyberstalking.org/remove-whitepages-com-public-listing/

Thank you! I freaked out because I live alone and I am very private about my information. I hate knowing that strangers know exactly where I live (they give you a handy stalking map too!)

Yeah, it is kind of creepy.  They even give past locations (with stalker maps for those)... and people you know.  If someone is actually stalking you, it would be very easy to confirm that it's the right person and where they are now located.

[Deleted User]

arrippa said:

I just checked myself in the white pages and my full address and phone number is in there. How do I block this? I want my info gone.

Interesting.  I just looked myself up and while they have my correct current address and lots of past info for me, they don't have my phone number.  Guess I'm pretty phone stealthy.