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Original poster

wedding invites

144 replies

herwegoagain123 · 04/12/2016 18:04

OMG went for breakfast with ds and gf who are getting married...next year but one......looking at fab v expensive venues so I'm expecting to pay towards it. Anyhoo gf announces that out of the 110 day guests no parents friends will be invited. Wow. So I said I had been invited to my friends children's weddings. To which she said she didn't know them. And so it was left. DS backed her up. FFS how bloody rude. By the way was only looking to invite 4!!!!!!!!
What do you think? I know things might change but bloody hell. DS said his friends were priority. How naïve ?

OP posts:

PenguinsandPebbles · 04/12/2016 22:37

I think considering that

Your paying £10,000 towards it (a third)
The brides mother has her friends attending
They lived with you rent free for two years

YANBU

Personally if my mum wants to invite her best friend and her best friends husband to my wedding then she most certainly can and our wedding is going to be a very small intimate affair, of about 20 people. No contributions required, just the fact she's my mum and it's a nice thing to do.

scottishdiem · 04/12/2016 22:45

DP and I paid for our own wedding reception (we had effectively eloped the year before and presented the wedding reception as a fait accompli due to cultural differences) . DP mother basically tried to buy extra spaces for her friends to come but we had very carefully balanced the numbers on each side which meant we declined. On my side, friends of the parents at weddings is very rare and DP didnt want it at all.

But I think we would have probably come to a different conclusion if we were having £30k wedding with a third paid for.

MyWineTime · 04/12/2016 22:55

But for a lot of people, their family friends are closer than family
That's not the point! There will be other people there who the OP knows. They won't be sitting there on their own in need of someone to talk to!

I'd just be embarrassed that I couldn't return the generosity of my friends
If you wanted to return their generosity, take them out for a meal. This isn't YOUR wedding. If your DS wanted a private wedding abroad you wouldn't be able to invite your friends. You seem more concerned about what your friends think than you do your DS & DIL.

all the weddings I've been to have had loads of family friends invited. Seems perfectly normal to me to invite special people who you have known all your life because they happen to be your parents' friends.
But surely that decision is down to the B&G. And it's understandable if they are lifelong friends of the B&G, but if they are ONLY friends of the parents, why on earth would they be invited?
Who the hell sends wedding invites to people who they barely know?

Original poster

herwegoagain123 · 04/12/2016 23:12

Obviously I have made a mistake to assume I might ask some friends. To clarify my parents died when I was in my late 20s so I guess they are important to me. One of them looked after them when they were babies as I had to work fulltime.
Gf does know one couple but the other she has turned down various dos which was no bother.
some folk are projecting their own shit on to me. Whats passive aggressive I have been clear I would prefer my friends to go and if its no then fair enough. It would be passive aggressive to bear resentment and act on it in a covert way which I wont do.
I just expected to be able to which the majority disagree with. I'm not some horrendous MIL. I have my own life as a highly regarded professional and own social life.
Its just from my own experience of weddings I have attended that they were invited. But not the case for everyone. Why the hell shouldn't I say fair enough in the light of these responses. Do you actually know what passive aggressive means?

OP posts:

TheDuckSaysMoo · 04/12/2016 23:15

OP - it sounds like these are people that have played a part in your son's life. Did you ask if he was inviting them or did you ask if you could invite some of your friends? He may have misunderstood the question if he thinks of these people as his/family friends who would of cpurse be invited rather than thinking of them as just your friends iyswim. Good luck!

SenecaFalls · 04/12/2016 23:25

OP, you are not being unreasonable at all. Even if you were not contributing, your DS and his GF should be willing to invite some of your friends.

This notion that prevails today that it's the bride and groom's day so they call all the shots, no matter what, is really ridiculous when carried to extremes.

BackforGood · 04/12/2016 23:28

Clearly this is yet another area where I find (my) real life to be so very different from a number of MN posters.
OP It is very normal in my world for a couple to invite longstanding family friends to their wedding. Yes. You would say that these friends are friends of either the bride or groom's parents, yes. they are the people who have been there throughout the B or G's lives and who have laughed and cried with the B or G's parents as the B&G have grown from babies into adults. They are definitely people who would be invited to weddings by all people I know. I'm also pretty glad that my RL is different from so many of the posters on MN, who seem to have such bitterness towards so many people.

SenecaFalls · 04/12/2016 23:28

I should add that I am from, and still live, in the Southern US where it would be considered a real breach of etiquette not to invite the close friends of your parents.

Original poster

herwegoagain123 · 04/12/2016 23:33

Thanks Backforgood that's what my RL wedding experience has been. Just don't get why posters see me as an entitled emotional blackmailer nut job. We all have different experiences of course.

OP posts:

Original poster

herwegoagain123 · 04/12/2016 23:43

Also I have no idea why some people have given such highly charged responses. I posted to ask advice in case I was being unreasonable and didn't realise it.
OMG

OP posts:

SenecaFalls · 04/12/2016 23:47

Just don't get why posters see me as an entitled emotional blackmailer nut job.

As soon as you identify yourself as a MIL or MIL-to-be, you are already on very shaky ground on MN.

OP, my daughter and son-in-law were planning not to have her only sibling in their rather large wedding party because "we're not that close." DH and I were paying for the whole wedding. The sibling was in the wedding.

BarbarianMum · 04/12/2016 23:52

Gosh, we didn't invite any friends of parents (either side) to our wedding. Never even occurred to me that you were supposed to do that. I thought family caught up with family at weddings

Original poster

herwegoagain123 · 04/12/2016 23:55

SencaFalls you made a wise move well done.

OP posts:

Original poster

herwegoagain123 · 04/12/2016 23:57

BarbarianMum never mind now its done. Depends on what your used to!

OP posts:

mateysmum · 05/12/2016 00:02

I can"t believe some of the responses on here. OP you are getting an unfairly hard time. This whole "it's their wedding attitude" amazes me. Weddings are about the joining of two families, about children moving on to a new chapter and creating a new family.
I'm not saying that parents should "own" the wedding in the way they used to, but neither is it an excuse to be inconsiderate to parents who have helped you grow into the people you are and who are still supporting your life.
This isn't about the OP expecting to buy favours with a contribution, but bloody hell would it really hurt the bride and groom to offer some invites to parents friends? Just because the bride doesn't know them, so what, the groom does and the bride will do after the wedding.

Cricrichan · 05/12/2016 00:23

Yanbu op. I think family friends should be invited to the wedding. I can't imagine my children not wanting some of my closest friends at their weddings. Are you sure that they haven't already included them though?

SenecaFalls · 05/12/2016 00:23

This whole "it's all about us" attitude to weddings is really regrettable. It's heavily fueled by the wedding industry and it's one of the reasons that at so many weddings these days, it is obvious that the comfort and well-being of guests have not been considered at all.

PenguinsandPebbles · 05/12/2016 01:36

Just don't get why posters see me as an entitled emotional blackmailer nut job.

Your not a nut job, despite being incredibly generous you seem quite reasonable about the entire thing and quite like my mum actually (who has been having a quiet moan at me over the past few months)I think it is highly possible that there are some people here preparing weddings and they have gone into bridezilla mode.

I am currently avoiding my SIL to be, she's gone full bridezilla it's utterly terrifying!

Graphista · 05/12/2016 02:26

I think op got the response they did because of the tone of their posts - the op started 'OMG' for starters. Then there was the drip feeding/possible factors for agreeing with op.

Seems to me though that the op is the one making assumptions

assuming they'd be able to invite guests to someone else's wedding

assuming they'll be expected to contribute (and a hefty amount too - my big white wedding cost £2k all in! 150 guests too mind 20 yrs ago) it's 2 years away it's entirely possible the b&g are planning to save/pay up for the wedding.

assuming this was the future dil's decision (surely at least a joint decision between b&g possibly given the groom is the one that knows these friends he's the one that DOESN'T Want them there)

Despite a large wedding I had none of my parents friends there (my side of the family - Catholic - huge so even that needed trimmed!) but my groom did (BUT he'd lived with his mums friend at one point when his mum was seriously ill so she was effectively his foster mum, the 2 sons are best friends and her son was his best man. also his father was a long term foster child and it was his foster grandparents that were there not his blood ones).

Every wedding is slightly different.

If you are ASKED for a large financial contribution, there might be scope for negotiation. But if you OFFER it should be with no strings.

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