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?

If there aren't enough spaces for the guests that everyone wants, someone has to lose out. You could equally say that the parents were being selfish for wanting their friends at the exclusion of some of the bride and groom's, couldn't you?

No. Not when you're asking for just two friends as guests. Your words above sum it up.
'wanting their friends' is TWO people for the OP.
'Exclusion of some of the B+G's'. They're having 70 already! So what if they can't have 72, they should be generous and caring and let the G's mother have her best friend there like promised.
It's beyond me how this is selfish to want this.

Sometimes I feel with weddings that even parents are a bit surplus to requirements!

Sometimes I feel with weddings that even parents are a bit surplus to requirements!

Unless they're paying of course

That article says it really well. I often think it's weird on here when people are obviously so besotted with 'my little family' and have no empathy at all for their parents or in-laws. It's like they are incapable of making the connection. It seems unlikely they're all from dysfunctional families.

Because of issues like this we had a small wedding with who we wanted and we paid, however if both sets are contributing then they I think have an equal say, it is your day but it is a day for everyone if they help out financially.

I actually would even take the finances out of it - it’s just a way to signpost the utter selfishness of b&g here.

Regardless of who contributes I think a wedding is the start of a marriage and B&G have a responsibility to make it a lovely day for as many people as they can manage. Rather than the endless focus on their rights to a magical perfect day etc. Of course you don’t have to invite people who are rude to you or whose values you don’t share etc but just starting from a point of “my wedding my rules” and finding more and more ways to make you close family feel excluded from you new life feel terrible.
I see the same dynamics around childbirth - how best can I keep my MIL at arm’s length and discourage in laws from visiting etc etc. It’s sad really.