What would you think of your mother in law wanted to invite 3 friends to your wedding, you’ve not met before

This would be quite normal for some of the weddings I have been to. If the wedding is quite small, and bride and groom are paying entirely, then it is generally their friends and immediate family. If it is larger, and both sets of parents are contributing, much more usual to have wider family, godparents, friends of parents etc. if they are friends that knew the family when the bride/groom were born, I think fair enough.

Ou wedding was cancelled because of COVID, but my parents had probably 30% of the guest list - but they were all people I'd spent many years with as a child/teenager. Also, they were hosting!

My parents in law invited two people to my wedding. I too had never met them. And therefore my fiancé hadn’t seen them in that time either but apparently…they must be invited. It was ridiculous. We had a v small wedding too and I thought it ridiculous that 2 of his guests were his parents friends. But 🤷🏽‍♀️ it ended well because they gave us £500 😂
it was 16 years ago and we are divorced and I still think it’s ridiculous. That she insisted but that he also thought they had to be invited!!

What does your niece's fiance think about his mum inviting three of her friends to their wedding?

How many people are invited from each side of the family? Will your niece's MIL have other people that she knows well, or would that just be her husband?

If it would make your niece feel uncomfortable to the point of her not enjoying her own wedding, she should probably say no.

Anxiety? What is wrong with this generation?

I would tell her to grow up and let her mum in law have 3 (three!!!! Not 30!!) friends. For goodness sake.

I let mil invite whoever she wanted. My folks too. But we didn’t have an expensive wedding. It made little financial impact the extra people they wanted.

This is a groom's side of the family guest, so it's for your niece's fiance to make the judgement and if needed, explain the situation to his mother.

You don't day how many guests are invited and whether there are separate day and evening guest lists - if there are, evening-only invitations might be an option for these friends.

There was a friend of my MIL's at our wedding who I hadn't met - it was fine by me as DH was more than happy to have her be part of the day.

hell no its your wedding! where would they sit?

I’d expect long standing family friends to be invited unless numbers are really tight. It’s a celebration of her child, her friends should be invited to celebrate with her.

It means MIL will be happy with her own crew and no one will have to 'mind' her, that's a win win I would think. I invited a few of my Mums pals to my wedding, dh never met them. Likewise I hadn't met 2 of his uncles or their partners. I don't think in principle anyone should be introduced to a guest at their own wedding but sometimes that's just the way it goes. Obviously it depends on numbers and the venue too

honestly this is fine, it’s your husbands mother, not some random aunt/ long distance relative. I don’t see the issue with her inviting 3 close friends.

Why should they be any more difficult to fit into a seating plan than any other guests?

as long as you still have space for them.

We let each set of parents bring one or two guests. We wanted them to have fun at the reception with people they knew. We paid, if it matters.

I was told, "We're paying for your wedding so we'll invite who we want" so I had no idea who 60% of them were.

It depends if your fiance actually knows these people and who's paying.

Depends on the budget and numbers invited overall, surely ?

We asked parents if they had any friends they wanted to invite! Seemed right, as they were contributing to the cost, the wedding was huge and we wanted them to have a great time. A wedding is a big day for the parents too imo.

But I would have felt very differently if they weren't contributing, and we were having a tiny wedding with immediate family only. Three random people in that scenario would be weird.

My mother in law did this, I wasn’t that fussed tbh. Unless you have a terrible relationship with her then I wouldn’t kick off.

How many total guests at your wedding?

I had a large wedding (180 guests) and I probably hadn’t met half of them before. Mainly on in laws side

I invited some of my dad’s friends who I had heard of but never met as I wanted to ensure he had a good time

It ended up with a the more the merrier approach on the invitations in the end

Main thing though is it’s your day. I would want to be sure they aren’t big drinkers / rowdy, especially if it’s a small wedding. I would try to get more info about them, including how she knows them. And I assume there is capacity at the venue for them

There was an issue with one guest at ours - actually a good friend of mine’s husband. I had no idea he had a drinking problem, it became very apparent that evening and on events that have transpired since! All the unknown guests were fine though!

Does DH-2-be know and want them included?

Is DMIL paying for the wedding?

If either answer is yes id be open to it unless there was a reason not to be

Mine did - it was 3 people who were friends of hers and a couple who were distant relatives but DH hadn’t seen them in the 5 years we’d been together before the wedding (and probably some time before).

It was fine though, it made her happy, we just about had room (it took us to the very cap of the 80 people allowed by the venue but there was nobody else that we had to miss off because of it) and MIL paid for them - at her insistence.

Where I am we have biggish weddings so one of my children had 400 for the first evening. The bride and groom had their pick of the number of invites first then the rest were divided between both families. We’re a very small family though so we gave half of our invitations to the grooms family as there’s an awful lot of them.

The second night was about 100 people at home, mostly friends and their cousin gangs. Some of the older generation from both families were invited but they left at 10pm after dinner.

I can honestly say I didn’t know most of the people the first evening. It didn’t make a difference though. We still had a great time

And I’ve just remembered when one of my other children got married. Tourists were passing the venue in the hotel gardens when out for an after dinner walk and some of of them came up to the Marquee to see what was going on. My eldest son invited them in and they joined us for an hour or so. It was very different to anything they’d been to before and inviting them in was absolutely the right thing for my son to have done.

We had just said no. We paid our wedding ourselves.

Definitely not okay. I think guests should be known to the couple and additions like that should be evening only. (Or ceremony and evening only).

And?