Let me preface this post by saying- I know that it is SO tacky to ask people to cover their cost of attending your wedding and I am SO uncomfortable with asking anyone to do just that. This was the FI's idea and he sees no issue with it, so I thought I'd put it out to my fellow knotties for some advice! (Please don't be mean!)
So, the FI is from an African country but grew up in France. He has maxed out his portion of our limited guest list with friends & family in the US, but just found out that 20+ of his cousins in France are planning on attending- apparently they don't do invite-only weddings in his culture! (so frustrating!) He said that in his family, if your relative is getting married, you just show up- he just figured most of his cousins wouldn't come if he didn't talk to them about it- but, I guess one person told another and so on. Since we have a very tight budget and a space limitation at our venue, the FI suggested that he ask his family from overseas to chip in for their cost, so we can have them join in the festivities- or the only other option would be that they only attend the post-dinner reception. Either option seems like a difficult thing to ask people traveling so far to do. Altough wedding is November, and we have some time to plan for possible overages, we cannot budget-wise, accomodate 20 additional people!
So, my question is- can you ask people to chip in if they weren't invited OR do we just have to tell his cousins that we don't have the space or $ to have them at our wedding?