Should parents have a say in wedding guest list?

[thedowntontrout]

At all?
I’m not talking about wanting to choose half the guests or Great Aunt Sue and your 15 cousins.
Should parents of the groom be consulted on the guest list and would it be unreasonable to expect to be able to invite 2 guests of our own choosing?

Who's paying for the wedding?

Yes and YANBU. I feel for you OP if you are scared to ask 😞

Depends on whether you’re contributing to the costs of the wedding.

Two guest. Without question. I paid for the wedding and let parents chose close friends. It went up to seventy. It still hurts me. I got towels as a wedding present from my parents but they liked the show on the day

How much are you chipping in?

Are the two proposed guests well known to the couple getting married?

Are the couple getting married already involving you?

(I'm assuming you are parent of groom) (if not ignore me)

We ended up with 200 guests and my parents friends made up 70

Oh good lord no. If they want to invite people to a wedding they can get divorced and then remarry and do what the fuck they like.

Whoever pays for the wedding gets input into the guest list.

We paid for our own wedding but we were more than happy to let our parents invite some friends, nice for them to enjoy themselves with a couple of friends.

My parents and PIL each got to invite 10 people to our wedding - we were having an informal buffet reception, so were able to invite more people.

I was aware that my parents had been invited to the weddings of some of their friends’ children, so it seemed like the normal thing to do. And I thought it was nice if they and my PIL had friends at the wedding, so they’d got people to talk to.

It depends who the people are. If they have never met the bride/groom YABU. If they are old family friends you're not.

In the other hand can't you just let the b&g get on with it? I take it you've asked and been refused? Maybe they just don't want that kind of wedding. You can make it a big deal or you can not make it a big deal...

Nope. And if they want to contribute financially they should do it without conditions.

We are contributing (although the PotB have contributed more as we paid the deposit on their house.)
I would like to think it’s not about who pays what. I just thought it was polite to be asked.

How well do the B&G know the people you want to invite?

It depends if there’s space, if you’re contributing, if they like the people you want to invite, if they want a bigger do

If they want strangers there

I’m very polite but it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to ask DHs parents

Well it depends on who is paying. But surely 2 guests wouldn't make much difference either way.

They know them well. They’ve been our closest friends for years.
The only invites for our family, are DH and I, DHs parents, our other 2 daughters- who don’t have partners.
No aunts, cousins, my parents are dead so no more grand parents, not our brothers or sisters. I’m fine with all that.

Do these two people know the bride and groom? And is there a limit on numbers? These affect u ness.

If they (parents) are paying then they get full control in my book, if bride & groom are paying their own way then they get their preference. If you've given them cash to help start their new life together and they can't oblige with basic courtesy I'd say they're spoilt & ungrateful. Sorry you've been treated like this💐

Just ask!

It depends who's paying. If parents are paying or at least contributing then yes. If the couple are paying then no. (If they ask if you will be inviting... Then you can say yes or no).
We paid for our own wedding and we chose who we invited ourselves.

Tbh I would expect family to be invited before parents' friends.

The fact that they've been your friends for years has no bearing on how well the B&G feels they know them. I wouldn't even recognise my parents' closest friends so I wouldn't really want them taking up a place at my wedding, iyswim.