If you all didnt already know..

SarahB0427

I have a MIL issue.  I have been asking her for weeks to get me all the addresses and she has not done so and I really need to send out my invitations.  She also gave me a list of 21 people that she wanted to invite besides family and my parents gave me 4.  What do I do? I cant force her to give me addresses but, I am not a last minute person and she is driving me insane!  Everytime I ask her she gives me some story blah blah blah.  I cant even invite some of the people I would like to invite because of her over the top guest list. Let me know if you girls have had similar experiences and if you have any advice to handle it.  Now, keep in mind there is no contribution by her at all financially. 

desi2002

im the only person with a list... and on top of that, Im thinking of cutting my guest list down form 100 to 60... half these people dont even call to talk to me, so why should they get a free event? My day my way!!! (with my money!)

SarahB0427

my parents are paying for the whole entire event. So, of course I should let them invite who they want. But, my mom even told me that the order of importance should be family, bride and grooms list, & financial suppliers list..in that order.

desi2002

i would agree with that order... its your day, your list is priority!

sv4338

Not trying to start trouble with you and your FMIL but screw her! I would tell her she needs to pick 6 guests not couples but 6 individual people she would like to invite anything over than that SHE needs to pay $100 per person to invite. and if she doesnt have the address' by Monday then they are just not getting invited.
Im with Desi my wedding, my money = my way
and yes your mom its completely correct with her order of importance :0)

Kasi80

OK, we ran into a similar situation but not quite as bad as yours seems.  We paid for the wedding ourselves.  No one else contributed nor did we ask for anyone to (to avoid any power struggles and feeling like we owed someone). 

With this said, we told anyone (especially my FIL) that if he wanted to invite people we didn't have on the list (which he tried to do) then he would have to pay for them.  We told him we had a set budget and only x amount of people were invited, period.  I then gave him a break down of costs per person or couple for what it would cost to have them attend.  The breakdown included chair rentals, food, linen for that table, cake slice, drink, napkins rental, etc.  So pretty much everything I had to take into consideration when budgeting for my guest list I gave him a cost for.  He quickly changed his mind (he was going to pay for the people he invited without asking us!) .

Kasi80

SO what I am saying in short is put your foot down on this.  People's feelings WILL get hurt but financially this wedding is your burden so you have all the say in who can and cannot come.  It sucks hurting people's feelings but we had to do it.  Andrew has a massively HUGE family.  We only invited immediate family and good friends.  Npo aunts, uncles, etc.  We had no choice. 

SarahB0427

Thank you!!! My FMIL has been making my life hell since 1996 So, its about time I stand up for myself right?  I will give her the weekend to get me the addresses I guess.  That way if she doesnt have them then I will tel her she cant have anyone :-)

SarahB0427

Yes..she asked me how much per person (like she was gonna pay for her additional) When I told her it was 75 dollars (making up a number I really dont know)  a person and she needed to cut her list down, she told me well this is not hack list Sarah, I NEED to invite everyone.  My fi's suggestion is he will choose to cut her list and just not tell her.  I dont want to do that, I dont think it is proper to do so. 

Kasi80

Put your foot down.  Screw her!!  She's putting way too much stress on you.  Cut the list or mak her pay for each extra guest.  She is not paying.  Plus, it's YOUR wedding.  You should invite the people YOU care about, not people you ave never met!

SarahB0427

YAY! I will :-)

desi2002

how dare her..."this is not a hack list" well it ain't your money, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ?

amberg321

I had the exact same problem. What DH (FI at the time) did was we figured out how many guests we could invite based on our budget. We invited family first and then our lists. The # of spots that were left we gave to our parents and said this is how many seats you can fill from your list and anything over that would be $100 pp. END OF STORY. Once we put the financial burden of the additional guests on that family member then SURPRISE SURPRISE their list was cut. The hardest part was just not caving in on the subject.

So bottom line.....if you dont want to pay for your MIL's guests (outside of family members) then dont but I would offer to her that you would gladly accept the dollar amount for those extra invites. I think people just dont truly understand the actual cost of a wedding and what that works out to be per head. I never really had before planning my own wedding. I never thought of things like chair rentals, chair covers, linens, meal, cake, alcohol, etc. It just adds up so quickly

Kasi80

Looks like you have the same responses from all.  We all went though it (OMHs) and we all did the exact same thing.   It works!

SarahB0427

I know you girls are so much help to me seriously :-) I will be an OMH soon enough :-)

breleficent

Yeah, what all the OMHs said!