Wedding invites - is this bitter of me?

[ellie09]

I've been with fiance for 3 years and we are getting married next year.

This year, there has been two weddings in his family where I have not been invited but my fiance has.

Fiance has a large extended family who all live quite a bit away and its difficult to get them altogether (even he hasn't seen his cousins in years).

Am I being bitter to say to my fiance that yes, he should invite his cousins, but we shouldn't be inviting the partners then either, considering I wasnt invited to theirs?

We are having quite a small wedding (50-60 people) and want to try and keep costs down.

Fiance thinks we should be the bigger people and just invite their partners as they are married, even though he has only met their partners at the weddings (which I wasnt invited to as his partner).

Should I stick to my guns and insist family members only and no partners or as fiance says, be the bigger person and invite their partners?

Pressure from his own mother to go to them.

He didnt actually want to go to the next one, as its a Sunday and he needs to stay overnight, and has barely any annual leave left (as he wants to carry some over to next year for our own wedding). He was also annoyed at me not being invited.

However, after some pleas from his mum to go - he is. He was invited to the last one but couldn't go as it was moving house day (booked in many months in advance before he knew).

This happened to me. I paid 50% but very small family and DH very large family. Tried to prune the cousins (some hadn’t been seen by DH for years and never close) to equal it up and keep within budget. Made a huge stink that has never really been forgiven by my in-laws, who blamed me 🤷🏻‍♀️

People who see invites/non-invites as power games and snubs are so EXHAUSTING.

You have no idea why you weren't invited to the other weddings. Maybe they were trying to keep costs down. But you've interpreted it as a snub and you're determined to have some sort of petty revenge. Not a good look.

Invite people if you like them and want them there. Don't invite them if you don't. If you want to keep costs down, invite as few people as you want. If you dislike these cousins' partners, feel free to leave them out. However your fiance's opinions on this should also be taken into account.

The only person coming across as badly here is you, because you're the one treating life like a journey of petty point-scoring.

I would imagine that, unless they’re very self entitled, that they would be accepting of you not inviting their partners, because they did the same to you. It would be really unfair for them to hold you to account for something they did themselves.

You can both be the bigger person as well as keep the cost down. Just match their energy. Congratulate them by card or something, but only invite the people to your wedding you really want there.

I take it you and your fiance have a fixed number of guests your budget allows? Just split the number down the middle. Each of you get that number to invite people. If your fiance wants to invite more people, he pays for all added costs.

Its a Wednesday and a hotel local to all of them. I think in those cases I would actually prefer retaining an annual leave day for effectively, a strangers wedding then popping in for a few hours for a couple of drinks.

Maybe that's just me though.

It's a difficult one because cousins plus partners can take up the chunk of your guest list. Conversely, you will have friends at your wedding that you will lose touch with down the line, whereas family will most likely always be there for high days and holidays. When else would you see them?

You could do the no ring, no bring as a cut-off, so no unmarried partners, but it sounds like the married are just 2 extra (3 if the recent wedding is a cousin?) and they are important to your partner's family (and apparently to him, if he is leaving you for an overnighter for the next one). It's not like you're inviting 20 extra.

If you can afford it, it's always nice to be magnanimous rather than 'fair', plus here is your opportunity to meet the extended family. Start your married life in a spirit of welcome generosity, rather than keeping score. Rise above the tit-for-tat no invite thing. That can get exhausting.

(You can always save a few pointed barbs in the line-up for your own amusement: 'how lovely to meet you...at last'. 'Ha, bet you thought he was making me up. lol what is he like.' etc 😂)

I think you can not invite them due to numbers.

Or you can say your husband needs to put more in money into the budget to cover them (though let’s be honest that will still affect you).

But if you don’t just not invite them purely because you didn’t go to theirs, you will look petty.

I too would be offended not to have been invited to theirs, as a long term partner or fiancée, so I totally get how you feel.

Invite parents, siblings and friends.
Or elope.

If it's a local midweek wedding then invite the cousins and their spouses to the evening do only. Just have friends and family that you, he or both of you are close to at the full event.

I have said to him that he will get what I mean about eloping after the wedding - this is my second one, and after the first wedding, I definitely thought to myself that eloping would have been far easier, then having a party at home.

This is what I am thinking of suggesting to DP. Its not a huge way out for them - all the partners work etc, then can come down for a couple of hours in the evening.

I cant do this for my family - venue is too far away, but luckily, I have quite a small family and anyone fully extended in the family isnt invited (as not close to them anyway and neither are my close family)

I had this with my family. My other half wasn’t invited to my cousin’s wedding. I actually thought it was fair enough as I have probs only met my cousin a dozen times in my life. When it came round to my wedding, I just invited the cousin and not his wife and kids and he was really upset by this. I don’t think he appreciated that my family on the other side is enormous and I hadn’t invited any cousins from that side at all in an effort to keep numbers down. If I’d invited all cousins and their families it would have been an extra 50 people… so I think it’s totally fair not to invite the spouses but just have a plan for how to manage it if there’s push back. I don’t think I was as sympathetic as I could have been and I feel a little guilty about this.

If they’ve invited without partners, I’d happily do the same.

So it’s a mid-week small ish wedding and your 2nd time?

I’d say don’t invite any cousins at all, on either side 🤷🏻‍♀️

Chances are they won’t come anyway….. I certainly wouldn’t use 2 days annual leave for a cousins wedding…… tbh I’d be a bit miffed doing it for all but my best friend!

Yep, I am in the same position where DPs family is quite big and his share of guests is already dwarfing mine by quite a bit.

I left out my extended family due to some family rifts and not everybody getting along, so it cut my numbers down quite a bit.

Also, its my second wedding, so been through it all before and know what really matters is just having closest and dearest there on the day.

Trying to be understanding that this is DPs first wedding, and the excitement I had at my first one, because I wanted everyone at the celebration! But this was also back over ten years ago, where etiquette was a bit different.

Think me and DP need to have a sit down and figure out a middle ground re. guest list and invites etc.

Yep, I said the same to DP, that if it was on a day that fell during the week, unless it was a good friend or a close family member, I wouldnt be happy about using my annual leave and would actually prefer an evening invite, so I could not use annual leave then pop in for drinks later (especially if it is local, as it is for them).

Should have added….. I didn’t want to invite any cousins to our wedding but husband did. We both had large families, his were close but mine were “all only ever in the same room at christenings, weddings and funerals”.

We agreed all or none and in the end went with all and cut right back on other things to balance the books (got married late afternoon, no sit down wedding breakfast just a buffet at teatime).

21 years later DH says he wished he’d let me have my way, culled all the cousins and had a proper sit down meal 🤦🏽‍♀️🥴😆

If you have agreed on 50/60 for wedding then if it comes to it he gets 25-30 guests and so do you. Surely he will chose his friends and siblings partners who he knows over cousins partners.

That seems cheeky of your cousin to have double standards. Did you point this out to him? If so, how did he react?

If costs are tight and he only sees them at weddings I would not invite the cousin or partner.

if you are paying 50/50 then 50% of the guests are yours and you fill those slots and he can fill his. If he then wants to invite more he pays the extra

I can’t be doing with wedding guests who are people you only see at weddings and never have anything to do with at any other point

It’s his family, so his dilemma to solve. He needs to be fair to you on cost sharing though if it means his guest list will be significantly longer than yours.

Were you engaged when the invites went out for his cousins’ weddings?

No I didn’t. I just explained by text that we were limited on numbers. I think I should have called him and explained the situation properly. My instinct at the time was that it was a bit rich but I’ve seen (on this website) how upset people get when they’re not invited to their spouse’s family weddings so I appreciate now that this is expected by lots of people.

The drama is hilarious!
First, invite who you want to your wedding, both the bride and the groom.
Second, if you’re already splitting hairs over who pays for what then maybe getting married isn’t a great idea yet!
you invite who you want, he invites who he wants.