My fiancé and I got engaged this past May. We had decided that we wanted to get married the following summer. I quickly started looking for venues and since my mother and my fiancé's mother live in different states from us, I asked my future step mother in law to help us embark on this new chapter planning. She came with us to a few venues and helped us rule some places out with out even having to visit them. Overall, she was really helpful. We booked our venue, which my mother paid the deposit. My parents will be paying for the whole wedding as she is very traditional and believes that brides family should pay. Since we had found the venue and put the deposit down, I really didn't do much else right away. Everyone kind of stopped asking about planning because there was no new news to give them. My fiancé and I started a very rough draft of our guest list. A couple months went by, and I started talking to my mother about numbers of guests. At first we agreed that we only wanted 100 guests, but since the venue's minimum occupancy was 150, my mother agreed to bump the number up to that. I explained this to my future father in law and his wife (my future step mother in law), my future mother in law, and my fiancé. Everyone seemed to understand that the total number of guests was to be 150. I asked them all for a "wish list," but also reminded them that we had to evenly divide 150 people up between 4 groups (my family, my fiancé's father's side of his family, my fiancé's mother's side of his family, and my fiancé and my friends). When I received everyone's lists, my mother and my fiancé's mother's lists were more than reasonable with approximately 30 people per list. Then I received my future father in law and step mother in law's list, and there were 100 people that they said we "have to invite everyone, no if's and's or but's." Well that's all fine and dandy, but they aren't paying. My fiancé and I took all the lists, ours included, and added them up just to see how many people there would be if we included everyone, plus my future father/step mother in law's wanted all of their 100 guests to be able to bring a plus one if they didn't already have a significant other. This brought their list almost up to 150, which was the whole amount allotted in the first place by my mother. The total number if everyone got there way would have been close to 300 guests, more than half of whom neither my fiancé nor I knew. I immediately told everyone that if the guest being invited was not in a serious committed relationship, they were not going to have a plus one included. There was some disappointment, but I believe that my future father/step mother in law thought this meant that their total 100 people would be invited. Whenever we discussed it with them it turned into a huge controversy, so my fiancé and I eventually stopped having these conversations with them. We decided ultimately that the only person who needed to see the finalized list before the day of the wedding was my mother since she is the one who will be sending the invitations out. My fiancé and I took all of the people off the list who we did not know, whether they were family or not. My future in laws were trying to invite everyone in their extended families. I ended up being able to narrow the list down from almost 300 to 170, which my mother said was fine since there are a lot of out of town guests, and more than likely 15-20 people will easily RSVP no, and even if all 170 people do come, it is not a matter of money for my mother it is the mere fact that neither my fiancé or I want that big of a wedding. Not to mention, in my mother's opinion why should she have to pay for only 30 guests for her and 150 for my future father/step mother in laws family. It wasn't fair. I started getting addresses for everyone this past week. I had gotten all the addresses from everyone except for a few from my future step mother in law. I sent her a text message asking her to e-mail them to me when she got a chance over the next couple of days. Her response to that was "why do you need them now?" I told her the truth, since my parents were coming into state to visit and to meet my future in laws for the first time, my mother had asked me to print out a hard copy of the guest list with addresses for her. Now my future step mother in law asked me to e-mail the list to her, since my mother was getting a list. In a perfect world, I would have told her no... But I didn't. I felt as though if I said no, then they would have known my fiancé and I were trying to hide something from them with the guest list anyway, so I begrudgingly sent it. 20 minutes or so went by and I received a text message from her telling me that I must have not received the whole list they had sent me a few weeks prior with all their guests on it. Kindly, I explained to her that I had received the whole list, but due to numbers I could not accommodate all 150 people they were asking for since the whole entire list was supposed to be 150 people. I explained that both my parents and my fiancé's mother were only asking to have grandparents, aunts/uncles, and our own first cousins invited for family and that my fiancé and I were trying to keep it at that for all sides of the family. That we did not want every single last extended family member there. After I explained myself, I did not receive another text message that night. Instead when my fiancé and I went into work the next morning (yes, we work together with his father and many other family members) at 5:55 am my future father in law approached us and stated "either you invite everyone from my list or no one." My fiancé dealt with this situation and I just kept quiet. I did not want to start another disagreement between my future in laws and myself especially since they were meeting my parents for the first time the following day. The meeting ended up going as civil as any of us expected it to, but come to find out when we were all at dinner together, my future in laws brought the list up with my mother trying to demand that they be allowed to invite another 50 people. My mother simply explained to them what I already had and moved on. Then come to find out my future in laws showed our guest list to my fiancé's grandparents who are now also upset with us, because their siblings are not invited to our wedding. My fiancé's grandmother even said something to my mother about how here two sister's should be invited and it wasn't fair, but then followed it up with "but I'm not getting involved." I'm sorry bringing it up with my mother who you had never met until that night, IS getting involved. My mother suggested that if they aren't happy with the number of people from their family that are being invited, then they can throw a separate party to include everyone they want to include. She made it clear that this is our wedding and we should only have our closest family members and friends there to share the day, not complete and total strangers. I keep trying to include them in other ways, like with parts of the menu, and the cake. I have asked my future step mother in law if she would like to come with me to look at wedding dresses. She was all excited about looking for dresses until she found out it would mean driving 2 hours to where my mother lives along with all of my bridesmaids. I understand she may not want to take the drive, but she does not want part in anything else now either... Which is also fine with me, but behind my fiancé and my back they end up talking about us saying that we don't include them in anything. I am getting so frustrated, because I cannot please everyone no matter how hard I try... I just am at loss and am getting to the point where I want to throw my hands up and tell everyone that they will not be invited to a wedding, because I'd rather elope at this point. What should I do to get the in laws off our back?