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?

If you invite the cousins, then you must also invite their partners. Anything else would be rude, and there is no need for you to descend to other people's levels of discourtesy.

But if you want to keep it small, why are you inviting cousins you hardly ever see? Just stick to close family and friends.

I wouldn’t invite anyone who has made zero effort to get to know me and that includes the cousins. I also would t invite anyone I wasn’t going to see again or more than just a card here or there or a once in a blue moon visit. I would keep it really small and just have immediate family and very close friends. Do what you want. Life is too short to tiptoe round trying to do what other people expect or want. It’s your day.

I think you need to reach a compromise, it is his wedding too and he gets a say, so I’d urge you to talk and come to something you can both live with.

Yes

Well, yes, I agree. I havent invited anyone extended on my side, so I dont have that problem. Only close immediate family and my closest friends and their partners (as I know all my closest friends partners also)

That's exactly the approach I have taken with my side guests.

She has

I would invite them both all day or not at all. One half of partnership all day and one in the evening is so weird and poor etiquette.

Small wedding, you get half the guests for bride and half for the groom, and yes there have to be some tough decisions, so it's definitely fine not to invite them full stop.

Maybe I am the only one, but I do think its more acceptable if the wedding is 10 mins from most of the guests. I do accept its rude if the wedding is quite a distance away and would require lots of planning to go to an evening reception.

I just wouldn’t invite the cousins at all.

Also though, I think it should be his decision not yours. So if you’re having 60 guests, he gets to choose 30, and you get 30. If he wants to invite his cousins’ partners (presumably at the cost of some of his friends) then that’s his choice.

Yes and I’ve said they should pay in proportion to the split of guests? So if he wants cousins partners it’ll be his cost?

It is difficult when you have a large family and are working towards a maximum number. We had to make a decision about cousins, we decided that any cousin who was married/had children together were invited as a couple/family, those who were not married/no kids fairly newish relationship, we only invited the cousin.

We had a strict limit of 60 for our wedding. We split the numbers down the middle so DH could invite 30 of “his” people and I could invite 30 of “my” people?
Could you do something like this? Then whoever DH chooses to invite or not invite is up to him and you neither have to pay extra to cover people you don’t want, nor would you have to bump some of your own friends and family to fit them in.

Well, we budgeted for a certain amount of guests. We still can afford more, but it means that the budget is getting higher and also the guest list keeps growing higher and higher.

Or she could invite the cousins evening only (not just the partners, the full couple evening only. no cousins at the ceremony and reception)

I wouldn’t invite them. Invite friends from your side instead.Presumably they dont expect invitations when you weren’t invited to theirs. If they do they are CFs as well as tight..

To be honest, I wouldnt even want 30 of my people at my wedding. I only have around 20 people, and 3 of those are children.

We did have around 50 people in mind and the 5 additional spaces I didnt mind him taking, but now its creeping to around 60 guests if not a bit more.

I have a son whos ND and easily overwhelmed and DP has a brother who is severely ND and easily overwhelmed so this formed part of our decision to have a smaller affair in the first place.

Think I am just going to need to stick to 55 max and he is just going to have to work with the split number he has and work out who he wants.

I don’t understand, as you said you wanted to save on costs? Does your DH want to spend more than you do?

eta: sorry, cross posted your last reply

Yes, we want to save costs, hence a mid week wedding and initially agreeing to a 50 person wedding.

We can afford more, but would rather save more into a pot to buy our forever home instead.

We CAN technically afford more guests, but it will mean less money set aside for the house deposit budget. Which is more important to me than adding on guests to my wedding that neither of us really know.

I think in general partners should be invited, but as you’ve never even met them, in this case I don’t think they need to be invited to your wedding. I think it’s odd being introduced to people for the first time at your own wedding! (Unless there has been a reason for not meeting sooner, such as they live abroad or something?) x

No, in the same country, most are about 1.5 hours away. DPs extended family just dont meet very often.

I never understand this sort of mentality. A cousin of DH's wrote with the invitation and said she could invite the cousins who were most important to her due to budgetary constraints. We got an evening invitation. They and all the xousins were invited to our wedding. It was nice to know we were lower tier family.

Very sadly the husband died leaving her with small children. There was a fundraising page opened on FBook to help her with her mortgage. The work friends had long scarpered. Funny how we were regarded as an important enough tier to contribute. Just as we had been important enough to receive the gift lost and notifications of births, presumably for presents rather than to welcome a new addition to the more important part of the family.

When the chips are down, it's family who help.

This.
If he really wants to pay for cousins to attend they can all sit at a cousin table. No need to do any for their girl/boyfriends/spouses to also attend.

They have no relationship with your fiancé, so it's polite to decline an obligation invite. Not sure why he's wasting days and money attending these strangers weddings.

Neither do I.

I have got to that stage of my life where if I dont want to do something, I wont, even if it will annoy somebody else.

DP is only going to keep his mum quiet - if she didnt have input, making him feel bad "oh you NEED to go", then he wouldnt have bothered going. Its quite far away from our house (2.5 hours and costing quite a lot to stay up there).