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Holy assumptions, batman.

mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
in Wedding Woes

Dear Prudence,

My granddaughter “Riley” is getting married late next year. She’s currently putting together her guest list (I heard this through the grapevine) and is not planning on inviting my childhood best friend, “Greta.” Greta has been overwhelmingly kind to Riley for over 30 years. She sends Riley checks for every birthday, takes Riley to dinner whenever she’s in town, and generally plays a grandmotherly role in Riley’s life. I hadn’t heard of any conflict between the two of them. But it appears that Riley has forgotten all of this as she builds the guest list. She and her fiancé are getting financial assistance from my son for the wedding. It seems cruel to not include Greta when it’s not even Riley’s own money! I’m thinking of putting my foot down and saying I won’t attend if Greta doesn’t attend either. Greta’s been mercifully quiet about this, but I can tell she’s heartbroken. I would be too. What’s a grandmother to do?

—Penny-Pinching Granddaughter

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Re: Holy assumptions, batman.

  • charlotte989875charlotte989875 member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    I bet Grandma told Greta because why would she be heartbroken about invitations that haven’t even gone out yet? 

    But pick up the phone and call your son or your granddaughter and just ask. You don’t get to control the guest list but if you want to know if Greta is invited ask your family and don’t rely on gossip. 
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  • downtondivadowntondiva member
    Knottie Warrior 1000 Comments 500 Love Its Name Dropper
    Granny seems to be jumping to a lot of conclusions here and assuming the worst of her granddaughter without knowing the facts. 

    If she is that concerned, then she should talk to her granddaughter or her son about this. And if Greta is indeed not invited, Granny shouldn't interfere with that decision. It may not seem very nice if Greta has truly been that kind to Riley over the years, but there may be reasons she's not being included, and it's not Granny's event and not Granny's decision to make.
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  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    I don't see anything wrong with Grandma asking her son and granddaughter about Greta.  As long as she calms down and is willing to accept what they tell her.  Pfft, for all she knows, Greta is on the guest list and she's just making much ado about nothing.  Or maybe they're planning a small wedding with just immediate family.

    ------------

    I didn't mean for this to be such a long story.  But here ya go, lol:

    On the "why did you tell your friend something that would hurt her" bandwagon, it reminds me of a really negative experience I had with an ex-b/f.  We'd been dating a long time.  My mom and her H were coming out to NOLA for a visit.  I told both him and his mom what the itinerary would be months ahead of time, as well as closer to the visit, with an open invitation to his mom for her to let me know what she would be interested in doing with us.  Especially because some of the things needed to be booked ahead of time.  The only thing she wanted to do was go to the French Food Festival with us.  Okay, great.

    My b/f (D) calls me the night before my mom/stepdad are going to treat us to dinner at one  of the Emeril's restaurants and then take us ballroom dancing after that.  I had included this event when I'd talked to his mom and she never mentioned wanting to go.  As such, my mom had made a reservation over a month ahead of time for four...and even that far in advance the restaurant was almost booked.

    Just for some background, this guy was pretty great most of the time.  But every once in awhile, he'd get in a really foul mood where he would pick a huge, drag out, awful fight with me, no matter what I said or did.  Unfortunately, that night when he called was one of those times.  He said he wanted his mom to go out to dinner with all of us the next night.  I asked him if his mom had said something and he admitted that she hadn't, but he thought she would enjoy it.  
    At first that was a relief, because I assumed I could just point out how difficult this was...especially because of the reservation issue...and that would be the end of it.  Plus, by now, my mom had also said she wanted to treat us, so I didn't want her to feel obligated to pay for his mom also.  But no.  He harangued me and harangued me and started getting really upset that "I didn't want his mom to go".  Whatever.

    I finally told him that we could try, emphasis on try, to change the reservation.  But, could he PLEASE ask his mom first if she even wanted to go.  Because I had already told her about it before we made the reservation, over a month ago, and she hadn't seemed interested.  I also told him to make sure to warn her that, while we would love to have her to join us, there was a strong chance we wouldn't be able to change the reservation.  He puts me on hold to go talk to her.

    While I have no way to know exactly what he said to her, I can guess from her words that he brought back to me, that he strongly gave her impression I didn't want her there.  Still to this day, I cannot even fathom why he would give her that impression at all, even if that was what he felt.  He should have just dropped it and been mad at me if he wanted, but not gone and hurt his mom's feelings for no reason.

    And the result?  She didn't want to go because she felt unwanted.  I even called the next day and told her my mom had been able to change the reservation to an earlier time so all 5 of us could go and invited her myself.  She had a cold, polite tone and told me "that was okay, she had other plans".  I then said that I understood and I looked forward to her meeting mom at the French Food Festival on Saturday.  She quickly added in that she "wouldn't be able to go to that either, she had other plans", smh.  She had really been looking forward to that Festival.  We had talked about it with anticipation many times in the preceding months.

    Good job, D.  In one night and in one pissy mood, you deeply hurt your mom's feelings and ruined the relationship I had with her. 
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  • banana468banana468 member
    Knottie Warrior 25000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    short+sassy said:
    I don't see anything wrong with Grandma asking her son and granddaughter about Greta.  As long as she calms down and is willing to accept what they tell her.  Pfft, for all she knows, Greta is on the guest list and she's just making much ado about nothing.  Or maybe they're planning a small wedding with just immediate family.

    ------------

    I didn't mean for this to be such a long story.  But here ya go, lol:

    On the "why did you tell your friend something that would hurt her" bandwagon, it reminds me of a really negative experience I had with an ex-b/f.  We'd been dating a long time.  My mom and her H were coming out to NOLA for a visit.  I told both him and his mom what the itinerary would be months ahead of time, as well as closer to the visit, with an open invitation to his mom for her to let me know what she would be interested in doing with us.  Especially because some of the things needed to be booked ahead of time.  The only thing she wanted to do was go to the French Food Festival with us.  Okay, great.

    My b/f (D) calls me the night before my mom/stepdad are going to treat us to dinner at one  of the Emeril's restaurants and then take us ballroom dancing after that.  I had included this event when I'd talked to his mom and she never mentioned wanting to go.  As such, my mom had made a reservation over a month ahead of time for four...and even that far in advance the restaurant was almost booked.

    Just for some background, this guy was pretty great most of the time.  But every once in awhile, he'd get in a really foul mood where he would pick a huge, drag out, awful fight with me, no matter what I said or did.  Unfortunately, that night when he called was one of those times.  He said he wanted his mom to go out to dinner with all of us the next night.  I asked him if his mom had said something and he admitted that she hadn't, but he thought she would enjoy it.  
    At first that was a relief, because I assumed I could just point out how difficult this was...especially because of the reservation issue...and that would be the end of it.  Plus, by now, my mom had also said she wanted to treat us, so I didn't want her to feel obligated to pay for his mom also.  But no.  He harangued me and harangued me and started getting really upset that "I didn't want his mom to go".  Whatever.

    I finally told him that we could try, emphasis on try, to change the reservation.  But, could he PLEASE ask his mom first if she even wanted to go.  Because I had already told her about it before we made the reservation, over a month ago, and she hadn't seemed interested.  I also told him to make sure to warn her that, while we would love to have her to join us, there was a strong chance we wouldn't be able to change the reservation.  He puts me on hold to go talk to her.

    While I have no way to know exactly what he said to her, I can guess from her words that he brought back to me, that he strongly gave her impression I didn't want her there.  Still to this day, I cannot even fathom why he would give her that impression at all, even if that was what he felt.  He should have just dropped it and been mad at me if he wanted, but not gone and hurt his mom's feelings for no reason.

    And the result?  She didn't want to go because she felt unwanted.  I even called the next day and told her my mom had been able to change the reservation to an earlier time so all 5 of us could go and invited her myself.  She had a cold, polite tone and told me "that was okay, she had other plans".  I then said that I understood and I looked forward to her meeting mom at the French Food Festival on Saturday.  She quickly added in that she "wouldn't be able to go to that either, she had other plans", smh.  She had really been looking forward to that Festival.  We had talked about it with anticipation many times in the preceding months.

    Good job, D.  In one night and in one pissy mood, you deeply hurt your mom's feelings and ruined the relationship I had with her. 
    Exactly!

    Grandma (and your ex BF) are succeeding in one thing: making EVERYONE feel bad.  Assuming Grandma is telling some part of the truth if the friend feels bad it's not because of the Granddaughter! 
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  • ei34ei34 member
    Knottie Warrior 5000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    Yikes.  Please tell me Prudie gave LW a reality check!
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  • mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer

    Threatening not to attend your granddaughter’s wedding on the strength of something you heard through the grapevine without having a single conversation with her is likely going to backfire. I understand that you love Greta and that she’s been a member of the family for decades, but you don’t know that Riley has definitively kept Greta off the guest list or whether she just forgot your friend. You don’t know how much financial assistance your son is putting in, what Riley’s total budget is, or if the couple merely wants to keep the guest list small. You also  don’t know how many other people are making guest-list requests, and your granddaughter has not only her own relatives and friends to consider, but that of her partner’s.

    Rather than approaching Riley with a demand or an ultimatum, you should frame it instead as a request: “I don’t know what your budget or guest limit looks like, and I don’t want to impose, but if you’re able to make room for her, it would mean a lot to us both if you’d invite Greta.” I hope you can try to look at this not as an act of spiteful exclusion. It would be great if Riley could invite her grandmother’s best friend to her wedding, but it may not be possible. And if she can’t, it’s not an irrevocable slap in the face. Riley and Greta can still go out to dinner, catch up on the phone, and stay in each other’s lives.

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  • drunkenwitchdrunkenwitch member
    Ninth Anniversary 1000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
    I'm confused, my grandmother died years ago and I'm not getting married, how is she writing this letter? (I would put that in the pink comic sans sarcasm font but that doesn't seem to be an option anymore.  Bummer.)

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  • Jen4948Jen4948 member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 25 Answers
    MyNameIsNot said:
    Dear Pruddie,

    I love my grandmother, I really do, but I just don't know how to deal with her meddling and dramatics. The latest is that I'm getting married, and like most couples, we don't have the luxury of inviting every person we know. Grandma insists that we must invite her friend. This friend doesn't have grandchildren of her own and has sent me birthday cards and the like, but she isn't someone I consider myself close to. She once insisted that we go to dinner while I visited my family. It was incredibly awkward, as I barely know this woman. I've always been polite and sent thank you notes for anything she's done, but do these birthday cards obligate me to invite her to the wedding? 

    Now, grandma has decided that she's not coming if this friend isn't there. She's convinced that my father is paying for the wedding at that somehow that means we have an unlimited budget. I'm torn. Part of me thinks I should just pick up a couple of extra shifts to cover the cost and avoid drama, but part of me thinks it's time to call grandma's bluff. What do I do?
    Hammer, meet head of nail.

    Grandma, back off. Greta might not be invited for reasons that really aren't your business. Knock off your hurt feelings and threats of boycotting and accept that she is not entitled to an invitation to every single family occasion. And you are not entitled to decide otherwise.
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