Hello everyone.
My FI and I live in Florida, but all of his family except for his grandparents and sister live in Detroit. All of our friends and most of my close family live here in FL or in neighboring states.
We had originally been thinking we would have the wedding in Detroit, since it was important to his family that we have a big wedding. However, that would mean that out of 100 people, I would have 3 family members and 1 friend. That's it. His family would squeeze out all of mine, and it would basically be a party for them where I just happened to show up in a fancy dress.
So now I'm thinking we should have it here, since his family is better off financially and can travel here more easily than my family can travel to Detroit, plus I could have my friends and the other people who are important to me at my wedding. I know that fewer of his family members will come, more like 30 instead of 100, if we get married here.
But here's the sticky situation. His stepmother is dead set on throwing us a shower up in Detroit. We don't care about gifts at all, but she wants to throw it and invite everyone and make it like a big casual pre-wedding party where everyone gets together to celebrate.
So, my question is, is it selfish to invite all of his family to the shower up in Detroit, which they will definitely come to, but also to invite them to the wedding, which they probably won't travel to? I feel like it looks like we're just grabbing for presents to have people at the shower who won't be at the wedding, but at the same time I feel like that still lets everyone in his huge family get together to celebrate without the pressure of needing to fly to Florida and take time off work.
What do you ladies think?