Wedding - To think that bride and groom need can invite different number of family guests

[colourflash]

My wedding plans are going nowhere. My fiancé won't accept that my family is bigger than his. Thinks it will look 'weird' that the family member ratio will be 1:3. This is first level family so aunts, uncles, first cousins, siblings (plus their partners, children). No friends invited, family only is what we both want.

He thinks I should not invite some of my family to reduce the guest list on my side. He says it will be embarrassing for his family to be so small in comparison. Am I right to think his reasoning is absolutely insane and makes no sense? Please tell me who is being unreasonable because it's causing so many arguments. I want my entire family at the wedding! Will it look ridiculous??

It's not been constant arguing for a year just arguing whenever wedding talk cropped up over the past year. So whenever we started arguing we would stop wedding planning. In general whenever we argue we drop the topic and move on as we are both laid back and neither of us care about winning arguments so let disagreements go easily. Problem has therefore been that we can't really ignore wedding planning so it's kept us returning to the same issue.

Following your replies I felt boosted to push the topic further and I've just seen the argument through to the end. Unpleasant for both of us but got to the real core of the problem. He wants a less expensive wedding which to be honest I'm actually fine with. He didn't want to say I couldn't invite anyone so said the ratio reason. I knew the ratio reason was bonkers!

I had far more family than DH at our wedding. It wasn't a problem - it was never even raised as a problem. I have a very large immediate family - he doesn't. It's nothing to remark upon. How many siblings/Aunts/Uncles someone has is no reflection on anything is it?

Ahhh, well done colour! Thanks for the excellent update and good on you for pushing through an uncomfortable conversation.
"Adult communication solves problem " - the most satisfying resolution of an AIBU I have ever read.

We have been arguing for a year over this. It's exhausting

Did you switch your alarm bells off and go colour blind over red flags in your desperation to get hitched or something?
He's going to be like this with everything to do with your family.
It's an unhealthy need for control and to know your place.

Future complaints will be along the lines of -
Number of times you visit your family/relatives compared to his - so you have to 'drop' some people/distance yourself.
Number of times your side visits you compared to his - so you have to 'cut-back' on this too.
Money spent on gifts for your side compared to his - so again you will be expected to make 'cut backs'.
How often your side see any future dc compared to his - so you have to limit your dc involvement with your wider family.

Or he'll expect you to 'give' more to his side to 'make it fair' - so you end up kowtowing to his demands/expectations/tantrums for the sake of a peaceful life.

I bet he has no issue with the amount of gifts/money etc he receives from your side though - or will he expect you to cut back on that too so it doesn't 'show up' his side?

He's CHOOSING not to be rational about this OP.
He's been stropping about it for a year and refusing to discuss it and move on like a reasonable adult
What does he think will happen when it comes to sending out invites?
Oh that's right - you can't sort anything or move on with plans until he says so.....

Is he saying he won't marry you 'unless' you do it his way?
His behaviour just screams of 'control'......i don't think you know him as well as you think you do OP......

Your DP is being ridiculous.

We had immediate family only at our wedding. I.e parents, siblings and nieces.

My in laws said this was unfair as I have two siblings to DH’s one and nieces and DH doesn’t have any. It lead to a big fallout so be careful.

Just seen your update and i think he's talking out of his arse.

OP I'm not sure how this helps
He's now saying he argued about numbers when he really wanted a cheaper wedding? He should have said that then.

I'm also wondering if a cheaper wedding means you'll be asked to reduce your guest list.

I do think it is a bit worrying that it has taken you a year to have a simple conversation about something pretty practical and (to most people) non-contentious as this. How is your relationship going to work when one of you actually needs to bring up something that might offend the other ?

His position makes no sense. Having a small family isn't embarrassing it's just what it is. I could understand better if you had more friends than him but the size of one's family doesn't reflect on someone at all.

Is this a money thing where he does not want to pay an equal share of the wedding costs if he has less guests? Are there friends he could invite to increase his numbers?

That he is taking such a strange position and delaying the wedding for so long for is a red flag that there may be a deeper problem.

I've just seen your update. It's odd it's taken him a year to say what budget he wants for your wedding. You both need to work on your communication before you get married

Your bf is being ridiculous. No one has control over the amount of family they have (their own offspring excepted).

I can't ever remember attending a wedding where people sat strictly on the bride or groom's "side". We all just sat wherever we wanted to.

My mum has one sibling. My dad has eight. Was he supposed to only invite one of his siblings to their wedding to keep things "equal"? By the sounds of it, yes, according to your bf. What nonsense.

If the two of you can't agree on something as simple as this, I think there are far greater issues at play.

We didn’t have this issue at ours (parents and siblings only) but DH’s brother and his wife did. My SIL has a much smaller family but insisted on a 50:50 split, however I think this was because DH’s family tend to do the whole “If X isn’t invited then I’m not coming” dramatics. So she wanted to prove a point and enjoyed having all of her friends there, while her husband only had long lost aunts, cousins etc and no space for friends. I don’t see the point though if you are not planning on inviting friends

when i got married my family was parents, 2 grandparents, my brother and sister and an aunt.
my dh had parents, 3 siblings, 3 sibling partners, 5 neices/nephews, an aunt and 2 cousins and another 6 randoms.
those were our families. cant see what could be done about that! unless time travel involved.
we didnt have sides and didnt have table plans.

I agree YNBU and suggest that you find yourself a new fiancé, one who loves everything about you, even the not so great things and in any arrangements, just wants you to be happy.

Very definately do not marry someone who claims to be embarrassed that you have a family that is larger than his. WTF? Something that is way outside your control.. where will it end? You can't give your nieces and nephews Christmas presents because is 'isnt fair', spend time with your family? Speak to them on the phone?

It's a bit of a cliche but 'when someone tells you who they are, as your fiancé is doing, listen to them. Save yourself from a miserable life.

DH’s family is huge. We split the number of guests in half, he invited his family, I invited mine plus our friends as my half.

Of course by the end of the day there was no his and mine, they were all ours.

I was at a wedding where there were 90 guests in all. Only 35 were the bride’s side. The rest were the groom’s side and it was fine.

Can’t you just invite everyone but have a cheaper wedding? It doesn’t have to be one of these dos in a posh hotel.

No friends invited is very sad to me.

We got married 2 months ago, my
DH has much less family to invite than me (while other thread) we didn’ Have ‘sides’ in the room and had this at the door.

I understand where he's coming from as had similar issues and pressure from in laws, he wasn't bothered really.

My family was much bigger and there was an element of saving face on his family's side (his parents had fallen out with all the remaining family) so we had parents and my siblings only to the actual ceremony and then a bigger party at night.

This caused issues on my side as well to be fair as my parents paid the majority and wanted more people to actually see me get married.

I should have stuck to my original plan of just me and him getting married on a beach - alone! You seriously can not please everyone so my only advice is to please yourself.

I loved my wedding day but would have preferred to have paid for it fully ourselves and done it our way!

general whenever we argue we drop the topic and move on as we are both laid back and neither of us care about winning arguments so let disagreements go easily.

That is not laid back, that is avoiding the issue, a strategy which you can now see simply does not work when you need a solution to something. These situations really do define how a relationship will work when there are big issues to navigate.

You want your close family there which is understandable, he is only worried about how he looks which is immature, unreasonable and he is stubborn and won’t budge. Youve hit stalemate on what should be a minor issue. If this has been going on for a year he doesn’t even sound keen to get married. Red flag for your relationship.

We had a similar thing - DH is one of 8 with millions of cousins, I have one sister and no aunts/uncles close enough to come to our wedding. My family was 6 people! It is just the simple maths of it.

Did all those that had a smaller family to invite ONLY invite family or did you invite friends as well?

Why only invite family?

So you are marrying someone who cannot be honest about such a simple thing? It took a year to get to the bottom of this and caused how many arguments?
Have you considered that he has just changed his reason to make sure he get what he wants?
This is a huge red flag.

OP, your latest post suggests you may both just have learnt something essential about relationships.

in general whenever we argue we drop the topic and move on as we are both laid back and neither of us care about winning arguments so let disagreements go easily.

This is not going to work in a longterm relationship that involves the intertwining of both your life and possibly that of children. Sooner or later there will be far more serious decisions that actually need to be made, need to be made quickly and need to be made without resentment on either part. You need to find a way of interacting where you can communicate clearly and reach a compromise or decide to go with one of two options.

Marriage involves a promise "for better for worse". It's the "worse" bit, ime, that needs clear communication.