Everyone is being weird about the wedding

[LockedJaw]

I’ve posted about this before under a different username but I’m having real problems with wedding planning.

I’m 31 and delighted to be getting married, both of us are eldest children so first wedding in a while, we ourselves are quite relaxed, just trying to nail down the venue for next summer. My parents are causing problems but I’ve kind of got that under control (my dad has a new girlfriend, I’ve tentatively decided not to invite her because my mum will be too triggered even though she isn’t the other woman, the divorce is ongoing). Dad accepted this. Between them my parents have ten siblings and all will be invited — my mum has an issue with this but at this point she will just have to deal with it. None of them have done anything to her, she is just pathologically anti my dad’s family now because she’s anti my dad. There is no perspective and you can’t engage with her. So that’s me.

My fiancé’s family has been, up to now, very small and drama free. The opposite of mine! Except for some reason his mum has a real complex about weddings. She didn’t want one for herself, OK. I do understand because due to my aforementioned family issues I heavily considered eloping. But there is no pressure, we can afford and just want a fun day.

We had decided 90 people and the contract for the venue has arrived. 90 was going to be tight when my parents in law announced they wanted to invite 10 of their friends. Our venue has a hard limit. Now my fiancé’s grandma wants to invite 20 more relatives. We said if we could facilitate it then all 30 extras can come, we didn’t mind too much — we just have to check we can use a different part of the venue. Fiancé’s mum is livid. She for some reason really doesn’t like the idea of inviting more relatives, even though she’s keen to invite 10 friends I’ve never met. I just want to get the wedding in the diary and move onto organising other things.

Why is everyone being so weird?

If your Dad's girlfriend isn't coming, then 30 distant relatives most of whom you haven't met, definitely aren't coming.

Haven’t met the girlfriend either!

Just say it's all or nothing. So either the grandma's family gets invited and her friends or ypu stick to the 90 snd none of them get invited. And stick to it.

I think it's reasonable to say that you are not up for inviting people that you've never met.
You're already being pretty kind about a lot of this. My DD and her DH funded their wedding themselves and invited who they wanted. My DD then asked if there was anyone I wanted to invite, and offered two places. If I wanted a couple more, she just asked that I pay for the extras.

I wouldn't have dreamed of asking for 10, never mind 20! Especially if she didn't know them.

Sounds like a bloody nightmare. How rude of them to want to invite all those extra people to YOUR wedding. If you’d really wanted them there surely they’d have been on the original guest list. I eloped, best decision ever! Stress free and got a fantastic holiday out of it.

While my DH paid for the bulk of our wedding my parents did contribute and hosted it. We agreed on 120 guests and split it three ways, with a bit of overlap between me and my parents so I 'gave' some of ours to my DH as his family was larger (five brothers and two sets of parents). Worked out fine - I think my DH would have invited more but my parents never made a fuss about anything as it was my wedding and went along with my plans.
My parents in law didn't have a say in any of it.

You sound like such a patient patient. They all sound nuts

I’m going to go right against the flow here oP and say I think your instincts are right; if you like the grandmother and understand why she is investing a lot in the day ( and she is putting her money where her mouth is) I don’t see why you wouldn’t let her get joy from it.

There are way too many posts on here that approach weddings as Bridezilla’s Big Chance to Assert Herself and set the “ don’t mess with me” tone for years ahead - a tone which invariably involves a lot of posting about going Nc with family members and a lack of close family support. I get that boundaries are important, but people now are focusing on that in family dynamics to the exclusion of all else and it just isn’t how family works.

The tricky bit is your mil not wanting them.

God that sounds like a headache. And exactly the reason that if ever I got married again I'd invite people we actually love, value and want at our wedding! Which would be about 30 😂.

Back in the 90s we were at the tail end of "the bride's parents, who are paying, on behalf of their very young daughter invite you" please RSVP to bride's mum at the home address where the bride still lives.

Everyone has a massive tantram at us inviting people and RSVPing to our living in son house share.

My mum still thinks her way. She was desperate to be in charge of responses, calling people, with holding addresses, so she could deliver herself. So after hosting everyone, DH & I didn't get the thanks or build bridges to pull people together with us as a couple.

It's always been weird!

Why are your in laws inviting THEIR friends to YOUR wedding? This wedding sounds like it's going to be a nightmare. It was stuff like this that meant I got married abroad! Couldn't stand the politics

Weddings can be tricky things generally.

They are an event that is invested in ( sometimes just emotionally, sometimes financially, especially in times gone by) by multiple generations in two different families often all feeling they are, to some degree “hosting” friends with different expectations of how the event would be done. It’s to be expected that there will be tensions as to how things proceed.

Increasingly the idea seems to be for the bride and groom to pay and do it their way. That wasn’t possible in previous generations when people tended to marry younger and couldn’t pay ( and wedding gifts were to set up home). It’s also a bit at odds with the underlying concept of a wedding as it evolved, which was essentially to ask the family and friends to celebrate and support the union. Looked at from that perspective, the whole “ this is our show and we do it our way “ is a bit out of keeping. But that may be what some couples want starting out. If the bride and groom aren’t bothered by the grandmother asking her friends, however, I can’t see why the more inclusive approach is z oroblem. Op needs to try to sort out what’s upsetting her mil however.

Having had two weddings, of much smaller numbers (think 60), you'll be in a sea of people you don't recognise and know. I would not let MiL bring 10 friends (is she Hyacinth Bucket or something?!) and I would kindly ask dear old Gramdma not to bring an entire class of friends.

You are being very chill and all are nicely taking advantage of it. But perhaps now is the time to set some clear boundaries

I dint think it’s your role to keep everyone happy and smooth over all disagreements between family members.

You've sorted your mum and dad, which is fair enough.
Youve accepted ‘new’ guests, which in your context is also fair enough imo.

After that, I’d tell them that ‘this is the organisation and who we want to see at our wedding’ and let them sort out their personal disagreement between them.

Im going to guess that there is a big background story between your fiancé’s mum and the grandmother (see the fact she didn’t get a wedding) you’re not aware about. Don’t even think about sorting out their issues!

Your wedding, your money, your choice!

We paid for our own wedding and one of the provisos was that we were in charge of the guest list. If we both hadn't met the guest, they were off the list (there were a few exceptions to this with DH's buddies from the golf course, but distant relatives that I'd never met in 16 years were definitely not invited).

I'd just take back control completely and say no, 90 is our absolute max and we're prioritising our closest friends and family first. If there are any spaces left over that we'll let you know how many people you can invite.

Some venues have a minimum number as well as maximum, so if 90 is the max, but any of your IL's extra invites start costing YOU money, then they're a definite no for me.

My friend's DM tried this. My friend parked it then a few days later in general conversation said "would you pay for cousin Sarah when we go out for dinner?". Her DM said "No, of course not" so my friend answered "Good, so why should I then?" Her DM dropped the subject after that!

FWIW some of grandma’s list are elderly or living in Germany so she thinks “only” 10 of her list will come, which made me giggle.

Families are batshit. My sister ended up with 185 at her wedding about 100 of which were invited by the respective parents. Their first cousins and all sorts. My parents paid substantially towards it and then felt they could dictate all sorts. The whole event was a fraught nightmare with my BIL barely speaking to my parents [justifiably] by the end of it.
DH and I as a consequence, kept a tight grip on the costs and entertained no opinions on anything.

My point is this - even though we were getting married in the UK so not close to anyone my parents wanted us to invite people in the full knowledge that they would not travel for it. I felt this was bad form as a) it places people under a sense of obligation to send a gift and b) was forcing me to find a venue which could accommodate nonsense guest numbers and into a commitment of a much higher minimum spend. I would have potentially ended up in a barn of a place with the original numbers I'd planned for.

So I would make a decision on what you can afford and accommodate and say to Granny that the venue can only accommodate so many people. End of.

In my in-laws’ defence, I do know why they are inviting them. These are their best friends, people they go away with multiple times a year and their children have grown up together. That started because we said we were inviting the children, who have effectively played the role of close cousins to my fiancé as he has no actual cousins of similar age.

Then his mum said perhaps we ought to invite their parents, and was like “it’s only 10 people”, which felt like a lot if over 10% of the guest list was their friendship group, when there’s a limit of 100 and I kind of have a back up list already.

But now if we’re just going to make it a bigger thing in general, and grandma wants to involve her extended family, I’m more relaxed about it. It also means there are potentially 3 more people I couldn’t get on the original list but who may be able to be invited now. Yes, it does increase the minimum number of guests (from c.60 to around 100). So we’re committing at that point to a “big wedding”.

A big wedding sounds nice. I've really enjoyed the weddings I've attended that were from 'big family' cultures. 100 would be small-average for some of them! It's a very special feeling. Festive.

If they are offering to pay for extra guests then make sure they really pay for them - not just the cost to 10xextra catering places but also that you needed a larger venue, extra table settings, favours, bar bill etc etc.

Thankfully the venue is all inclusive so the price per head cost includes extra food, open bar, table settings etc and it’s just a case of extra spots. The current issues are:

1. it’s a bigger room which is not available on our original date so it would be a week later. That’s a sentimental date for my family (deathversary of a cousin but we are talking many, many years later) but 99% manageable I hope
2. the decorations for this room cost £100-200 more (not a big deal)

Future MIL is visiting the venue soon as she offered to help so will hopefully give us a read out of what the bigger room is like and then we can make the decision.

The thing I’m most looking forward to is our executive decision to have no speeches, tbh!

• Extended family thinking it was a totally normal request to want to hang out with us the day after we had got married and being offended when we said we would rather not.

To be fair @MakeItRain26 i’ve been to several weddings where there’s been a barbecue or extended family/close pals gathering the day after or the weekend after. It wouldn’t be something I’d do but if guests have travelled, the couple aren’t going on a holiday/honeymoon or whatever then it makes some sense and it’s definitely not weird!

As previous poster have said make sure they do pay for extra guests. My daughter got married recently and we only have a small family but her dh has quite a large one. When doing the invites his family took them over the 50 included in the package so his dad payed for the extras. On the day almost all of the extras didn’t turn up. He expected around 30 and only about 5 turned up. People are bad at accepting invitations and not turning up. They don’t give a thought to how much money might have already been paid out. It’s your day so you and your fiance do it your way and forget everyone else

@IceStationZebra I agree - lots of people organise events. These were family members who asked us if we were available to hang out and have a take away with just them! It was the entitlement that I thought was weird. My in laws ended up going and they were really hungover anyway. We saw them and others for a post wedding the following day.

OP is going to be back here in a few years time asking if it's weird that her MIL, grand-MIL, Great aunt Maude, Maude's neighbour Clive and his cousin Beryl and Sue from the bingo are in the labour ward with her. Good luck OP, I think you are going to need it.