So my story goes like this: My mother’s best friend’s son asked if he could bartend at our wedding. We offered to pay him, but he said he’ll do it for tips. Wonderful! We thanked him and have planned on having him tend bar. Well, my mother in a moment of verbal diarrhea told his mother that he could bring his wife… as a guest. Ok, I’ll deal with it. Add his wife to the guest list. My mother NOW informs me that because she invited his wife, we have to invite his 2 other brothers and their wives or else it will cause strife in her best friend’s family.
Now my mom and dad are helping pay for our wedding (a little more than half) and I’ve thus far given into my mother’s multiple requests to add people to the guest list who I 1) don’t really know or care if they’re at the wedding or 2) knew when I was about 10 and haven’t seen in 20 years. I understand that even though these people aren’t necessarily important to me, they’re important to her and… well… she’s paying for them (for the most part).
My question is, where do I draw the line here? She’s not asking me to invite the brothers and their wives because she wants them there. She’s asking because she feels like she has to. There’s a part of me that feels like “this is your mess, so you clean it up” and then I realize that she’s my mom, she’s trying to help, and she messed up. If she hadn’t invited the bartending son’s wife, this wouldn’t be an issue and she is sorry that she did, but done is done. How do we fix it? Am I stuck inviting these people I haven’t seen in forever/have not met (the wives) and do not want there?
Oh, and keep in mind, that while his brothers would attend as guests, the bartending son will still be tending bar… THIS makes me feel worse than anything. I mean, he was trying to do something nice for us and now he gets to be a bartender while his brothers party down? *sigh* The whole thing has me tearing out my hair!