My fiancé and I are planning on getting married in a small venue with 50 guests at an absolute maximum. With our immediate families and then grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well as my fiancé’s best man, and two bridesmaids for me, this comes to 47 which we were happy with.
My parents have very kindly offered to help us to pay for the wedding. My mum is now saying that she wants to invite her friends to our wedding. We aren’t having a separate day/night do with extra guests arriving later etc, our only friends who are coming are in our bridal party because we wanted to keep it small and intimate. When I said this to my mum, she said I was being ungrateful and said I should remember that she is helping to pay for it.
My fiancé and I aren’t even inviting all the friends we would have invited in an ideal world because we want to keep numbers and costs down, and we had also wanted to keep it intimate. I’ve tried to explain this to my mum and she keeps bringing up the money. She wants to invite her three best friends and their partners, as well as at least four other friends and their husbands too. This would take us over the 50 guest list limit and the only way we’d be able to accommodate it is if my fiancé and I cut down our list of family or don’t have anyone in our bridal party!!
I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to upset my mum and she is helping us financially but I can’t help thinking she has had her wedding, my fiancé and I don’t want to invite loads of people who aren’t our own close friends. I don’t know how to broach this with my mum without her getting defensive, angry or upset with us. Does anyone have any tips or had a similar experience?
AIBU?
Very limited guest list for wedding and mum wants to invite all her friends
bells2810 · 30/08/2022 13:45
Am I being unreasonable?
1458 votes. Final results.
POLLCanthave2manycats · 01/09/2022 21:55
That's why I suggested a couple... and maybe this should have been discussed before the venue was booked... or maybe don't invite Uncle Jim and Aunty Mary, who you never see?!
perfectstorm · 01/09/2022 02:31
Her mother isn't asking for a couple of close friends. She's asking for 14, from a total of 50, when there are so many relatives on both sides that the only friends the bride and groom can ask as it is are her two bridesmaids and his best man. Who exactly is to be dropped, to facilitate this request?
Canthave2manycats · 01/09/2022 01:29
We had 70-odd guests, family and our closest friends at the time. We paid. We had an evening 'do' so my parents were able to invite their friends to that. We loved that we had included people we'd grown up with in our lives, and my parents certainly enjoyed sharing the big day with people they were close to.
Like the poster I've quoted, both of my parents and DH's parents are long gone, as are the majority of my aunts and uncles, and our parents' friends. I'm so glad that we were able to share our day with them.
I think a lot of you are forgetting that this is a big day in the life of a parent too! It's not just 'all about you'! Your parents reared you and sacrificed a lot in many cases to make sure you had the best of everything. Yes, you didn't ask to be born but they've put their heart, soul and finances into rearing you, and as a mum of adult children it can be a pretty fucking thankless job!!
Surely you could find it in you to let them invite a couple of close friends? Don't you think they deserve to enjoy your day too?!
Please tell your mum not to tell her friends how grudging you are being about including them! We got a 'grudging' invite - my friend really wanted us to be there and I was glad to go for her and her DH's sake - but all day long I felt conscious that the bride didn't want us there... my friend and I go back more than 30 years! I knew about her existence when she was a mere speck in the womb, and I first met her days after she was born...
PeachyPeachTrees · 31/08/2022 18:11
My wedding was 70 guests and my parents paid a big chunk. They invited about 10 of their best friends. Worked well for us. If I only had 50 then it sounds like they could have a few very close friends but not as many as they like. There will be quite a few invited that won't be able to come which means there is space. My Mum was nothing but smiles on my wedding day, she's passed now and these are special memories.
JaninaDuszejko · 01/09/2022 20:20
Of course it's a milestone for the parents. And I think you are all under estimating how recent this change is. I got married 20 years ago, my friends were all around 30 when they got married and we all had big weddings paid for by our parents with lots of our parent's friends there and with lots of our friends too. This was true for both my school friends in rural Scotland and my English upper middle class university friends.
I feel like we've lost so many of the multigeneration family celebrations that use to happen, as a child I was at weddings and christenings and wedding anniversary celebrations all the time and now we move around the country much more and we only really celebrate weddings and those are small but very expensive affairs for one generation only plus the parents of the bride and groom, but only if they behave the way the bridezilla wants. Why on earth should your parents give you any money for a glorified party for your mates? If you were paying for a party wouldn't you want a say in who was invited? Why don't you sit down together and work out who is important and who isn't to everyone who is paying. And if you want to just have your friends at this party then yes, you do have to pay for it all yourselves.
WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps · 30/08/2022 14:04
Have to say also, I am quite shocked to see quite a few people still pay for their adult childrens wedding. This seems very outdated and weird these days. Surely people who are old enough to get married, are old enough to fund the wedding themselves?
I mean maybe the parents may buy the bride's dress, or pay for the flowers etc, but the whole wedding being paid for by the bride's parents is extremely odd these days IMO. I do find it a bit cringe that working adults (often with their own home) let their parents pay for their wedding. Do people actually really do this still?
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.