Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DM and wedding invites

65 replies

Foxysoxy01 · 28/03/2017 15:51

My DM would like to invite a few of her close friends to my wedding.

Now in theory I don't have a problem with this as we have space for a few guests.

AIBU to think a couple is ok but anymore and it's a bit OTT or AIBVU and you would/have invited as many friends as your mother, so mother of the bride, wants?

So would you be happy to invite your DM friends to your wedding?

And if so how many is too many?

Or is inviting any of her friends weird and just not the done thing?

Cake and Brew for your answers.

OP posts:
Joinourclub · 28/03/2017 16:31

I invited 5. They were all people I had known well since I was a child. I have a very small family so I didn't mind inviting them.

MrsSpenserGregson · 28/03/2017 16:32

I had exactly the same scenario as TimTamTerrier ^^. This was 20-odd years ago though, and my dad paid for everything except mine and the bridesmaids' dresses

Laiste · 28/03/2017 16:35

Totally depends on the total number of guests IMO. It's about percentages.

Wedding with 200+ guests? 10 of them being your mum's mates is fine.

Wedding with 20 guests? (like mine) One unknown is quite enough.

FumBluff1 · 28/03/2017 16:36

We had a couple of my Mums friends at our wedding, she paid for a large portion of it so it only seemed fair, and we had the space to.

RyanStartedTheFire · 28/03/2017 16:38

Are they helping to pay? That's the decider for me.

PinkFlamingo545 · 28/03/2017 16:38

Unless they are friends of the bride or groom, I don't get this - inviting people you don't know, or hardly know - to be part of the most special day of your life.

I really don't get this at all. I think its bang out of order for a guest to ask invite their own guests - like your company isn't enough, your DM wants her own entourage. Even more bad taste if the bride and groom are expected to fund them!

At my wedding, some of my family expected to be able to invite their own guests, at my and DH expense. All of these extra guests were virtual strangers to us - had met them a handful of times. We said no

SquedgieBeckenheim · 28/03/2017 16:39

DM didn't insist on any guests as we'd already invited the old family friends they would have wanted.
MIL tried to insist some of their family friends were invited to the whole day rather than just evening. Apparently one of these was "like a sister to DH". DH did not agree with this statement. We were limited on numbers so some of our own friends were evening only guests when we'd have wanted them for full day so she didn't get her way. She also wanted some ancient distant relative who DH had never met invited. She was invited but declined.
DP's and PIL paid half the cost of the wedding each.

namechangedtoday15 · 28/03/2017 16:42

It depends on how your family deals with weddings. I know its not the norm on MN where we're all supposed to be independent strong assertive women, but in my family, its as much about the parents as it is about the couple (or was anyway 14 years ago!). My parents paid about 25% IIRC but they had quite alot of "input" into the guest list. I think we had about 100 guests, I'd say 10 were their friends (lifelong friends who I knew although we didn't socialise with them as a family), about 20 extended family that I'd met maybe once or twice, and then another 20 close family (my aunts, uncles and cousins). So I'd say at least 50 were their guests, my H has a small family so MIL had about 15 guests (family and friends) and we had 35-40 as friends.

GwenStaceyRocks · 28/03/2017 16:44

I think it depends on who is paying for the wedding. I only invited my DM's friends that I had known all my life but I paid for the wedding.
My DSIS invited more of our parents' friends but our parents helped pay for her wedding.

JaneEyre70 · 28/03/2017 16:48

I think if it makes your mum enjoy the day more, then invite them. If they mean a lot to her, then I understand she'd want to share such a special day with them. But I'd also think that I'd expect her to pay for them if she wasn't already contributing to the general budget.

Coughandsplutter · 28/03/2017 16:48

I remember this with my parents. My dad wanted some old work colleagues at our wedding. So he invited a couple plus their partners and then wanted to ask a few more. It started to feel like it was turning into an old work reunion so we said no. I knew the two couples who turned up but had only met the others when I was six! He was a bit annoyed but what can you do! DH has a huge family and we don't so think my dad wanted to fill up with friends! Caused a few sulks...

luckylucky24 · 28/03/2017 16:50

We invited a few of my parents friends as I have known them all my life and a few of MILs friends as DH has known them all his life. FIL wanted his friends to come as "they all go to each others kids weddings". Neither me nor DH has ever met them so they got an evening invite.

diddl · 28/03/2017 16:54

We paid for our wedding & we invited who we wanted to (as did our parents when they married in the 50s.)

That happened to include a few parental friends.

Hoppinggreen · 28/03/2017 16:55

There was nobody at my wedding that I didn't know well, no family friends or plus ones
Worked for us and nobody complained ( or if they did not to my face)

OVienna · 28/03/2017 16:57

I think if they are paying for the wedding - getting on for 100% of it, that is - two couples seems a bit tight to me UNLESS you already have a lot of family coming that you have to work around. If that category of guest is already cutting deeply into the numbers, then I think two couples is fine. Or even a discussion about who your mum would really like to be there...maybe she wants to cut family 'hangers on'.... Bearing in mind your DH's parents may insist on the same...

Paying for your own wedding def gives you more control.

Original poster
Foxysoxy01 · 28/03/2017 16:58

Thank you so much for your answers they have helped a lot.

To answer some of the questions,
It is a smallish wedding but would have room for some friends (although not really anymore than 10 total)
My parents are putting in a small amount of money basically money from an account they opened when I was a child but it probably works out about 10% or something so very generous of them but we are paying for about 90% of the wedding ourselves.

DM has been fine about it and not rude or overbearing which actually is why I want to make sure I'm not being unreasonable as I don't want to upset her and she would never tell me if I had.

She wants about 8 friends that I don't really know and another 2 I know a little.

I don t really have a problem with who she wants to invite but just don't want people to be whispering that it was weird that I didn't know these friends and if having 10 friends was too many? And was I unreasonable to say 10 was ok when actually it's the norm to invite more/less.

i just feel like I might be getting to involved in what everyone else thinks and should just do what makes me and my family happy, but again dont want people thinking the whole wedding was odd. Confused

OP posts:
sonyaya · 28/03/2017 17:09

No one would think it was "odd"! If you don't mind them being there, and it would make your mum happy, definitely invite them!

If you and your DP don't want them there, that wild be totally different.

WhereYouLeftIt · 28/03/2017 17:13

"She wants about 8 friends that I don't really know and another 2 I know a little. "
Hell no.

blueistheonlycolourwefeel · 28/03/2017 17:17

I told my parents they were allowed to invite 3 couples but I had to agree who it was.

InvisibleKittenAttack · 28/03/2017 17:19

I do think a lot of the current 'Mother of the Bride/Groom' generation have rather fallen between 2 traditions - when they got married, it was still the norm for the parents to pay for the wedding, not the couple, invites to be from the parents of the bride and the Bride's family essentially arrange it all - including the guest list. This means at their own weddings they had not a lot of say and their weddings would often have had extended family they didn't know/friends of their parents prioritised over their own friends.

Now that it should be their turn to host, the tradition has changed, few parents pay for the whole wedding anymore, and the guest list is now decided by the couple, weddings are now much more about being an event in the lives of the couple, not a 'community event' that the parents are hosting (and so inviting all their friends to).

I'd say no couples where you've not met at least one of them.

Lules · 28/03/2017 17:21

I had about 15 of my parents' friends out of 90 for the day. They paid for most of it and a lot of them I had known since I was a child.

SurlyValentine · 28/03/2017 17:23

It's YOUR wedding. YOURS. Well, yours and your DH-to-be's. Whatever you want is fine. The fact you're asking makes me think that you aren't totally on board with what your DM is asking for.

DP and I are getting married this year, and paying for it all ourselves. There are 85 guests, invited all day (no evening only guests), and apart from three of my cousins' +1's, I've met every guest at least once. DP's DF has somehow wangled that two of his friends are coming, but DP has known them all his life, and I've met them once so they fit the criteria.

My DParents haven't got any friends so there's no issue there Grin

DP's exW's parents paid for his first wedding. I think he told me he knew pretty much everyone that was at the ceremony and the wedding breakfast, but there were at least 60 people at the reception (out of about 150) that he'd never clapped eyes on before. His exiles seemed to be of the opinion that if they were paying for it, they could invite who the hell they wanted. DP really didn't want that situation to happen again.

SurlyValentine · 28/03/2017 17:24

*exILs, not bloody exiles! Although I think DP might like to exile them somewhere, given half a chance Grin

MaroonPencil · 28/03/2017 17:25

My mum also wanted me to invite not only several of her friends AND their partners, but also her cousins AND her cousins' children! who she thinks we know because she was very close to them growing up, but actually we have only seen them maybe three or four times in our lives. None of these people would I have been able to pick out in a lineup. In total it was maybe three or four friends plus partners and maybe ten of her cousins and heir families.

I invited them to the evening which was a paid bar so no skin off my nose (there was buffet as well but that would have been there anyway), the annoying thing was having to spend time chatting to them when I could have been dancing. I actually can't remember now who came and who didn't.

DorisDaisy25 · 28/03/2017 17:30

Surely if she's at her daughters wedding she'll be too preoccupied to entertain her friends? I would say YANBU. Coming from someone organising a wedding. I feel your pain!

Swipe left for the next trending thread