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KytchynWitche
member
Mini-vent: FMIL/FI Guest List Issues
So, yesterday I was talking to FMIL about the guest list, because I wanted to get her family's contact info so we can send out our Save the Dates as soon after we move as possible. She asked who was on the list, I told her, and she goes "Oh! But none of FFIL's family is on it except Uncle!". She was completely blind-sided by the fact that we're not inviting a huge chunk of the family.
Now, I'm pretty mad at FI about this. When we were discussing the guest list, I asked him who he wanted from the family. When he said he didn't want any to invited any of his dad's brothers (other than Uncle Priest) because they're really not all that close, I said "Fine, just make sure you talk to your dad about it." Judging from the way FMIL reacted, I'm guessing that no such talk has taken place. We've had this "final" guest list since mid-January. That's plenty of time for him to have spoken to his folks about it.
So I tell FMIL that it's FI's family, he must make the decisions and do whatever goes along with that. Very much not my circus.
BUT at the end of the day, I am the one paying for this wedding. Me, personally, out of my pocket. FI is not contributing to the wedding, nor are his parents. We have chosen a guest list that we are comfortable with, that we can afford to host fully. And I'm sorry, but we are having a small wedding. And I do mean small - the GL is 46 people, including us, and friends who we actually physically see at least once every 3 months (distance issues) win out over family who've not had any contact, I mean not even a text message, with FI in the 2+ years we've been together. It's our wedding, not a family reunion.
Seriously though, there's the TINIEST amount of wiggle room in my budget right now and I really want to keep that free for incidentals. If I have to add more bodies to the guest list, I'm going to be selling my body to pay for it.
I didn't really have time to think about it yesterday because I was busy with blog posts, planning for the move, and art class, but now I'm kinda fuming over it. Is 8.40AM too early for wine?
ETF words are hard.
Now, I'm pretty mad at FI about this. When we were discussing the guest list, I asked him who he wanted from the family. When he said he didn't want any to invited any of his dad's brothers (other than Uncle Priest) because they're really not all that close, I said "Fine, just make sure you talk to your dad about it." Judging from the way FMIL reacted, I'm guessing that no such talk has taken place. We've had this "final" guest list since mid-January. That's plenty of time for him to have spoken to his folks about it.
So I tell FMIL that it's FI's family, he must make the decisions and do whatever goes along with that. Very much not my circus.
BUT at the end of the day, I am the one paying for this wedding. Me, personally, out of my pocket. FI is not contributing to the wedding, nor are his parents. We have chosen a guest list that we are comfortable with, that we can afford to host fully. And I'm sorry, but we are having a small wedding. And I do mean small - the GL is 46 people, including us, and friends who we actually physically see at least once every 3 months (distance issues) win out over family who've not had any contact, I mean not even a text message, with FI in the 2+ years we've been together. It's our wedding, not a family reunion.
Seriously though, there's the TINIEST amount of wiggle room in my budget right now and I really want to keep that free for incidentals. If I have to add more bodies to the guest list, I'm going to be selling my body to pay for it.
I didn't really have time to think about it yesterday because I was busy with blog posts, planning for the move, and art class, but now I'm kinda fuming over it. Is 8.40AM too early for wine?
ETF words are hard.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Mini-vent: FMIL/FI Guest List Issues
Of course, if we could invite the brothers and not their wives, I could probably make it work. But that's rude, so we'd be adding 8 people to the guest list, and I'd have to get onto the venue about vegetarian meal options, which is probably going to push our prices up even more. As it stands now, there are no vegetarians on our GL, but two, possibly three, of FI's uncles' wives are veg.
Anyway, it must be 5 o'clock somewhere in the world, right?
Obviously it's your wedding and your guest list, but it's polite to at least WARN your FIL's that people aren't being invited.
I lost it a little bit. I can understand that they're busy at work, and I did not expect for a second that they would talk about it at work. But FI and FFIL have 50+ minutes a day in the car together getting to and from work. FFIL spends 3+ hours every evening playing video games in his "study". For crying out loud, we live in FFIL's house (until this weekend, anyway). You can't seriously tell me that FI can't find 10 minutes to sit down with him and say "Dad, we love you, but we can't afford to invite all your brothers and their wives to our wedding. We hope you don't mind."
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he hasn't done it though. When we got engaged, it took him almost a week to tell FFIL - he told FMIL the minute we walked in the door, within an hour of the proposal.
So I've asked him to please sort this out before we go to bed tonight. He's in his dad's study right now, but I can hear they're talking about VPNs and peer-to-peer and other tech stuff...
However you sort your finances is your business, but it's still a problem that (a) his mother has access to his accounts (how old is he?) and that (b) he didn't tell his parents about your joint decision.
It's fine if you're paying for this wedding yourself, but he can't make you the heavy. He needs to tell his parents that ALL wedding-related decisions were mutual.
Anyway, yeah. I'm pretty pissed that he didn't tell them about it. It's not like this is something I just sprang on him - we made the decision together months ago, and at that time we both agreed he would square things with his folks. To say I'm annoyed that he didn't, and so blindsided FMIL and me, is putting it mildly. But he's going to make it right.
Also, I don't think it's a case of him having reservations about the decisions, because we drew up the guest list together, the decision to not invite FFIL's brothers was actually his, and I've asked him at least 5 times since we "finalised" the GL whether he was sure that he didn't want to add them. If, at any point, he told me he wanted to change ANY part of our wedding plans, I would be more than happy to do so.