Very limited guest list for wedding and mum wants to invite all her friends

[bells2810]

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?

I had similar and i paid for my own wedding. could only fit a certain amount of people. My parents couldn't get heir head around it, they were like but can we ask so and so, i responded yes you can but who do you take off your list then? They soon got the hang of it. I understand that you might not be able to give the money back but if she not backing down then i would seriously try even if it means a loan that way then you have full control over it. Another thing i did was not to tell anyone the details of my wedding that was all kept between me and my husband, only told them when it couldn't be changed. Best of luck and be strong this is your day

If you’d like a step between giving her the money back - print out the guest list. Highlight everyone who is part of the wedding party/partners of wedding party people in one colour. Highlight everyone who is from your dp’s family in a 2nd colour. Show her the list and that there are only 3 places spare as 50 is the maximum. Ask her who of your family she thinks should be uninvited to fit in her friends. Be clear she has to get the list to 50, that 50 has to include bride and groom, grooms family, best man and bridesmaids.

make her see what she’s asking. Ask questions like “do you really think your friend Julie and her husband should get cousin Stephen and his wife’s spaces?” Ask her what she thinks the solution is. Is it that she wants you to arrange a different wedding package with more people going to the wedding? Does she think you can just have 54?

offer a compromise- get your invites out to your 47 people early, if you have a number of declines, her friends will be your 2nd round of invites and those will be sent out before 6 weeks before the wedding so it’s not obvious they are the reserve list.

if she’s stubborn about that these people must go to the wedding as she’s paying, give her the money back.

Get married just you two. Don't take her money.

Elope

I had this with my dad. He offered to help and this then meant an entourage of his mates that I hadn’t met. I capped it at 16 out of 120 and said he would just have to decide who those people were are they weren’t even people I knew. I was pissed off and a bit confused but they were all fine on the day.

"grateful for you paying but you have to remember it's not your wedding"

'I don’t know what to do'

Tell her that if you had of known that her offer to contribute towards your wedding meant that she would thought she would get to dictate and use it as a form of manipulation, then you wouldn't of accepted her offer. Then refund her. * *

I have been in this situation OP.

If the venue has been booked, it’s not fair for your mum to announce she wants to invite more people, presumably she knows the venue capacity. In that way, she’s being unfair. It wasn’t a kind gift if it’s being used to manipulate you into uninviting close family and friends in favour of your mum’s mates cos ‘she paid for it’. That’s not really in the spirit of money being ‘kindly offered.’ I’d understand more if your mum had given you the money on the understanding you’d invite her friends, but it sounds like she’s announced it after the venue has been booked.

I’m guessing it’s financially difficult/unviable to give the money back straight away? Could you plan to pay her back in instalments?

Oh sorry I missed abit on my suggestion- give her a 3rd highlighter colour and ask her to highlight those from your side who should be invited, on your printed list number everyone down to 47 then have spaces 48, 49, 50 empty to have the names written in. Make it visual so it’s clear someone has to be taken off the list to fit these friends of hers on, that someone being removed can’t be from your wedding party or DH s family, it has to be from your family numbers.

DM’s not contributing a penny to
your wedding.

She’s throwing a shindig for family and her friends almost entirely at your expense. And bullying you to invite more.

how sad for you OP. Enjoy your wedding 💒

Give the money back. It’s not on that she is giving it with big strings attached.

Just tell her no. It's a small wedding and you don't want to change the venue at this stage.

If it is 47 when relatives are considered, 14 extra who are not relatives or your friends seems excessive.

This is why I refused to take a penny off my mother for our wedding, even though she kept on talking about giving me some.

She did try to shoehorn in some people and to keep the peace I agreed, but that was really because I'd had quite a few indicate that they couldn't come anyway so had spaces to offer. The people she wanted there couldn't make it anyway.

@WavePlant Which generation of parents is it whose own parents controlled their weddings so they feel they should control those of the next generation? My great grandfather controlled my grandmother's in the sense of paying for it and since weddings weren't such a thing for most people there were v few friends to add to the close relatives, but my grandmother didn't control my mother's nor she mine. I think you'd have to go back to the Thirties and Forties for accepted parental control of guestlists. The OPs mother is just being a controlling old bat.

@crosstalk my parents were married in the late 60s and it was a gripe they weren't in control of the guest list.

So I guess it was possibly different families and stuff had different views on it.

What part of "We aren’t having a separate day/night do with extra guests arriving later etc" would make you suggest evening invites?

It's frustrating enough when people don't RTFT, but not reading the OP is ridiculous.

Pay yourself and keep the guest list as it is. Or if you want your parents to pay, let them have a few guests.

In your situation, given that the venue is likely booked, and you'll lose money, I'd just tell her she can't invite her friends and leave it there. If she keeps bringing up the money she's spent, keep explaining exactly why she can't add extra people to the guest list. Yes it may cause aggro, she may stamp her feet and have a tantrum, but she'd likely do that if you refused the money too, it's about control. So have the wedding you want, with her money, after all it was presumably a gift when initially offered, with no strings attached. Then don't accept money from her ever again, for anything.

I don't think outside up UMC that it's typical for parents to pay tens of thousands of pounds for their kids wedding. I agree it's not cringe to offer as a parent, I'd think it's cringe of a child to expect it or rely upon it

Money with strings is not a gift.

Rethink your wedding plan.

You will be furious if your day is full of people unconnected with you and likely regret it long term.

I was going to say the same thing. I think it was traditional for parents to pay and organise the wedding and invite whoever they wanted. My parents invited a lot of their friends to my wedding but they paid and organised it all. It is best to understand this before you talk to them about it.

In the 90s, XMIL offered to pay a big chunk of our wedding budget. A few months into planning the guest list there was lots of "don't forget..., What about..., You must invite... "

It was getting ridiculous, so even though we were poor students, we told her to take her money back and we'd fund it ourselves as it was our wedding.

She was massively stroppy when X spoke to her about it, added to her existing thoughts of "jumpking is wrong for my son" and she never really got

back from that for our 20 yr marriage.

We ended up letting her pay for the toast.

(I'm sure you guessed I posted too early on the previous post 🤣)

Given that almost all your guests are immediate family, I'm not sure what she expects. Her friends being invited instead of her own siblings?

Are most of the family on your DH's side, so she doesn't feel your family are represented enough?

Or are your parents divorced and she doesn't want to pay for your DF's side of your family?

Or is it that she wants you to have a bigger wedding?

Understanding that might help you to resolve it.

What percentage of your wedding is she paying for? That might be another way to approach it..