Cousin Invites

Re: Cousin Invites

• phira member

  

  May 2014

  Laurie Roche said:

  Hello knotties

  I've been lurking around the etiquette board for awhile now. Just looking at my guest list again for my November wedding. We didn't do Save the Dates and invites are long away from going out. I am the youngest cousin on both sides of my family by far thanks to my parents having me late in life. I have lots of first cousins and many of them moved away when I was still quite young. I don't know them other than the random visit every few years when they come for a visit or a funeral. I had planned on inviting only cousins I am close to. Chances are the others wouldn't attend anyway as its a long and expensive plane ride so close to Christmas. I don't want to invite them just because as that seems rather gift grabby to me. My fiancé has a small family and is inviting all first cousins. Is it really rude for me not to invite all of mine? My venue can accommodate more people than I have on my list right now so that's not a problem.  Thanks!

  You don't have to invite all of your first cousins just because your fiance wants to invite all of his. You can totally invite all of his first cousins and only some of yours.

  
  

  I don't know what the rest of the E board thinks, but I think I'd be okay with not being invited if you and I weren't close. I might be a little, "Hrm?" if my siblings were invited but not me. But not necessarily angry. It really depends on the relationship. If I barely know you and haven't seen you since you were a baby, I probably wouldn't even expect an invitation.

  
  

  Definitely don't send courtesy invitations. If you don't want to invite cousin Sally, who likely wouldn't come if you did invite her, don't send an invitation. Not only does it seem gift-grabby, like you mentioned, it's also an invitation: Sally might totally show up even though you didn't expect or want her to.

  

  now with ~* INCREASED SASSINESS *~
  
  

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• phira member

  

  May 2014 edited May 2014

  @flantastic I was getting all, "HOW DO I EXPLAIN SIBLINGS AHHH" and you're all "CIRCLES," and that's pretty much it.

  
  

  ETA I just noticed that you are getting married the day before me eeee

  

  now with ~* INCREASED SASSINESS *~
  
  

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• twitterbird member

  

  May 2014

  Thank you knotties! My circle would be cousins who live near me or that I've talked to other than at my aunt's funeral 2 months ago. I will not be doing courtesy invites as that seems ridiculous.

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• Chipmunk415 member

  

  May 2014

  Dh has a lot of cousins via the 4 uncles and 1 Aunt on his dads side, and 2 uncles and an aunt on moms. All the aunts and uncles got invites, but only three of the cousins (with significant others of course) got invites- they were the ones Dh was close to

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• [Deleted User] member

  

  May 2014

  So, are we saying that cousins should be invited in circles of siblings? I have 10 cousins on Dad's side. Super close to 3 brothers, they're on my VIP list. Not as close to 3 other siblings, but would really want 2 of the 3 to attend. Not at all close to the last 4, debating on even inviting them, but we see each other nearly ever other year at family gatherings. So, with that middle group, do I have to invite all 3 of the siblings? The one I'm not as close to is married with 3 kids, the other two have occasional SOs. I probably will invite all 3, I'm just wondering if I HAVE to.

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• ladylcat member

  

  May 2014

  Having s similar (but different) issue.  My fiance's first cousins are a little older and all have children that range in age from currently in utero to 22.  We want our wedding to be an adult affair and so when we made our initial list we decided not to invite any cousins children. The only children we plan to invite are our nieces/nephews and his one first cousin who will be 15.

  
  

  However, we see his cousins a few times a year and as such we see their kids too.  We feel like we would like to include the children who are college age, because we have somewhat of a social relationship with them.  If we did this, we would make the "rule" no kids under 18.  The problem with this is that he has one cousin with 3 children ages 13, 19 and 21.  Is it acceptable to split the family and not invite the 13 year old using the no kids under 18 rule?  Thoughts on how to handle this?

  
  

  Thanks!

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• lilacck28 member

  

  May 2014 edited May 2014

  phira said:

  
  

  You don't have to invite all of your first cousins just because your fiance wants to invite all of his. You can totally invite all of his first cousins and only some of yours.

  
  

  I don't know what the rest of the E board thinks, but I think I'd be okay with not being invited if you and I weren't close. I might be a little, "Hrm?" if my siblings were invited but not me. But not necessarily angry. It really depends on the relationship. If I barely know you and haven't seen you since you were a baby, I probably wouldn't even expect an invitation.

  
  

  
  

  My dad wasn't invited to one of his cousin's weddings, but I think his brother was, and maybe one of his sisters too (my dad is one of four). My dad is still upset about that. 

  
  

  Edit: my dad was an adult at the time of this wedding, which was like, 20 something years ago. But now with all the recent talk of weddings, this has come up quite a few times.  

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• HisGirlFriday13 member

  

  May 2014

  I think it depends on how close the families themselves are, not just how close you are to them.

  
  

  Ex.: My father has three siblings, each of whom is married, all of whom have children. I invited ALL of my cousins, even the ones I wasn't close to, because my father and his siblings are close, and Uncle A would have been offended if Uncle C's and Aunt B's kids were invited but his kids weren't. (Even though all kids in this example are grown-ass adults.)

  
  

  DH has six first cousins once removed, all female, all married. Among them, they have 28 children. The sisters are VERY close -- all of them were BMs in each other's weddings, all of them have been in the delivery room for all of their births, all of them get together for every holiday. (It's a little weird, actually -- the six sisters all got married, and it's like as soon as they did, the husbands' families ceased to exist.)

  
  

  DH wanted to invite TWO of those second cousins (two out of three children of one of his first cousins once removed.) I said no, because I *KNEW* it would start a shit-storm in the family because even though HE doesn't like his other second cousins, his family members do. 

  
  

  He eventually agreed with me, and we didn't invite any of them.

  

  
  

  
  

  I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'

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• ladylcat member

  

  May 2014

  flantastic said:

  I wouldn't split them. That 13-year-old WILL be hurt. If you don't want other kids, I don't think the older children will feel hurt if only their parents are invited, because they know that they're a whole other circle removed from your nieces and nephews and FI's first cousin. Just because you have something of a social relationship with them doesn't mean you need to invite them or they should expect to be invited.

  ETA: For me, this would mean inviting no cousin's kids at all, not just the children of this particular family.

  
  

  That was our original plan, but we saw family last weekend and told our cousins and aunts and uncles that we had set a date, and one of the cousin's children made a comment about her age at the wedding (she'll almost be 21), so she (and probably the rest of the family) assumes the kids will be invited.  Both of my fiances brothers were married in the last 2 years and invited all the cousins children, but I have a bigger family than either of his SILs and we both have more friends.  So now we are second guessing our original thoughts.  We can't include the 13 year old without also having to include about 15 other kids in the same or same type of circle.

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• kitty8403 member

  

  May 2014 edited May 2014

  I have a lot of cousins. FI has a more "normal" number. And a lot of my cousins have children.
  (Eta: I don't even want to think about second cousins. I think I've met like 5 or 6 but we aren't going there.)
  My family tends to follow the all or none rule when it comes to cousins: invite all first cousins, or none of them. It gets tricky when we start working on the steps and halves, so rather than get crazy with dissecting the family relationships, we chose to err on the side of inclusiveness. (some of my other cousins did not.) First cousins' children are debatable, but I would consider that a circle unless there is a clear and obvious separation (ie their parents are cousins by marriage, not blood, or the "kids" are grown, or the family is/is not local).
  

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