Is it ok for MIL to ask to see invite list?

[mdinbc]

Asking from a MIL perspective.

Son and fiance are getting married in June, and want to keep guest list down to 50. They have indicated no children, which i know will greatly upset my DD, who will have to travel to wedding. I don't think any of my side of the family is invited either...

Somehow I have a feeling there are more of their friends than relatives invited, and I'm started to get worried about people being offended.

Would any young ladies on here be upset about this request?

We had a very small wedding - 45 was all the room for and financially we couldn’t afford a big do after so was kept very small registry office and the same people for afternoon tea. No formal evening do.

i have a large family, my husband doesn’t. We wanted to invite our closes friends so that immediately dropped spaces down to 35. Both of us have divorced parents & step siblings. I’m very very close to my Mums siblings so they all invited. Numbers meant that my Dads siblings not invited - they understood completely. Fil brother also not invited but no issue from him at all.

All fine until my MIL realised only her partner and sister invited from her family - half of her family live in Australia so we wouldn’t invite them for such a small wedding. And the other random people she wanted my husband hadn’t even met. We had a lot of arguing and discussion and threats made.

We wanted our friends there over any extended family and 20 years later they are still our friends. We love our family but our close friends mean a lot to us. Helped that we were paying for it.

@WomanStanleyWoman2 they were invited from a sense of duty. 6 of the 13 are now close - just finished my Xmas cards. That's a higher proportion than we are on Christmas card terms with with our friends at the wedding. I wouldn’t have not invited them but we had 110 guests in total. It would have been different if there were fewer than that.

I can't believe there are people saying a MIL or FIL are entitled to say who they want inviting because they have given some money/paid towards the wedding. If you want to contribute to a wedding, that's out of goodwill. It should never come with stipulations. It is the couple's day and it is down to them only.

If your DIL is overwhelmed, offer to help but don't make demands.

From your update I’d say there was no harm then in just asking out of curiosity who is invited but please takes cues from them and don’t ask to pay for grandkids unless it’s obvious it’s money related. Does DIL to be have nieces/nephews? It could be by inviting your 4 it opens a can of worms and ends up with loads of kids when they want child free.

Yikes! Wedding planning is not as fun as it looks.
I don’t think there is any reason why you couldn’t see the list.
From experience your wedding is the one day in your life you will get the people you live in one room. Looking back at my pics 5 members of my family are no longer with us. I am so glad I pulled the stops out and when my husbands family wanted a small wedding stuck with my larger wedding plans.

If you want to talk to your DIL and son maybe it’s more of a kind and gentle rather than coming across as authoritarian and wanting to see the list?

The question is who is the DD expected to leave her children with?
There is no guarantee that they have babysitters on her husbands side and her mum will be at the wedding.
So easiest answer is the DH doesn't go, they aren't exactly being made feel welcome.

If there is one think I could change about my wedding its the guest list. I made a couple of stupid choices.
But we were also forced into having a table worth of MILs friends who I've never seen before or since. It really makes me angry when I think about the pressure they put us under.

we will quietly talk to son regarding who on our side is invited.

Well that's all you can do.

As yet you don't know that there is no one from your side invited or that it will be no kids at all.

If your SIL has to stay to look after the kids or your daughter decides not to go then that is entirely up to them.

There is no guarantee that they have babysitters on her husbands side and her mum will be at the wedding.

Maybe they have friends who would/could help?

Weddings that aren’t just “witnesses only” are generally a big event within a family /group of friends. Who you don’t invite is often a sign you don’t view them as “proper family” or people you care about. Which is fine, but then you have to live with that decision.

i can see the OP might want to avoid her son making a mistake and can see him walking into a family falling out or even not a falling out, just being a couple who doesn’t get help /prioritised in the future - but it’s hard to point out mistakes being made without being interfering.

its ok not to keep the peace when everyone involved is an adult and should be able to work out for themselves that not inviting someone to their wedding can cause long term upset.

in response to your update - I don’t think it’s unreasonable to request your grandchildren are at the wedding. They are the grooms nieces and nephews after all.
I
said previously, we had a child free wedding (mainly to keep numbers down because everyone had kids…. But we put on the
invites that we had made the difficult decision not to have children except nieces, nephews and godchildren. I made up little party bags with colouring in and sweets for during the speeches. There were only 6 children at ours and they behaved impeccably, and they were surrounded by family who all kept them entertained.

Thing is, the only reason to ask to see the list is so you can interfere: whether that’s by having quiet words with uninvited people, pulling your son aside to talk to him, or offering to pay to get them to do their wedding your way. There’s no reason otherwise to see the list so simply asking is interfering.

Leave them be. Your DH needs to calm down about the grandchildren not going, as does your DD – she’s going to her brother’s wedding, she’s got childcare from her DH, what’s the problem?

@MWT I beg to differ. It is a family day. We paid half of DS's wedding. 120 guests. Under no circumstances were: both grandmas, dd and bf, sil 1 and partner (the DC didn't fly from Aus), sil2 and partner, DH's Best Man and wife, my MoH and husband, three sets of God Parents (Our closest family and friends all of whom were involved in the DC's lives) not being invited. Same numbers on the other side, with close family members travelling across the world. I find it incredulous that there are young people out there who are happy to take thousands of pounds from each side of the family (or even one side) and then demand that auntie Mary may not be invited.

Both families met, the DC wanted a central London wedding which we could facilitate because that suited all guests the best. The DC had a guest list of about 80. Between us we and the Bride's family decided we would pay for: venue, reception (sit down meal), drinks (we picked-up that tab), bride's family paid for: flowers, frocks, photographer, invitations, cake, etc.

If the DC wanted anything beyond that, they could have had it but would have had to pay for it themselves. They didn't go down that route - dil (sensible girl) bought a frock for £800, found a 2nd hand veil. She looked absolutely stunning. They spent their own money on a fab honeymoon, partly to meet dil's family who didn't make it over.

A wedding starts with a marriage, a party is built around the marriage which is a celebration. When we got married, albeit decades ago, we discussed parents' numbers on both sides, including family friends who loved us and we them. Our numbers and size of tent were based around that. MIL sent my mother the list from their side of the family for the invitations to be sent.

In our world, that's the normal way of doing things.

I find the idea that, if family choose to contribute money to a wedding, that they then have control of that wedding really unpleasant. I think there has to come a time when parents recognise that their dc are separate people and are able to make their own choices. Money given with strings attached is not a gift at all.

Op you sound very reasonable and nice.

I could tell my MIL was desperate to ask us when we were starting to plan our wedding as she is really close with her family and DH was growing up too.
I felt quite sad that she didn't just ask outright because to me she is a part of my family and therefore so are the rest. We were having a massive family wedding with kids included. She cried with relief when I told her. It was sweet

The question is who is the DD expected to leave her children with?
There is no guarantee that they have babysitters on her husbands side and her mum will be at the wedding.
So easiest answer is the DH doesn't go, they aren't exactly being made feel welcome.

The wedding is in June, so tons of time to find one friend or relative (seeing as many relatives are not attending) to be with the children. If the DD really cannot find a school mum who will have a sleepover or cousin to help then of course her DH needs to stay with them. My point was really about how hard she's willing to try and how much fuss she wants to make about it in the meantime.

I don't have views either way on 'no children' weddings but if that is what the couple decide then it's up to guests to find a solution or not attend. Being 'greatly upset' about it isn't likely to change the outcome - just create stress.

Stay out of it. That way you can truly tell anyone who asks that you had no input on the guest list.

As my dad says "you can't have a wedding without someone being upset" and that is between them and the bride and groom to live with.

Totally agree, although clearly many others don't.

If I have learnt one thing from this thread it's that if DP and I do decide to get married, to politely decline any financial contributions as it's apparent that these might come with conditions attached.

I think the money is irrelevant - I would be shocked if the groom's parents had no idea which of their family members were coming, it's a normal thing to have discussed with your parents, isn't it?

I personally think childfree weddings when the couple are excluding neices and nephews are a bit sad - I do understand it when it's more distant children/friends kids - but it's their decision.

We just don't have anyone to have our kids - similar ages to the DD's - in laws are abroad/far away, my parents are too inform, we have no close schoolfriends, I don't know why some PP find that so strange. The OP could offer to pay for a babysitter so that the spouses can attend

Depends who's organising things. Is it bride & groom or is bride'sparents involved? If they're doing it themselves then it's not your business. If bride's mum involved then you should be too as you contributed financially

We are having a very small wedding next year and have decided not to invite some extended family. People I hardly ever see or speak to.
We want a small, private affair to keep costs down as we are renovating an old house.
If it was up to me we would just elope 😂
It is what it is.

I think there is a difference between extended family and your own nieces and nephews.

On reflection I wouldn't ask who is invited but I would say to your DS "We're getting a few questions particularly from DD about who is invited and if DCs are included. It's your wedding and we don't want to get caught up in the middle, so please can you speak to her."

Likewise if DD asks you"They've done all the planning themselves so I honestly don't know. You'll need to speak to your DB to find out."

Yes. No one’s business but the Bride & Groom unless the parents are paying. We asked each side of the family who they’d like to Invite.

We also had a much larger Wedding Reception where our Mums & Dads could invite whomever they wanted (but they ran the list past us first.)

Yanu to want your gc there but if its because of distractions they might not change their mind

my dsis first wedding was paid by df and he stated he would invite his side of the family whther she wanted them or not-caused alot of rows and basically he just wanted to show off ( a recurring theme)-people were there we hadnt seen since we were all little just so he cold say look how much ive got

sorry went off on a tangent there

Why do you keep talking about the ‘MIL’ role? You’re mother to your son aren’t you? You’re feeding into the bridezilla stereotype to automatically put the bride at the centre of the wedding plans. Speak to your son about it maybe, tactfully though!

I have 3 sons. I’m a mother not a future MIL.

We did 'elope', albeit we informed our families and friends of our intentions beforehand.

We did this because it was what we wanted and what felt right to us, rather than from a desire to 'escape' the prospect of disapproving relatives spoiling anything for us. But with hindsight, this is absolutely what would have happened. The retrospective behaviour of my in-laws was enough to convince me we'd dodged a potential bullet there. This bearing in mind they hardly know us. I include their adult son in this, an observation with which he readily agrees.

They'd have disapproved no matter what we did, so it was as well we did exactly what we wanted. Everyone else was delighted for us.