For fuck sake a wedding one

[BrightonBelleCat]

I'm getting married later this year. Now started pulling together the guest list as sending out invitations this week. All fine, done and dusted. On phone to dp tonight who happened to be at his mothers.

Somehow it turned into a group chat about who dp is having from 'his side'. The numbers are pretty even but there are more people on my side of the family. Obviously this is out of my control. I have more siblings.

Mil says what about x and x. Dp says no probably not they can come in the evening. Mil says well Brighton is having x number of people. Again out of my control.

I heard dp say well we can't help that.
Mil then starts ranting away about how I've got more people than dp. Again not my fault.

What the fuck do I do? I can't uninvite my siblings because fucking bob and Sheila from up the road need an invite.

Don't give in! I know someone who cut down their own list of friends to accommodate 4 friends of her MIL - and she really regrets it. She never met these people before or since - but did it to keep the peace.

Nope because they didn't get to invite their best man and his family and another family member we had never met, despite having the guest list they took it upon themselves to invite these people without telling us and book them hotel rooms.

We said no, explained we didn't want the circus they clearly wanted. We wanted an intimate wedding. They didn't come and we have been NC for a year now.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't what we wanted but DH and I don't regret the way we did our wedding and we don't regret standing up for ourselves. It's their loss. They told us they weren't coming because they didn't know anyone. What can we say to that? Nothing.

My DP has about a dozen people more than me on his list, I don't care and neither do my parents. I actually offered that they could invite more people if they wanted but my mum said no, the family I had already mentioned were fine, it's your day.

Christ I'm sorry. I don't think we are at that stage yet.

It's both of our second marriages his parents have expressed zero interest in the wedding to date. This is literally her first input. So I'm more than a bit fucked off.

I would be tempted to be very wooden and say well, the invitations are out, so that's that, MIL you'll just have to hope someone declines.

Hope this doesn't snowball.

Could be worse, my friends DM actually sent her own invitations to 12 people and never told the bride or groom. They didn't know until 9 of them actually turned up. DM response was along the lines of she wanted them to see her big day as mother of the bride and since the reception was a buffet it didn't matter.

Angelic what the fuck!

No pay, no say. Simple.

Yep. She totally couldn't see why it might be a problem and was so focused on her MoB outfit etc. Nope, she wasn't paying for any of it but it was still her big day. That was 6 years ago and, unsurprisingly, they have gone NC since their LO arrived 4.5 years ago. Apparently, grandma is more important than mum!

We uninvited my mil and had the day exactly as we wanted it. . .

It's not about equal numbers, it's inviting the people closest to you. Your MIL is being ridiculous.

OP. Give your MiL a job to do. She's probably feeling nervous about the day. If you ask her to 'look after' something (even if it's 'could you please make sure guest A and B are okay as they don't know anyone else') she'll get the hell off your back as she'll feel part of it.

Trust me on this, once you give her a job she'll stop being such a baggage.

The thing that pisses me off about it all
Is that she has not asked one single question about the wedding, asked how it's going anything. Fine I get it. It's a second wedding it's not as important as a first one we are cracking on a bit blah blah

But for this to be the first bloody input she has and it's a criticism. That gets on my tits.

Fuck bob and Sheila I've met them once!

MIL did this to me. Turned up at the church and reception with a bunch of univited guests. It was a small church!!

My mum was like this. DH has loads of aunts, uncles, cousins, I do not. My mum said in was not fair and that she should get to invite friends (and random work colleagues) to even the numbers. She felt very strongly about it. I did point out that PILs would think it equally unfair if my parents got to invite friends and work colleagues but PILs did not. In the end she did invite some randoms (but not enough to fully even the numbers). I caved because she had suffered a recent bereavment so I did not want further upset, and also because my PILs were highly reasonable and understanding! It still annoys me 15 years later when i flick through wedding photos and see the randoms though!

Can't imagine getting all petty about how many from my side and how many from his side are coming tbh. MIL sounds like an idiot.

I have more nephews and nieces. This apparently is an issue.

ponders telling siblings to stick them back.

You need to have a united front and agreed message, how about "MIL, we haven't drawn up a guest list based on set numbers, but level of relationship, as in siblings, aunts, uncles, close friends onwards. That seemed better than having set numbers then either having to pick between level of relationship people - as in, this cousin or that cousin? - or having people there who aren't really part of our lives in order to bulk up the numbers. Being a bit older, we both know friends who had people at their weddings 5/10/15 years ago they haven't set eyes on since, and we both wanted to avoid that. We aren't interested in bulking up numbers so both sides exactly match in number, so long as they match in relationship. There might be more people in my family, that doesn't mean your family is less important."

It sounds like your future DH is handling it well so far. Let him.

If she continues, he can always suggest that if she wants to remain on the guest list, she'll zip it.

Brighton second wedding MORE important IMHO because you are more likely to stick with the marriage then the first one because you know what an utter horror divorce is. Older, wiser etc.

I hope you have a truly wonderful day.

Aww OP my heart goes out to you I too have a large family compared to exH small one. To compensate for this we had to invite the most random of people. Some even exH hadn't met. I queried why is MIL teacher from school coming to the whole day, in reply, my side will look a bit empty.

I replied it won't, you have friends going to bolster the numbers on your side.

I remember on the day, the wedding planner told the ushers to put friends on my side. exMIL was hopping that in the video & photos her side looked bare.

It does seem a bit odd to say it's "out of your control" how many people you invite, as it quite clearly isn't.
What sort of difference are we talking about? You have, say, five siblings with spouses and children. That could be twenty more people than your dh will have? Or is it more than that?

I have 3 siblings with 10 kids he has one sibling with 2 kids. So the difference is going to be about 14 people. I can't even do the maths I'm so tired.

I mean it's kind of out of my control how many siblings I have.

Thankfully we made it clear there was to be no bride's side, groom's side in the Church . People forget that's not the bit that makes the wedding legal.