Inviting extended family...

futuremrsbruno

So last night FI and I were at the movies (Avengers was AWESOME!! GO SEE IT!!!) Anyway, so we get out of the theater and there are 5 missed phone calls from his grandmom (FI's mom passed away when he was a teen, he was raised by his gm). She's had some recent health issues so we thought something was wrong...
NOTHING was wrong. She had to call 5 times and make us worry because she wanted to know if her sister's son, who my FI hasn't seen in years and I haven't met. Ever. was invited to the wedding. When FI said no, she demanded to know why not and wanted us to send an invitation.

Are you freaking kidding me? This is the 3rd time she's done this since we sent the invitations. I love her to bits, but seriously? My FI gets married and all of a sudden he needs to invite every single person who is somehow related to him because they are family and would be offended? Seeing as how they probably have no idea FI is getting married, or that he was even seeing someone for that matter, I doubt this is actually true.

Please someone tell me I'm not being crazy in saying no. While, again, I love this woman, she has made no sort of contribution to the wedding at all. Not that she has to, or that we expected or asked for it, but I think it gets to a point where it's rude to continue to ask us to invite people that we don't know to a wedding that you are not giving anything towards. My parents are footing the bill for the dinner and while they have been pretty generous with the amount of people we can invite (thanks in large part to the size of our families, the amount of family friends we have, and my ability to get my father to give me what I want) I don't really want to keep pushing that, nor do I see a reason to.

Apparently, now she's angry with us and says that her sister is also angry with us. Seeing as how we rarely see her sister, (and none of her other sisters, or FI's aunts and uncles, all of whom call him all the time have said a word) and she doesn't even get along with her all that well, I doubt this is actually true. Still, were we right to stand our ground?

Blueyed228

You dont have to invite him.

If gmas sister doesnt want to come because of it, so be it. 

I would have FI tell his Gma that the guest list is closed and its not up for discussion.

crnflkgirl75

My grandfather was pretty upset that we didn't invite his brothers and sisters, but it would have increased our head count by 14 (my 89 year old grandfather is one of 8 kids and they are all still living). We couldn't do it. Once we explained that to him, he was cool with it. Have Fi explain the costs involved, and the why's of not inviting the guy. Maybe she'll understand.

brilibby4

We ran into a very similar situation with my dad's mom.  We chose to make our cut off for invitations and not invite grandparent's siblings.  We don't know any of our grandparents siblings and I literally don't even know their names.  Because our grandparents all come from large families, we would be spending $500 extra to invite all the siblings and their SOs.  We also really want to know everyone who is at our wedding as we are keeping it small (about 100 people).  Everyone understood except my dad's mom.  She is still barely speaking to me because of it.  Oh well.  I stuck to my guns and I'm not going to back down since we are paying for the wedding ourselves.  She will get over it.

[Deleted User]

I think that's just how old people are, LOL. My mom keeps pushing me to invite more and more extended family.  Family that I probably haven't seen in a year or more and usually hasn't met FI, that's a no and a no!  Sorry extended family!  I mean we're going to send out wedding announcements to those we couldn't invite but some things are just not in the budget!

futuremrsbruno

well now I don't feel so bad. FI spoke with his aunt today who said she doesn't understand why her mother is so insisting when she hasn't even seen this person in awhile! FI is going to call her tonight and try to get her to understand. At the end of the day we're not inviting anyone else so she'll either be okay with it or live with it.

Ironically, I also got an email today from a woman I haven't seen for at least 5 years ASKING if she can be invited to the wedding... what is wrong with people?!!

@Milk Duds - We sent them out May 8th. We have to have the RSVP's by June 16th because we need to have the final count to the hall the beginning of July. 3 weeks instead of 2. SInce it's a BYO place and we're supplying the bar, we thought it best to send them a week earlier since we would need time to figure out alcohol and non alcohol drinks. Plus, I teach and work a part time job so I don't have a ton of extra time to work on my DIY stuff. We'll have the final count the weekend after school is out for the summer so I'll have an extra week to get things done.

@briibby - My FI's grandmom has 5 sisters still living. I believe there were like 9 or 10 in all. We see all of them except for 1 on a regular basis since they all live on the same road. I had no problem inviting them, or their kids since we see most of them a lot too. But their grandkids, or random cousins no one has seen, well we had to draw the line somewhere. We did the same thing with my side of the family, and actually invited even less. We originally thought around 150, but our families alone put the count at 130. 150 would have been the bridal party - not including spouses.significant others not in the bridal party! We went up to 250, but it had to stop somewhere. My parents are nice enough to foot the food bill, but we're covering the rest and it's just not feasable to go any larger. FI's grandmom knows all this, yet for some reason she still thinks...