Okay, I'm going to try not to make this too long!!
I should start off by saying that my parents are paying for 100% of the wedding. My fiancés parents are divorced and his dad has offered to pay for our honeymoon and his mom has not offered to pay for anything and we do not expect her to offer too (other than the rehearsal dinner).
So my fiance and I have absolutely fallen in love with a venue we toured a few weeks back but it was a little bit on the pricey side. I have remained in contact with the coordinator that gave us the tour and she emailed me a week ago saying that she spoke with her manager and she is able to knock $3,000 off of the package price which will put it just with in our budget (this venue offers all inclusive packages that include EVERYTHING). And like most venues, the package price goes up with the more guests you have. We had talked with my parents and decided that 150 should really be the max. amount of guests we have in order to stay with in budget. So, my fiance and I put together a tentative guest list that we were very happy with that included 157 people.
Recently, my fiancés mom emailed him a list of people that she thinks we need to invite that included a bunch of distant family members (great aunts, great uncles) that my fiance sees maybe once a year at most and some people that he hasnt seen since he was 7 years old. Though my fiance couldn't care less about inviting these his mom feels very strongly that we do need to invite them. So, she wants use to add about 20 people to our guest list.
Here is where we run in to the problem. The way this venue that we are in love with works is if you pay for the all inclusive package for 150 guest you can only go over by 9 people (meaning having 159 guests) and after that you have to move up to the next package for 175 people thats a good $2,500 more expensive. This venue is already at the top of our budget and I know my parents can't afford the package for 175 people. We thought about asking his mom to pay the difference between the two packages if we have to go with the 175 package because of these extra people that his mom wants us to invite. But then I'm afraid that it will seem like my family is only wanting to pay for our family and not theirs or something. But the thing is my fiance barely sees these people and couldn't care less about inviting them to the wedding and his mom knows that. And I just kind of feel like if my parents are already spending over $15,000 on this wedding that the least she could do is offer to help cover the extra cost that inviting these extra people would incur. I guess my question is how should we handle this situation without making anyone mad?
Sorry this is so long and thanks for any advice yall can give!