Do parents have no say in wedding invites?

[MyOtherCarIsAPorsche]

From another thread I've just read. The parents' friends are not invited to their daughter's wedding.

A reply said that this is the 21st century and it's solely up to the bride and groom who are invited.

Is this correct?

We are fully paying for our daughter's wedding next year and we were hoping that our good friends would be invited. There are just 12 of us on our side of the family and possibly over 150 on future son in law's side (mainly his family and friends - about 12 of my daughter's friends). They have arranged a Photo Booth, a string quartet, children's play area, a band, a bowling alley - all sorts of 'entertainment'. All this plus suits and dresses for groomsmen, bridesmaids and pageboys.

Save the date cards have been designed but not ordered yet and I was hoping that this would be the time to ask if our friends could attend. Our children have known our friends all their lives. In times gone by they would have been possibly been referred to as 'Aunty and uncle'.

Is it considered cheeky to interfere in guest lists? Do we get a say in who attends?

Blimey if it’s only one couple of friends of yours of course they should be invited, when 150 of the guests are from the other side and you are paying, it must be so expensive!

I’d think it a bit off if your daughter didn’t suggest they should be on the list. I invited 2 friends of my parents who are important to them. We are the same and have a v small family compare to my husbands!

There are just 12 of us on our side of the family and possibly over 150 on future son in law's side (mainly his family and friends - about 12 of my daughter's friends)

Bloody hell. I would not be paying the whole whack for a wedding with this imbalance of guests. Even if I could afford it.

We want it to be their day.

We understand that her partner has hundreds of friends. We have socialised with lots of them over the past few years. They are a great bunch of people. We know that the list is holding things up somewhat as his family think he should prioritise second cousins over his friends.

Its for them to finalise.

I would guess this costing over £30,000 could be well over. FFS invite a couple of friends.

We have one child getting married this year and one next year. We are contributing an equal amount to each, by no means paying all of it. In both cases they have asked or are going to ask our oldest friends (my bridesmaids for example). And our close group of local friends will get an evening invite too. I have several of this friend group who have children getting married this year, and we are invited to the evening of at least 3 couples. (I know MN has issues with evening invitations but these are all local and will be lovely). We have all known each other’s children since playgroup time which is about 25-30 years now. Others that are marrying much further away or really small weddings we are understandably not invited.

If you're paying the invitations come from you - so you do get a say. If they don't like it they can pay for it themselves.

I think its reasonable to ask. We paid for our own wedding 4 years ago. We listed family friends etc that we thought we should invite and checked if parents thought there was anyone else. Both sides of parents said it was entirely up to us but it would be nice to invite those people.

Ask your daughter now so as not to be upset later if they don't get an invite.

And if you're paying the whole whack for a wedding of course you should get a say in who attends!!!

Haven't you discussed all this with your dd already, though? I would.

If it is just one couple then I think it is fair enough that you should invite them. I still think that the B and G are taking the piss with all the extras.

See, I don't understand this POV at all. Aren't you close to any of your parents' friends? Didn't your parents want any of their friends to attend your wedding?

My parents paid for my wedding in full (and basically gave me no limit of budget either) and of course they had a say.

We had 160 guests, and we settled it that they had 30 guests outside family. My PIL got 6 couples I think, again outside their family. Rest of the guests were family of both sides and our friends.

Perfectly reasonable and if they don’t like it they can pay for it themselves.

To be honest, over 30 years ago when we got married and the DHs parents invited their mates who were work colleagues of his dad, I thought it was weird. Some of these people had kids same age as DH that he knew, but they weren’t invited. My parents invited friends who were more of the ‘friends, neighbours, families’ category. I do remember feeling that I thought the idea of near strangers having seats at a fancy reception that some of our friends couldn’t be invited to because of numbers was a sort of odd. Especially as many had come to the church service. We didn’t have a disco/evening reception with dancing. A month after the wedding we had a garden party at our college for friends and there were lots of children there and it was really lovely and a bit more fun than the formal stuff.

If you are paying you should absolutely get a say unless it's a very small wedding

If your paying for the wedding comes with terms and conditions you needed to have stated that at the start.

If you know they're already having to cut people out (second cousins v friends) due to numbers, it's too late to try and shoehorn in your own guests IMO.

My parents paid for our wedding and they invited some of their friends. But they were people I’d known all my life and I wanted them there.

My nephew is getting married soon and he and his partner are finding their wedding. They get to choose who goes.

Maybe all these friends the groom is having are joint friends it is just you don’t know them.

We have not attached any strings.

In what way?

You get no say. You could request, but gifting money should not come with strings.

As an aside, I really hope this doesn’t mean that DH and I will have to go to all of our friends’ children’s weddings in 25 years time. We’ve spent enough on weddings in the past 15 years 🤦🏻‍♀️

Agree with PPs, like fuck would I be funding my DCs wedding(s) if 150 people were going from their spouse-to-be's side. Nah, fuck that!

I don't think you can demand (really doesn't sound for a second like you would!) but I think in the circumstances you are well within your rights to ask, and I would be surprised (and a bit disappointed) at your dd and sil to be if they said no.

It's completely reasonable if you are paying for such a large do that you should also have your best friends around on the day, especially if they're uncle and aunt status for your daughter, so presumably people she's also fond of. Have you actually asked your daughter? If you're close I would have thought she would have already considered this.

It depends who is paying, OP. If the couple are paying for everything, they decide. If you are, you do.

My Dad paid for my wedding. The guest list of 80 day guests was approved by him. We did invite another 40 for the evening ourselves.

Yes - this venue is three rooms, 300 guests. The venue splits the rooms for different sized packages. They specifically chose this date so they could have all three rooms. So we're expecting the evening event to be huge.

We don't know final numbers yet.