My FI is a volunteer fireman, and a very good one at that. Recently I asked him if he planned to invite his chief to our wedding. He told me he had discussed the topic with a guy from the dept who got married a few years ago, and discovered it is proper firehall etiquette to invite the chief and ALL of the assistant chiefs to your wedding. For his dept, that means 4 men and their wives. I amost fell over. There is NO room in our guest list for 8 more people. He said we needed to look thru my family's side and bump people off the list to fit the chiefs. While there are a few people on my side that my mom put on the list that I dont even know, I don't know if even doing THAT would be enough. There is no one to bump off his side of the list because it is pretty much the bare essential people.
Is anyone else involved in a fire department as a FI/wife/member? Is this a custom for other departments? Any idea how to resolve this?