The guest list has been a thorn in my side literally since the same night we got engaged when my mom's response to the news was, "I've written out a guest list of about 30 people for you to invite in addition to whoever else you're inviting." How the hell did she even do that so fast? No one, including me, knew I was getting engaged.
Let the battle begin. And I mean BATTLE.
After several months and several rounds of fighting this out with my mom, she has finally left it alone. My dad kept saying he would try to "keep her under control" because his mother made their wedding planning so miserable for them, and he doesn't want the same thing to happen to me. After sitting down together several times and having several discussions, the guest list was finally laid to rest and everyone was happy with it, even though it had more people on it than I wanted.
Didn't matter how many times I told my parents that inviting more people increases the cost, and that FI and I can't afford a huge elaborate party (we're paying for most of it), and that even if we could afford it we still really want a more intimate wedding with just the people that we're close to. But ok, so it's a done deal, we're done talking about it, and now the STDs have been sent out.
I posted the other day that on Thanksgiving, out of nowhere, my dad completely lost it over the guest list. He was stomping around, screaming at my mom and I, yelling cuss words, throwing an all-out tantrum because he wanted ALL of his friends invited, even ones I've never heard of before. Because they're his most best friends ever and they HAVE to be there and fuck they can't not be invited and fuck fuck fuck! K, well how close are these people to you really, when in the 28 years of my life I've never met them and I don't recognize their names at all? So the battle was resurrected to the extreme. I put my foot down. The guest list for my side was meant to have 60-70 people on it, and it now has 98 people. I will not be adding anyone else. No no no no no. Enough is enough.
I called my mom the next day to discuss my frustrations with this, and she was very understanding. A day later, she sent me an e-mail saying she had put a check for $200 in the mail to cover the cost of these two people so I can go ahead and invite them, and here's their address. No. Not happening. You can't buy people onto the guest list. What the fuck is that? And what makes her think $200 is an accurate amount to cover two people? She made that number up out of nowhere.
Also went through this, to a much milder extent, with FI's family. He has a small family so their guest list was only about 50 people. He vented to his parents about my parents inviting so many people, so then it was like a competition began. They didn't want their side to be way smaller than my side, so they started adding random friends that they don't even talk to anymore, that FI has never met, just to "have more people." Ok. Fine. Whatever. It wasn't something I was willing to argue about. Just didn't seem fair for me to tell them not to add anyone else, and I really wasn't too worried about it.
This morning, I get an e-mail from FMIL: "FI's cousin Bob e-mailed me and said he wanted to be invited to the wedding! Here's his address, so go ahead and send him an invitation!" What. The. Fuck. The fact that he's going to be invited doesn't bother me, because I actually think he was already on our guest list anyway. But you can't get invited to a wedding by requesting it! Who the fuck does that?!! You can't just email the MOG and say "Hey I wanna come! Invite me, here's my address!" Ok, cool! NO! WTF?! His family is oblivious to etiquette. I love them, they're great, but they were pushing us to do a cash bar (not happening) and then insisted that I put registry info on the wedding invite (not happening) and now this dude inviting himself to our wedding, and that's cool?
I'm already avoiding my parents. I'll be avoiding them for a while. I just can't take my dad attacking me over wedding shit every time I see him, and throwing huge epic tantrums over it. And I can't take having the same fucking argument with them over and over and over and over. We have fought over the guest list dozens of times. The same fight every time. I can't handle it. Let the fucking guest list rest, already! I've even warned them that if they bring it up again, I won't speak to them about wedding stuff anymore or try to include them in any planning cuz I can't take the frustration of having the exact same fight a million times. So I held true to my threat and stopped talking to them about it since they wouldn't quit, but now my dad just corners me and attacks me over it when I least suspect it. (It's fucking Thanksgiving, dude. Lighten up.)
I know a lot of knotties have mentioned dealing with difficult/stressful families over wedding planning. I avoid the topic of weddings around both sets of parents just because it always ends up being an annoying discussion. With FI's family they end up pushing something super anti-etiquette and with my family my dad screams cuss words cuz he's not getting his way. Bean dipping hasn't worked. Now what do I do? I can't completely avoid the families since Christmas is coming up and we'll be seeing them whether I like it or not. Although I'm far more worried about my family than his. Or at least how do I try to let the stress not get to me? Wedding planning with FI has been so fun and so great, but then my parents swoop in and make us both angry, miserable, and super stressed out. How do I deal with this nightmare?