Guest Guilt Trip

audubonbride2013 · February 2013

Back story: We decided to cut our guest list off at age 18 except for first cousins (my FI has one first cousing that's 15) and nieces (flower girls). One of FI's cousins made a comment to him a couple months ago that her daughter (8-10 years old) was so excited for our weddng that she was already saving money. At this time my FI politely told his cousin that her daughter was not invited since we were not having kids other than my two nieces, but we would be providing babysitting at the hotel. (His cousin had also already received her save the date addressed to just her and her husband, not family.)

Fast forward to yesterday: My FI logs onto facebook and his same cousin messages him to say "Please talk to audubonbride2013 and get back to me. My daughter is so upset that she can't go to your wedding. Please make an exception. If it is a budget issue don't worry she can just eat off my plate." My FI politely responded back to inform her that we weren't going to make exceptions because that would cause issues with their other cousins with kids and all of my cousins and kids. They had some back and forth and finally she said ok.

My FI can't help but feel guilty that he's hurting his cousin's kid's feelings, but at the same time we don't want kids at the wedding sp he's staying strong. I just can't believe how rude his cousin is being. I mean her daughter is a second cousin who lives in TX while my FI lives and MD. He's literally only seen her daughter a handful of times, so it's not liek they're close. I just don't understand why his cousin is trying to demand and guilt trip my FI into inviting her daughter.

CN: FI's cousin is trying to guilt trip him into inviting her littler daughter.

Feel free to share any of your interesting planning stories so far.

RailWayWife · February 2013

Yikes, She sounds like a piece of work… Good for your FI for staying strong and not caving in to her demands.

I do have a story for you. It also involves kids being invited to the wedding.

It’s a long one, brace yourself.

Steve & I decided when we first got engaged that we didn’t want kids at the wedding. Fine. Then one of my BM got pregnant. She is due 3 months before the wedding. I understand that she wouldn’t want to be away from a 3 month old for a full day so we changed the rule, her baby would be invited to attend as long as her boyfriend could remove the child from the ceremony if it started crying during the ceremony. All is well. Then last month she tells me that I have to make a decision, its either her baby is there all day with her or she’s not coming to the wedding. I got confused as I already told her the baby could attend, so I assumed she wanted the child there while we got ready in the morning. Fine I told her that was fine the baby could be with us in the morning. She then posted on Facebook that I was a Monster for ever asking her to be away from her child (when that happened I don’t know) and that I was trying to poison her child by exposing it to hair spray and hazardous chemicals. (WHAT?!?) Once I seen the post I called her and asked her what was going on, she proceeded to call me a Monster and that I was sick for telling her she couldn’t go to her baby if it cried during the ceremony… I ended the call in tears, stunned that my close friend of 10 years would talk to me that way or ever think I wanted any harm to come to her child. The next day I called her again, After she calmed down, and explained I wanted no harm to come to her baby, that I wanted her to be a part of my day bla bla bla. She apologized, removed the post, and all was well.

I have had a few conversations with her since, & she even went and ordered her BM dress so everything is back to “normal” except I feel I have to tiptoe around her and be VERY careful with what I say to her. There are many other crazy “stunts” she has pulled in the last few months but I won’t get into that now.

I hope this is all just pregnancy hormones and she snaps out of her CRAZY-NESS.

audubonbride2013 · February 2013

Wow, that is crazy! I'm glad things are back to "normal", but I would also feel like I had to tip-toe around her. I really hope for your sake that it's just the hormones, so everything can really go back to normal with your friend once she has the baby.

mrsrutkowski · February 2013

This kids thing is a problem! I have a bunch of cousins under 18 and we're not breaking our rule either. But one of my BMs has a 16 year old daughter who I am also close with (sort of like a niece). I feel worse about not inviting her than my cousins. Problem is- she's friends with a cousin of mine so there's no way I could even just invite the daughter because then there would be family drama. I feel bad but we're not budging either. The daughter came to a bridal show because she wanted to be involved and already had the convo with her mom and me about not being invited. At the show she was making remarks like "great I get to pick things out but can't even see the final product." Of course that made me feel worse... Hate this guilt stuff!

Xstatic3333 · February 2013

Yikes, I am so sorry you guys are all dealing with this! RailWay that story is nuts, I hope she calms down soon as well. You were trying to be welcoming to her baby! Audobon, that's so rude that they guilt tripped you that way, I would definitely stay strong. Mrs Rutkowski, that's a tough situation, we are in the same situation of being closer to our friends' kids than our actual family.

We are having similar "exceptions" to the rest of you; no kids except the flower girls, nursing infants, and a couple of teenage cousins. So far we haven't had any pushback, but we're pretty sure it will be coming from FI's very newly-acquired step sister (who we don't know well at all). One of our GM has an adorable toddler I felt bad about excluding, but they told us recently that they are actually excited for a night away.

Hope everyone mellows out about the no kids stuff-it is super rude to lay a guilt trip on like that.

Ashelton09 · February 2013

My FI and I also decided no one under 18, unless they are in the bridal party. My nephew, and second cousins are the ring bearer and flower girls and they are all under 5. We are making 1 exception, and only ONE. He will be 17, and his sister is in my bridal party and the family is very good family friends. Nobody will probably even guess he is under 18 because he looks about 20.

I was conflicted with what to do with my first cousins on my dads side of the family. All his my FI cousins and family are older then him so that was not a problem. My moms side is all older then me also so no problem there. But my dads side...I am the oldest cousin and some of my cousins are over 18 and some arn't. I didn't know if I should just invite the ones over 18, all of them because there isn't very many. Or none of them at all. I figured the easiest thing to do would be invite only aunts and uncles. I'm hoping from they will understand I didn't want anybody to feel "left out".

So i completely understand the situation your are in! Good for your FI for staying put. And hopefully his cousin will understand.

@Railway: Hopefully it's just the hormones that are making your friend act a little crazy! My sister in law is one of my bridesmaids and she'll be 7 months pregnant at the time of the wedding so I know who you feel!

shugaplum4 · March 2013

I'm with all of you - kids complicate things. One of my fiance's uncle and his wife have a total of 6 grown children + their kids = 25 from one family (YIKES!!). In order to keep things as simple as possible, we set some boundaries together early on. We agreed to invite aunts and uncles only; no cousins. We also decided no kids under the age of 13, unless they are in the wedding party or still breastfeeding. I'm from Utah where many people get married young, and all of my friends have kids. For my family this is a destination wedding (we are getting married in Washington), and I was really worried that I would upset people. To my surprise, most of our guests have viewed our decision as an opportunity for them to have a vacation from their kids. When questioned, we have expressed empathy for the challenges of planning when kids are part of the family, something he and I can't appreciate yet as we don't have kids of our own. We also bring up the costs associated with additional guests (per plate fees) and inform them that our venue counts kids in our numbers (and we have a cap in terms of how many guests our small venue can accommodate). Essentially, we have to choose whether to invite more of our adult loved ones or to cut down our list so that children can come. For us, it was a no brainer...though certainly anxiety-provoking to share at first!

We are also addressing our save-the-dates and invitations only to the guests invited (e.g., Jane and John Jones instead of the Mr. John Jones Family) and doing all of our RSVPs thru our website. When a guest searches their party, only the names of invited guests appear (the adults). This has prevented the sticky situation when guests submit reply cards with half a dozen extra names included.

Good luck ladies!

BrookeD85 · March 2013

My guy is in a band, and we sent save the dates to his bandmates. One of the guys is living at home with his parents (who we both know, but they did not make the guest list, as they are more aquaintances than friends), but made sure to address the STD with his name only. However, while my guy was out playing at a show a few weeks ago, the bandmate's mom came up to him and said, "We can't wait for your wedding!" My guy didn't really say anything, and now he either needs to talk to his bandmate about it, or we need to invite the parents. I feel that if we invite them, there should be a handful of other people we would need to invite as well... It's frustrating, as we clearly addresed the STD!

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