Invite Question

jenniferurs · January 2014

How much input did you give others (read: parents) on who was going to be invited to your wedding? And how much input did they, in turn, expect to have?

Thanks in advance!

Cookie Pusher · January 2014

Since our parents aren't paying a dime towards the wedding, we asked them to give us a list of people they'd like us to invite but made sure they knew we had the final say. We were very lucky in that neither side had many names to give us (5 or 6 totaly between them). If they were paying, however, we would have given them way more control over who they could invite.

tammym1001 · January 2014

No input from anyone at all except me and FI. We are having a very small wedding though, approximately 35 people so there really weren't any spots to give them anyways.

delujm0 · January 2014

I basically ran my family list by my parents to make sure they didn't have anyone to add. Mom wanted to add my sister's boyfriend's parents, that was it. My parents are paying for most of the reception, so i wasn't going to fight them on two people.

FI's mom sent us a list of well over 80 people, which included 50 people we already planned to invite and 30 that FI had no idea who they were. i tried to get out of that but FI actually wanted to invite them all. This was the same list FMIL used for FSIL's wedding, and she (and unfortunately FI) felt that we had to invite everyone to ours who was invited to his sister's three years ago. If he was interested in fighing his mom on it, i would have let him...but i didn't want to open up that can of worms unless i had to.

I honestly would have fought it, but since most of these people couldn't pull themselves together to make a 3 hour drive to FSIL's wedding, i highly doubt they'll be down to make a 8+ hour drive or fly down to ours. however, FI did run this by his parents, and if all of these "courtesy invites" as we're calling them actually show up, they're going to give us some money towad the reception. They're already covering the rehearsal dinner (which all guests are invited to) and the Sunday brunch, so it's not like they're not pitching in already.

I wouldn't invite your parents' friends at the expense of having to strike your own friends from the guest list - but if you have the room, you might as well let them have a few spots.

Belthil · January 2014

Both sets of parents helped pay for our wedding (We were given money to do with what we wanted; buy a house, get married, etc) so we asked both sets of parents for a list of people that they would like for us to invite. With all three of our lists (my parents, ILs and ours) our guest list came in at 140 which was perfect for us and then venue we wanted. Everyone included on both parents' lists were people that we knew well and gladly invited. If there had been people that we didn't know or would rather not have invited we would have spoken to our parents before we decided to invite them or not.

mimiphin · January 2014

Our parents aren't paying for the wedding so they get no say in who is invited.
FI and I are looking at about 100 people, 50 for each of us. I know my Dad has started to say "Oh you should invite so-and-so" and I either ignore him or I just tell him "Those who pay get a say".

mulloyas · January 2014

We came up with a list and asked our parents if there was anyone else they felt should be invited. There are a few that we didn't totally agree upon but our parents are both contributing to the wedding so we didn't make a big deal out of it. Our parents were conscious of making sure all of the friends we wanted there made the guest list since it's our special day. If your parents and/or FILs want you to cut your friends so theirs can attend, I would push back. At the end of the day you should feel comfortable at your own wedding and be surrounded by the people you love.

doeydo · January 2014

FI and I are paying for the wedding by ourselves so we have complete control over the guest list. I made a list of people I want and FI made a list of people he wanted to invite and then we combined them.

Inkdancer · January 2014

My mom is helping me with a lot of things, because she's very smart and logical. In terms of guest list, I asked her who she would want there and said OK to some and no to others. However, we have a very small family, so that wasn't much of a problem.

climbingsingle · January 2014

FI and I are paying for the entire wedding ourselves. This is my second wedding and we're keeping it small, so I didn't extend friend invites to my parents. I am inviting my dad's best friend though.

Since this is FI's first wedding, I asked his mom for a list of people she'd like to invite. She knows the number we're trying to keep the guest list at, so thankfully she gave us just a few close friends.

jenniferurs · January 2014

Okay, because I'm getting (read: have been) frustrated over here.

From day one, FMIL has turned this into some sort of competition between her side of the family and her ex-husband (FI's dad)'s side of the family. She actually ran down the preliminary guest list FI and I had assembled, counted up how many "slots" were allocated for her side of the family versus FI's dad's side, reviewed how many members of each side of the family were in the bridal party and then pitched a royal fit, saying that we needed to extend more invitations to people on her side of the family and that it was a slap in the face to them that they weren't represented in the bridal party. We tried to explain that invites/positions of honor were given out based on who we actually had close relationships to, not based on some kind of quota for each family, but she kept complaining, so we eventually made some concessions. All in all, between her friends and family, she ended up with about 30 invites.

Fast forward to this week and I get an email from her telling me that some of her family members aren't going to be able to make it, so would I please extend invitations to these other family members and to her friend at Delta who often gives her buddy passes. Uh, wtf? Invitations are not transferable. Just because one member of your family declined to attend does not give you free reign to exchange a new family member in their place. Outside of the fact that this is B listing, she also knows that there are some people who are very near and dear to us that we weren't able to invite due to space/budget and I find it extremely offensive that she cares more about filling some kind of quota for her side of the family than ensuring that the groom is surrounded by the people HE wants there on his wedding day.

I'm just so fed up with her turning this into a giant competition and trying to control the guest list when my mom is the one paying for the entire wedding and she requested 3 invites for herself total. FMIL was given 30 and yet somehow that's not enough. And the kicker? When I kindly explained that invitations had gone out a month ago and that we wouldn't be able to accommodate any additional people, she wrote back with a response that would seem nice on the surface, but was definitely passive aggressive beneath it all. Something like "I understand. We do think of the ceremony as making you a greater part of the *last name* family. Soon my family will be your family." As if I should feel bad for excluding my fellow family members (nevermind the fact that these are people FI has met maybe a handful of times in his life and does not know at all).

Oh and on top of it all, since her family members that declined cannot afford to attend, she now expects us to have a second reception up in Ohio in May so that they can feel included. When I'm 6 months pregnant.

Ugh.

/vent over
//sorry for the rant!

Inkdancer · January 2014

Lord have mercy. She sounds like a whole basket of crazy.

jenniferurs · January 2014

Inkdancer said:
Lord have mercy. She sounds like a whole basket of crazy.

Don't even get me started. I could go on for days.

HisGirlFriday13 · January 2014

Wow...you have so much of my sympathy. Ugh.

To your FMIL:

Blergbot · January 2014

My parents are giving me money toward the wedding, but, oddly enough, neither of them have asked that anyone in particular be invited. I guess I'm just lucky? My dad even cut people from his side that I was planning on inviting. Then again, neither of my parents have any very close friends...we are a family of loners

AddieCake · January 2014

My father paid for our wedding, but he was very much of the mindset that it was OUR wedding and that it's absurd for parents to insist anyone be invited. Therefore, he made only 1 guest list request, and that was his oldest friend.

msdidonato · February 2014

My parents are paying for our wedding, but we asked them and my FIL's who all they wanted to invite. I said we have a limit of 200 people and we are at about 150. Between the two sets they only invited 20 people I think.

MandyMost · February 2014

We made a list, which just for convenience we sectioned off by "His family, his friends, my family, my friends". We gave the "his family" list to his parents, and the "my family" list to my parents, and asked them to look it over to see if we forgot anyone that was important. I thought this was much better than just asking the open-ended question of who to invite, because they could see what we were thinking in terms of invitations. His parents came back with his god parents whom he had forgot to put on the list, and my parents came back with two couples (old friends, that are like aunts and uncles to me) that they'd love to invite if there's space.

Also, personally I think it is ridiculous to make the "sides" even. If you are inviting 100 people it doesn't have to be 50 of his family/friends and 50 of yours. That's just now how the world works. For us, his family is like 15 people and mine's like 60. I can't help that I have a large family and he has a small one. As long as there's also room for us both to invite the friends we want to be there, it makes no difference if the sides are uneven.

Sugargirl1019 · February 2014

OP, story of my life! What is it with bat-shit crazy FMILs?

My family is huge - his family is very small. We agreed to not invite our whole extended family from across the country, and to keep the guest list at about 100. My mother and father are paying for reception, food and alcohol, I'm paying for my other vendors. FMIL contributing zip-zero-none. We look at my family, our friends, and his family list - 40, 30, ...120????? What the **? Friends from this church when we lived there 6 years ago, so and sos cousin and his unknown significant other .. when I say okay, we can't afford this so cut, she said absolutely not, they are all extremely important and everyone including 2 month old baby will be there. I say, okay we can cut 50 off just by eliminating children. "how rude of you how dare you tell someone not to bring their children!" /sigh. So I've cut my friends list down, my mother has cut her list down, and FMIL is angry that there are no children but she has 70 adults.

So we're still over budget, she refuses to help pay for anything, and now my family and friends aren't going to all be there because of my birch FMIL.

Of course, my mother isnt okay with this, so many of these "friends from a camping trip 6 years ago" might just have a mysteriously lost invitation in the mail...

Anyway. Because my parents are paying, we wanted 40%, 30% and 30% on our guest allocation. My parents were too generous letting her invite friends to make up for the small family.

It's still a work in progress.

Inkdancer · February 2014

Sugargirl1019 said:

OP, story of my life! What is it with bat-shit crazy FMILs? My family is huge - his family is very small. We agreed to not invite our whole extended family from across the country, and to keep the guest list at about 100. My mother and father are paying for reception, food and alcohol, I'm paying for my other vendors. FMIL contributing zip-zero-none. We look at my family, our friends, and his family list - 40, 30, ...120????? What the **? Friends from this church when we lived there 6 years ago, so and sos cousin and his unknown significant other .. when I say okay, we can't afford this so cut, she said absolutely not, they are all extremely important and everyone including 2 month old baby will be there. I say, okay we can cut 50 off just by eliminating children. "how rude of you how dare you tell someone not to bring their children!" /sigh. So I've cut my friends list down, my mother has cut her list down, and FMIL is angry that there are no children but she has 70 adults. So we're still over budget, she refuses to help pay for anything, and now my family and friends aren't going to all be there because of my birch FMIL. Of course, my mother isnt okay with this, so many of these "friends from a camping trip 6 years ago" might just have a mysteriously lost invitation in the mail... Anyway. Because my parents are paying, we wanted 40%, 30% and 30% on our guest allocation. My parents were too generous letting her invite friends to make up for the small family. It's still a work in progress.

You might want to try what we did with my FI's mother. When her list came back way bigger than we were okay with, we culled a lot of people. Then, when she started to pitch a fit, we said "T, we know these people are important to you. However, because of budget and space issues, we can only invite a small number of people. We decided to include only those who are important to us as a couple. If they have never even met Inkdancer in the 7 years we've been together, then we are very sorry but they will be getting a wedding announcement after the fact." Then the subject was closed.

HisGirlFriday13 · February 2014

Sugargirl1019 said:

OP, story of my life! What is it with bat-shit crazy FMILs? My family is huge - his family is very small. We agreed to not invite our whole extended family from across the country, and to keep the guest list at about 100. My mother and father are paying for reception, food and alcohol, I'm paying for my other vendors. FMIL contributing zip-zero-none. We look at my family, our friends, and his family list - 40, 30, ...120????? What the **? Friends from this church when we lived there 6 years ago, so and sos cousin and his unknown significant other .. when I say okay, we can't afford this so cut, she said absolutely not, they are all extremely important and everyone including 2 month old baby will be there. I say, okay we can cut 50 off just by eliminating children. "how rude of you how dare you tell someone not to bring their children!" /sigh. So I've cut my friends list down, my mother has cut her list down, and FMIL is angry that there are no children but she has 70 adults. So we're still over budget, she refuses to help pay for anything, and now my family and friends aren't going to all be there because of my birch FMIL. Of course, my mother isnt okay with this, so many of these "friends from a camping trip 6 years ago" might just have a mysteriously lost invitation in the mail... Anyway. Because my parents are paying, we wanted 40%, 30% and 30% on our guest allocation. My parents were too generous letting her invite friends to make up for the small family. It's still a work in progress.

What does your FI think of this? Because he's the one who needs to sit down and have a come-to-Jesus with his mother about her list.

And that conversation should go something along the lines of him saying, "Mom, you get X number of people, no children, so either *YOU* cut your list down to that size or *I* will cut it for you by eliminating it entirely and inviting NO ONE from your list. You pick."

Because if she's not paying, she can pitch a fit all she wants, but she can't make demands, and you shouldn't cut YOUR FRIENDS for her list of people you don't even know.

Sugargirl1019 · February 2014

FI feels that there are people on the list purely for his mother, but he doesn't want to 'rock the boat'. He feels that we don't know how many people will decline, so I need to stop coming up with a plan for something we don't know about yet. I have told him we need to expect every last one of these souls at the wedding, but he's convinced not all of them will come, and that it will being our guest list low enough so that we can afford it.

Don't get me wrong, he has stood up for me when FMIL has been a bitch to me. But you may see why he is hesitant to confront her, because she is a bitch and threatens to never admit him into the home again for various menopausal reasons.

HisGirlFriday13 · February 2014

Sugargirl1019 said:
FI feels that there are people on the list purely for his mother, but he doesn't want to 'rock the boat'. He feels that we don't know how many people will decline, so I need to stop coming up with a plan for something we don't know about yet. I have told him we need to expect every last one of these souls at the wedding, but he's convinced not all of them will come, and that it will being our guest list low enough so that we can afford it.

Don't get me wrong, he has stood up for me when FMIL has been a bitch to me. But you may see why he is hesitant to confront her, because she is a bitch and threatens to never admit him into the home again for various menopausal reasons.

He should call her bluff. Next time she says that, get up and leave and say, 'OK.'

People will treat you how you let them treat you. If he lets her do this, she'll keep doing it. If he stops her, she'll stop.

pinkshorts27 · February 2014

How much input did you give others (read: parents) on who was going to be invited to your wedding? And how much input did they, in turn, expect to have? Thanks in advance!

well I got stuck in a box, but my parents are paying for our wedding minus a few things (I bought stamps and STDs and probably invites). Also we are holding the event and my father's golf clubhouse ballroom and on their 30th birthday. We let them invite who they want. Space wasn't an issue. We will be inviting 230+ total, probably cap around 260. We invited all of our family friends and my dads work and golfing buddies, all of our family, and all of my friends. But to consider someone friends, we generally have to know them pretty well since my parents are really introverted. So our family friends I have known since I was born, but my parents went to school with them. They actually live in the same neighborhood so I babysat their kids and they babysat me. They know my fiance and we've been to house parties. My parents didn't put anyone on the list that we didn't know, except one work buddy of my dad's (but he had to be invited since he has a small office and everyone else was invited).

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