DH has a milestone birthday this year and does not want a big party as its just not his thing. Instead he wants to go on a nice holiday (with myself and DC) then have a small dinner with his closest friends. He also wants to do something involving his DPs as they did bring him into the world after all!
He has proposed inviting his DPs and Dis and DBil out to a lovely dinner (paid for by us) in a nice restaurant along with our 3 DCs and his DSis and DBil 3 DCs (one is in 6th form at school, one is at university and the other has just started work). We would have just enough space for everyone to stay at our house as it is a 2.5 hour journey for them to get here.
The problem is our Niece and 2 Nephews all currently have boyfriends/girlfriends and we fear that it will cause great offence if we don't invite them too. While all of the relationships have been going longer than 6 months, none of them are engaged or live together. DH feels that if he extends the invitation to the boyfriends/girlfriends he will not get to spend time talking to his DNiece and DNephews and the dinner will primarily consist of members of his DSis' family who will all then talk amongst themselves. He also feels he does not know the boyfriend/girlfriends well enough (or actually at all!) to justify spending special evening with them. He is also worried that he will offend my DB and DM whom he is not inviting as it will all of a sudden look like a "big event" rather than a small dinner for just his immediate family. We will then also have the issue of not having space to put everyone up.....and my 16 year old DS demanding that he should be able to invite his girlfriend too (my other DCs are younger so no issues there).
Just to give some additional context, DH is not very close with his family. We see his DPs twice a year and his DSis and DBil maybe once a year. We rarely see the DNieces and DNephews now that they are older. We have met 2 of the girlfriend/boyfriends at Christmas for a few hours and never met the other one.
DH's DBil and DS are VERY family oriented - they have always invited their DCs boyfriends/girlfriends to everything and see them as part of their family.
If it were a big party or a wedding I would have no issue with extending the invitation to the boyfriends/girlfriends but for something this small I am wondering if those rules still apply?
Sorry for such a long post - I didn't want to drip feed information later. I haven't made any decisions yet but would be keen to get a general consensus as to whether there is an obviously "right thing" to do in this circumstance. Thank-you!