Wedding Invitations & Paper
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Unwanted guests..help

So I am getting married this coming July and when we sent out our invites, we sent them to Mr. & Mrs. We have been getting quite a few responses back that include the whole family. I will give you an example after a husband and wife decided to bring their teenage kids along. I explained to my husband that I wanted to be firm about this with limited seating and all. He finally wrote out to them saying that our reception has limited seating and we are trying to do Mr. and Mrs. only. Then he proceeded to say that we understand that some situations dont allow for that and in that case we wouldnt turn anyone away. ( He was trying to not sound so harsh) They responded saying "if there isnt enough room, we can leave the girls in the motel for a few hours. Im sure they wouldnt mind!"

I see where they are kind of led to believe that they can bring their kids after my finace put that we wouldnt turn anyone away in certain instances, but wouldnt you think that if you got a piece of mail to MR. AND MRS, your kids are NOT invited?? And do you think when they said "if there isnt enough room" they were saying, we will come to the reception and if there are open seats were taking them, but if not, well take them to the room?? I feel like sending them a more straight forward email back explaining, MR and MRS only!! Any advice? Should I just get over it? Its kind of aggravating me because if everyone were to do this, wed be spending thousands of extra dollars.

Re: Unwanted guests..help

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    My parents are very polite, friendly people in day-to-day life. But, face it, day-to-day life does not involve printed invitations sent through the post office. Thus, my parents could easily be your guests, trying to bring me and my sisters where we're not invited. Not everyone knows wedding etiquette rules, and not everyone understands subtlety.

    It sounds like your fiance doesn't entirely understand the rules or your level of stress. First, explain your stress to him. That's a relationship thing, and the relationship comes first.

    Second, here's his script: "It turns out, there's not enough room. Let us know if you want us to suggest activities for [teens] while you're at the reception."

    For everyone else: "Due to limited space, we were not able to invite everyone we would have liked. In particular, we were not able to invite children. Thank you for understanding, and we look forward to seeing the two of you at the wedding."
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    By saying you won't turn anyone away, you gave them an invitation to bring their kids. That ship has sailed, but you should have just told these people "The invitation was only meant for the two of you. We hope you can still make it". 

    I think at this point you need to just calm down, and make room for these two extra people at your wedding. 

    In the future, don't mention not turning anyone away. 
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    He pretty much told them they could bring the kids.

    In the future, when people RSVP with extra guests, you (or he) should call and say "I'm sorry for the confusion, but the invitation was only for Mr. and Mrs.  Will you still be able to make it?"  Do not offer any reasons or explanations as to why.  If they say that they won't be able to come without the kids, say "I'm sorry to hear that.  You'll be missed."  
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    Thank you everyone for your input. I will be the one to handle all of the rsvp responses from here on out lol
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    We anticipate the same problem for my daughter's wedding, so on the RSVP's we included a line that says "___ seats have been reserved for you".
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    I think this is a problem that everyone comes across. I have posted on this same topic. Its very frustrating because you don't want to put it on the invitations, but you want people to get it that you don't want a romper room at your wedding or you can't afford to have 20 extra mouths to feed because people wanna bring the whole fam! We are trying the word of mouth route. We are only having my FI niece and nephew (who are in the wedding) and his cousin, who is 4. We want just IMMEDIATE family's children, because there aren't that many. I have a feeling my officiant (who is my boss and friend) will bring his 1 year old. I'm not ok with it, but figure he is marrying us for no charge and been such an amazing boss and friend we would let that one slide... it's just a touch thing to deal with.
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