Let's just say that NOTHING about my wedding has gone according to the original plan. We dealt with all of the original chaos (venue sold four months before the wedding, so they canceled my reservation, big band insisted on a 900 square foot stage AFTER the venues were booked, wedding coordinator had to cancel to be in her own sister's wedding on the same day, etc.), but now my FMIL has decided that she is in charge of who is coming to my wedding.
What with our first venue selling, we had to scramble to find a space big enough to fit our wedding. This meant that we were basically stuck with inviting only family, because this close to the wedding date, everything larger was booked. While I know a lot of people on here find B lists to be a deal-breaker, we had to have one so that we could start inviting friends once great-aunts, etc. declined to attend (as we hoped they would). We explained the situations to our friends, and they all were fine with waiting a little extra before receiving their invitations as space allowed. We even have a chunk who are trying to make the wedding a tiered wedding so that they can at least join in the dancing/after party, which makes me love them all the more for wanting to be part of our wedding day and being so understanding.
However...as the declined invitations came in, we began sending out invitations to our friends. Unbeknownst to us, my FMIL decided that it was up to her discretion to give away the newly opened slots to children from her side of the family. From the get-go, we had decided on no children due to space limitations, and she was well aware of this fact. She wasn't happy with it, but held her peace. So now we're stuck in a bind...we don't have the space to accommodate our friends AND the children from her side of the family, and now the parents of those children are very offended that their children are being "uninvited", despite the fact that we never actually invited them. I need some advice...what should we do? I'm not willing to have a no-friend wedding/reception in order to accommodate kids, but we've got some serious family drama to deal with.