To be sick of arguing about this?

[audreykrelborn]

Name change, another wedding AIBU and long ? sorry!

DP and I decided to get married at the end of March ? three months to plan it. No problem I thought We made a list of 30 close friends and family to invite to the wedding breakfast, speeches etc. after the ceremony, inviting extended family (who we love but aren?t that close to iyswim) to the evening do. If evening guests wanted to come to the church and stay in the area until the evening, lovely: if not, we understand.

However, in the last two weeks, every time DP gets on the phone to future MIL he breaks away from their conversation to ask ?can X from my side come to the meal?? (he now wants another 12-15 guests). He feels that, as they?re a small extended family making a 100+ mile round trip, we should stump up for them to attend the whole day.

The way I see it, all extended family should be treated equally. Some of my family (larger - another 30ish guests) would also be making long round trips too (admittedly not as far as DP?s family) and it seems unfair to have my extended family miss the ceremony (or wait around for hours) and definitely the reception while his enjoy the entire day. When I say this to DP he tells me IAU because the majority of my family live within 30 mins? drive of the venue

Tbh, if I had my way, we?d come back from the church to a huge party with a monster buffet/hog roast so that everyone can come to everything. DP wants the formal meal for speeches and toasts ? fine by me too, with the 30 guests we initially agreed on and no preferential treatment!

In the meantime, we?re arguing and stressed. 8 of the ?extra? guests he wanted to come are now attending the wedding breakfast (am pretty sure that future MIL has informed them) so I feel like I?ve caved and now I?m backtracking to argue about it. Please help me make some sense of this. I just want the day to be relaxed and go smoothly and these arguments smack of bridezilla - hate it!

If you made it to the end, do have a and thank you.

If dh can't stick to the agreed 30 people then I don't see why he should get his way about the 'small' formal meal. He can't have it both ways.

Compromise. Very important in a marriage.

Either he sticks to the 30 people, or you get your big party.

You and your OH need to agree, that's the main thing. I had a similar issue with my MIL and she just had to be told NO, it's not happening, these are our numbers, these are our wishes and tough if you don't like it. She sulked a bit but was ultimately not going to miss the wedding herself because of it.

I agree with SilentBob. He cant both have a small intimate formal meal, and at the same time add more and more of his family to it!

Is he always this keen to get his way?

We are planning our wedding. tbh we wouldn't invite people from a long way and not given them a meal. I kind of think it is only polite. And we are inviting extended family that we are not that close to for the meal because they are coming a long way - about 45 guests overall coming to evening do/church and 16 to meal.

But it is wrong of your MIL to tell you she wants you to invite people to the meal.

I think your DH makes sense to be honest

If your family live 30 minutes away and his are making a 100 mile trip, I'd have no problem with the extra 12 - 15 guests as long as your MIL chips in to cover the cost.

Maybe its time to rethink the whole thing? Have invites gone out? If what you have planned is starting to not work, then maybe go completely leftfield and do it differently - your big hog roast party (which incidentally is what we're doing in July ), or whatever.

Don't know if this helps, but we're having close family only (16) to the ceremony and wedding breakfast then having the hog roast party the next day. Nice and clear cut then, family only on the Friday, the world and his dog on the Saturday. Would something like that work for you?

All extended family should be treated the same.

Is your Great Aunt Gertie going to feel less hurt when she finds out that your husbands Great Aunt Greta has been invited because she lives further away but she had to go home and miss out on hearing the lovely speeches? No, she isn't. And why you should you miss out on having your family there jsy because of geography?

Your future dh is being very unreasonable and very selfish.

I agree with him that it's not right to invite people such a long way and then expect them to hang around for hours and not get fed, but that's why the intimate dinner for 30 is just not practical in your situation.

The hog roast party for everyone would work much better if you both have lots of people that you want to be there, but you have to make sacrifices if you want all your guests to be happy, which I assume you do.

You sound like you are being very accommodating and just want to have a nice day. Your fiancé needs to get with that programme.

Thanks for all your feedback

Invites printed but not sent - we could always order more for the buffet/hog roast Cup but too late for changing to a 2 day event I think (wish I'd thought of it though - yours sounds great)

SilentBoob and Quintessentialy Yours is the opinion I'm sharing at the moment. I am happy with either of these options because they seem fair to both sides.

notfluffy and Worra We have the odd dingdong but this is something else (can now see why people say guest lists are a nightmare). I do understand his and MIL's POV: it would look mean when they've got such a long way to come. It's just the thought of my family (some of whom would make a 2 hour round trip themselves) having to traipse off to the pub/miss the ceremony while seeing DP's family included - it just seems unfair.

I know the venue can do the big buffet: will check out the hog roast option and head back into the breach Will report back later. Thanks again ladies

Personally I would save a bit longer and invite everyone to the whole day. Can't stand 2 tier weddings. If you're not bothered about them attending the ceremony then why invite them? And if you do want them to attend the ceremony then I don't think it's fair to expect guests who have travelled a long way to loiter around for hours until you allow them to rejoin the celebrations.
Just my opinion though - and not one many agree with I'm sure.

I think that whoever you invite, should be invited to the entire event. I hate this inviting some people to an evening party - it makes it obvious they aren't important enough to come to the whole thing. So invite a few to the whole thing or more to the whole thing, imho.

I kind of do secretmincerinser. Its just for some saving up for longer wouldn't really be practical. We are having registry office and then back to ours for a party - so very cheap. We later added the meal before the ceremony as DP felt it was unfair to invite people from far away and not given them an actual meal. So taking them for a cheap lunch to a restaurant. I'm not going into debt for this.

I'd definately do a larger more informal do and have everyone invited for the whole thing than the small thing for 30 people.

I went for the hog roast :)

My mother somehow got my MIL to entertain ALL her friends and family elsewhere, i.e. they didn't come to the dinner part of our wedding. They came to church, the reception (cake cutting, speeches etc. happpened in the afternoon) but not to dinner and dancing.

When I say 'somehow', what actually happened is that my mother (unknown to me) emailed MIL saying that 'the young' were having 'a disco' and that she might prefer to take her family elsewhere for dinner, could my mother suggest anywhere?
Actually, we were having a very civilised dinner, dancing and fireworks, and obviously MIL found out. It got out marriage off to a good start . . . . My relationship with PIL has never really recovered.
You may not want to do this.
However, what you may want to do is what we then did to rectify the situation, and had a brunch for everybody the following day. Then you don't have to invite all the extra people, and they won't feel that they've come miles for very little.

I'd give your DP the option of either the sit down meal for 30 or the hog roast for however many. Alternatively you could agree to the extra on his side on the condition that he and MIL go around your side of the family explaining exactly why they thought his side of the family were more important than your's.

Wedding invitations are just that...invitations not court summonses so the distance thing is irrelevant.

Why can't you have speeches at a hog roast?