Wedding invites - is this bitter of me?

So it’s a mid-week small ish wedding and your 2nd time?

I’d say don’t invite any cousins at all, on either side 🤷🏻‍♀️

Chances are they won’t come anyway….. I certainly wouldn’t use 2 days annual leave for a cousins wedding…… tbh I’d be a bit miffed doing it for all but my best friend!

If they’ve invited without partners, I’d happily do the same.

I had this with my family. My other half wasn’t invited to my cousin’s wedding. I actually thought it was fair enough as I have probs only met my cousin a dozen times in my life. When it came round to my wedding, I just invited the cousin and not his wife and kids and he was really upset by this. I don’t think he appreciated that my family on the other side is enormous and I hadn’t invited any cousins from that side at all in an effort to keep numbers down. If I’d invited all cousins and their families it would have been an extra 50 people… so I think it’s totally fair not to invite the spouses but just have a plan for how to manage it if there’s push back. I don’t think I was as sympathetic as I could have been and I feel a little guilty about this.

If it's a local midweek wedding then invite the cousins and their spouses to the evening do only. Just have friends and family that you, he or both of you are close to at the full event.

Invite parents, siblings and friends.
Or elope.

I think you can not invite them due to numbers.

Or you can say your husband needs to put more in money into the budget to cover them (though let’s be honest that will still affect you).

But if you don’t just not invite them purely because you didn’t go to theirs, you will look petty.

I too would be offended not to have been invited to theirs, as a long term partner or fiancée, so I totally get how you feel.

It's a difficult one because cousins plus partners can take up the chunk of your guest list. Conversely, you will have friends at your wedding that you will lose touch with down the line, whereas family will most likely always be there for high days and holidays. When else would you see them?

You could do the no ring, no bring as a cut-off, so no unmarried partners, but it sounds like the married are just 2 extra (3 if the recent wedding is a cousin?) and they are important to your partner's family (and apparently to him, if he is leaving you for an overnighter for the next one). It's not like you're inviting 20 extra.

If you can afford it, it's always nice to be magnanimous rather than 'fair', plus here is your opportunity to meet the extended family. Start your married life in a spirit of welcome generosity, rather than keeping score. Rise above the tit-for-tat no invite thing. That can get exhausting.

(You can always save a few pointed barbs in the line-up for your own amusement: 'how lovely to meet you...at last'. 'Ha, bet you thought he was making me up. lol what is he like.' etc 😂)

You can both be the bigger person as well as keep the cost down. Just match their energy. Congratulate them by card or something, but only invite the people to your wedding you really want there.

I take it you and your fiance have a fixed number of guests your budget allows? Just split the number down the middle. Each of you get that number to invite people. If your fiance wants to invite more people, he pays for all added costs.

I would imagine that, unless they’re very self entitled, that they would be accepting of you not inviting their partners, because they did the same to you. It would be really unfair for them to hold you to account for something they did themselves.

People who see invites/non-invites as power games and snubs are so EXHAUSTING.

You have no idea why you weren't invited to the other weddings. Maybe they were trying to keep costs down. But you've interpreted it as a snub and you're determined to have some sort of petty revenge. Not a good look.

Invite people if you like them and want them there. Don't invite them if you don't. If you want to keep costs down, invite as few people as you want. If you dislike these cousins' partners, feel free to leave them out. However your fiance's opinions on this should also be taken into account.

The only person coming across as badly here is you, because you're the one treating life like a journey of petty point-scoring.

This happened to me. I paid 50% but very small family and DH very large family. Tried to prune the cousins (some hadn’t been seen by DH for years and never close) to equal it up and keep within budget. Made a huge stink that has never really been forgiven by my in-laws, who blamed me 🤷🏻‍♀️

I only invited my cousins that I regularly socialised with. The ones I barely saw were strangers to me.

This is kind of worse than not inviting partners at all. You're effectively saying the partners should come, amuse themselves for the day while their other half is at the wedding, then join in the evening as kind of second class guests.

I think the fair way to deal with wedding invitations is this - decide how many people you want there. Then each of you invite 50% of that number, who ever you choose. So if he wants his cousins and partners included in his guest list, they will be there.

When I got married this is what we did. I don't have many relatives, so most of my guests were my friends. His mum fought against that, saying that relatives (their relatives) were more important and should come before my friends, but we stuck to our guns and it worked well for us.

They have set the precedent. You're just following their lead.

To be honest, I don't understand why your fiance is accepting these invitations at all? He should be declining them.

Try to push the resentful chip off your shoulder.
The invitation exclusion might not be personal at all.
Only invite who you would like to invite.
If DP wants his cousins and partners - fine. Maybe DP will pay extra for the few extras.
Do not dwell too much on the guest list apart from having your nearest and dearest and who you want to be there.
DP could invite just one ot two of his closest cousins and their partners. You both don't have to invite all cousins.
Do not take it personally.

I hate the 'be the bigger person' argument, particularly as your fiance isn't having to be the bigger person (as he was invited to their weddings), you are. If he is so desperate to include them, he can pay for them, particularly as you are already inviting fewer people but paying 50% of the costs.

My rule was that I didn’t want my husband or me to meet anyone for the first time at our wedding. It was one of the most important days of our lives and we wanted to spend it only with people we knew and cared about.

Because of this we took the time to meet up with our friends and their partners in the year before we got married to ensure we had both met everyone and their partners before the big day.

I think only inviting half of a couple to a wedding is tacky behaviour whenever you do it. I could maybe understand if one of the couple is vulnerable and the other an arsehole.

If you aren't close to these cousins and it's a small wedding I'd be tempted to only invite the aunts and uncles on his side and none of the cousins. Inviting in circles is usually considered reasonable.