200 Guest Wedding - How Many?

Melissylamb

We are having a 200 person wedding at a hotel in Philadelphia in October 2013. My parents have allotted 75 invites for my fiancée. I am getting 25 invites and my parents 100. Does this seem unreasonable? My parents are paying for the wedding and my fiancée has been passive aggressively giving me a hard time that 75 is not enough. Thoughts? How do I help him see he is being childish and in my opinion ungrateful?

ShesSoCold

Melissylamb said:

We are having a 200 person wedding at a hotel in Philadelphia in October 2013. My parents have allotted 75 invites for my fiancée. I am getting 25 invites and my parents 100. Does this seem unreasonable? My parents are paying for the wedding and my fiancée has been passive aggressively giving me a hard time that 75 is not enough. Thoughts? How do I help him see he is being childish and in my opinion ungrateful?

It is his wedding, so if he really, REALLY doesn't like it, then the two of you should decline their offer to pay for the wedding and pay for it yourselves. 

Otherwise, your parents get the final say since it's their dime. I think it's a little crazy of them to dish out the invites like this, but that's up to them.

Melissylamb

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately my fiancé does not have a strong financial background and has debt to take care of. He has been very happy to have my parents pay for the band and flowers and location but when it comes time to make decisions about the wedding list he now gets angry.

libby2483

Is he getting 75 invitations for his whole family and his friends and coworkers? If so, I think that is a little unfair, especially if he has a large family.  I mean, it would suck if your FI could only invite two friends and their SO because his family has 71 people or something.

However, your parents are paying, so they do get to decide.  You could talk to your parents and express your FI concern with not being able to invite people.  Or you could invite fewer that 25 of your friends and "give" more invites to your FI.  Or you and your FI could offer to cover the cost of additional people.  Or you could decline your parents money, pay for the wedding yourself, and invite whomever you would like.

Melissylamb

The 75 invites are for everyone. He doesn't have much family. Just his mom, her fiancé, his brother, grandmother and her sister. He has always considered his closest friends his family. He has a big heart and always wants to include everyone, even people he hasn't seen or talked to in 5 years. I want people there who are current and important in both our lives. That is why I am only inviting 25. I appreciate the feedback. I am trying to be reflective here and look at all perspectives.

libby2483

Melissylamb said:

The 75 invites are for everyone. He doesn't have much family. Just his mom, her fiancé, his brother, grandmother and her sister. He has always considered his closest friends his family. He has a big heart and always wants to include everyone, even people he hasn't seen or talked to in 5 years. I want people there who are current and important in both our lives. That is why I am only inviting 25. I appreciate the feedback. I am trying to be reflective here and look at all perspectives.

So, I am I correct in thinking that your FI is only inviting like 5 family members? So that leaves him 70 invitations to invite his friends, co-workers, neighbors, childhood friends, and the guy he found hitchhiking along the side of the road.  If this is the case, I do think he just needs to appreciate how much your family is helping, especially since it seems like with his debt he is unable to pay. It seems like if it wasn't for your parents, he couldn't really afford to invite anyone. I mean, it would really suck if having 75 invitations meant that there were family members he couldn't invite or meant he could only invite one or two friends.  But this doesn't seem to be the case.  He just needs to accept that he can't invite everyone he's ever been remotely close with in his entire life.  With this new information, it sounds like your parents are actually being pretty generous, even if their method of dividing up invitations is a bit odd.  

Melissylamb

You are correct. His family invites are single digits. The rest are friends. I just don't know how to get him to understand and be thankful for this gift my parents are giving us rather than him continue to say its not enough.

JoanE2012

Melissylamb said:

The 75 invites are for everyone. He doesn't have much family. Just his mom, her fiancé, his brother, grandmother and her sister. He has always considered his closest friends his family. He has a big heart and always wants to include everyone, even people he hasn't seen or talked to in 5 years. I want people there who are current and important in both our lives. That is why I am only inviting 25. I appreciate the feedback. I am trying to be reflective here and look at all perspectives.

So with roughly 5 family invites, he has another 70 for friends.  My DH and I don't have 70 friends between us that we are close enough to that we invited to our wedding.  

He needs to realize that he can't invite everyone.  If he hasn't talked to them in 5 years, let's face it.....they can't be that important to him.  Does he realize the alternative is to decline your parent's money and pay for it yourselves?  And clearly that is not an option.

You don't get to control the guest list on someone else's dime.  He should be extremely grateful that he is getting 1/3 of the invitations.....that's ALOT considering he doesn't have much family.  

AddieCake

He's getting more than we even had at our wedding total.

ashleyep

Why don't you try and write out a guest list? Try and split it into his family, your family, his friends and your friends and count each of them up. It might not even be an issue. A rough split is generally 1/3 your family, 1/3 his family, and then 1/3 for both of your friends. Since his family is so small, he should have plenty of room for friends. It doesn't sound unreasonable. My guest list is going to be almost 2/3 my family and friends just because I have such a large family.

I'm assuming your parents' 100 guest include your family and their friends - is your side of the family really big? Then you have 25 invites for your friends?

It doesn't sound unreasonable, but if he wants more, then you two should offer to pay for those guests.

FizzySips

It sounds like you allocated invites to the respective parties before the guest list was drawn up....that feels a little backwards to me. Write up your list and see exactly how many people you'd like to invite and go from there.

AJuliaNJ

What a weird breakdown. Your parents get 100 invites to use however they'd like and you get 25? Whose wedding is this? How big is your family and are they included in your parents' 100 or yours? I would be okay with that if like 80 of them were family members you would have invited anyway, but if they want to just freely invite friends and co-workers you don't know while you and your FI have to leave out people you genuinely care about, you need to have a talk or consider not accepting their money. Keep in mind that to be a good host you have to talk to everyone at the wedding at some point so you will waste half of the night talking to people you don't know instead of enjoying the company of your friends and family.

I would combine yours and your fiance's invite allocations to come up with one list of 100 people. If you need more, you should go back to your parents and be able to talk through the list and why it is important you invite these people.

loca4pook

First of all, your attitude about your FI's belief is definitely worth exploring more than just about the wedding. His request may ALSO be more than just about the wedding.

 

On a different note, tell him to create a list and think of how many he would need had he not had a number....That might help the situation more. Perhaps he will realize he doesn't really need more. If it ic lose, perhaps your parents will also think that's okay.

 

Also have your parents create their list, maybe they will realize they don't that many. or that you and they have "doubles".....Thus freeing up extra spots

Melissylamb

Thanks for all the input. My Mom did ask us both to draw up a list of our if we could invite everyone list. His had 107. I am being self reflective and trying to understand where he is coming from. Unfortunately, he has people on his list who are not truly his friends but friends of friends that he likes. He doesn't get invited to a guys 40thbirthday party yet he is on his invite to the wedding list. We are definitely lacking communication here. I am trying but he is not budging.

AJuliaNJ

Melissylamb said:

Thanks for all the input. My Mom did ask us both to draw up a list of our if we could invite everyone list. His had 107. I am being self reflective and trying to understand where he is coming from. Unfortunately, he has people on his list who are not truly his friends but friends of friends that he likes. He doesn't get invited to a guys 40thbirthday party yet he is on his invite to the wedding list. We are definitely lacking communication here. I am trying but he is not budging.

Who's on your parents' list of 100? He might feel like, "why do I have to eliminate people I want there no matter WHAT the reason so that your parents can invite friends you've never met?" This might make him feel extra defensive of his list. I know I'd feel annoyed.

Melissylamb

On my parents list are family which is around 30. Then there are family friends who I have grown up with. They are not inviting people from work. all invites from my parents are people i have known throughout my life which is why i am fine with the 25 invites. This is not an easy thing to do I understand. My fiancé is allotted almost 40% of the invites so I think that is not unreasonable.

ashleyep

Melissylamb said:

On my parents list are family which is around 30. Then there are family friends who I have grown up with. They are not inviting people from work. all invites from my parents are people i have known throughout my life which is why i am fine with the 25 invites. This is not an easy thing to do I understand. My fiancé is allotted almost 40% of the invites so I think that is not unreasonable.

Your parents are allowed to invite 70 of their friends, people you've known your whole life but that you probably haven't seen in years and you're mad about the acquaintances your fiancé wants to invite? I think you're being a little unreasonable and I'd be pissed if I was your fiancé too.

I think if you want your FI to cut his list you need to ask your parents to cut some of theirs. I couldn't imagine my wedding guest list being almost 1/3 my parent's friends. And look - I understand you're close to them, I have some family friends that I wouldn't dream of not inviting. But at some point you have to put your foot down.

Kristin789

Meet with your officiant, and work with him/her to schedule a meeting with you and FI and all the parents.  Your group needs to get re-focused on what this wedding is really about.  And it's not how many people from FI's family are going to get a free Saturday night dinner/dance.

Melissylamb

CMGr said:

Forget about the invitations.  You and your FI need to postpone the wedding until you get couples counseling together!  You say that your FI is angry and passive agressive about the wedding plans, and your initial post is also very angry.  You need professional counseling before you go one step further with your plans.  Just because you are in love is not a good reason to get married.  If you are having problems now and fighting about the guest list, how will you handle important problems later?

While I am aware you do not know our situation or anything about us as a couple the advice you project with such a negative tone is ineffective and puts people on the defensive.  I can acknowledge my own faults and possibly coming across as rash but the attitude projected was not welcome.

callieotto

Maybe the reason he refuses to budge is because of the way his invite list was initially introduced. Saying "you get this many". We drew up our guest list and then when it was time to cut down we cut down from all sides so that way it felt like a collaboration. Not as if one person was being told "you have this many". So maybe he doesn't really feel the need to invite all of the acquaintances, but feels the need to stick by it because he wasn't the one that set the limit.

Because your parents are paying it is ultimately up to them, but you want to make sure your new family gets off on the right foot. Maybe sitting down with someone else like the officiant or pastor could help just to get a fresh opinion. 

Best of luck!

GB520

I really don't think you have couple problems. Planning a wedding is stressful. Since they are paying you may just have to grin and bear it. 

KDM323

Any chance he feels like he is being "told" what to do, who to invite, etc? I know you said he has financial issues....are you sure his ego isn't taking a blow here? My fiancé is a very proud and somewhat old fashioned guy who insisted WE would pay for our wedding, etc. any chance your fiancé feels some sort of way about your parents paying and having the majority of the guest list?

BrandNewJ

Your parents are paying, but hopefully it's to make you and FI happy on your special day. If you're close to your parents, is it possible to ask them if you could have some of their 100? I know every situation is different, but I cannot imagine how they would have 100 people to invite unless your family is extremely huge. If they won't budge, maybe to lessen stress you could give FI some (or all) of your invites. Just some thoughts I had reading! Good luck