we wrote out our guest list, and when MIL2B came over showed her, and she was like well, this , this and this cousin so and so has other half now so have to invite them, but we are on a budget , we are planning on asking each person to contribute £20 towards there meal in lue of a wedding gift as we want our gift to be to have everyone we love there, but I don't want to invite cousins bfs/gfs who we have never met and don't know , we only want our loved ones there. I know a couple of the cousins have been with their ohs for atleast a year and may be serious and may be family soon too but there not yet. Am I in the right or wrong, his mum said she would help with costs. coz each extra person is £40 and i would feel funny asking someone I don't know for contribution as im putting the reason as "because we want you there"
At my ohs sisters wedding his cuz brang a +1 and they were broke up less than a month later

Mines similar again but it's my mother she tries to make me invite my brother and sister who I don't get on with at all I haven't spoke to them for 2 years. But ive taken control and told my mum to keep out of it and we are inviting who we want to.

It's just a case of putting your foot down and saying its uptown you and H2B who you invite.

Given that you've got 23 months, there's plenty of time to see how things pan out in their relationships - they might break up between now & then or they may have armfuls of babies by then!
Just nod & smile for now, put the list away & forget about it until closer to the time & review it then xx

I think you need to do what's best for you. We're not inviting anyone we don't know or +1s xxx

mr lala was going to invite an uncle of his "because he is family " at this i pointed out that in all the time we had been together i had never met this uncle ( in 9 yrs) again he said he is family ... so i asked when was the last time her had seen/heard from him as i had never seen so much as a Christmas card from him as why was he inviting someone who happened to be connected by blood when they hadn't bothered with him on over 9 yrs !!!!!

we then agreed that he would be invited to the evening do only ...in the end it was out of our hands as his uncle died

Hi,

We have had a similar problem as we are on a budget and can only afford to have 50 people at the day and 100 at the night on our package. Extra people can be added at a cost. Both our parents are divorced and have since gone on to remarry and we get on with all the extended family as well but can't afford to invite them to our wedding. My compromise was that if a certain family member wanted other people to attend them they would have to pay for them as we just haven't got the money. Suddenly said family members are very understanding saying things like 'yes I can see why you cant invite your stepmums sister, husband and 3 kids'
Stick to your guns! Its your day, do what makes you happy :-)

If she is paying for the wedding then you have little choice but if you and your h2b are paying for it all then no. Your wedding is your special day and you should have who you want there. A less awkward way to let people down is to say your venue only holds x amount of people so we have to be strict.

We are inviting close family and friends to the day do (60) then other friends and sometimes plus ones of day guests if we don't know them that well to the evening (120)

I think we've all had this problem, I know I have LOL. It's just a case of putting your foot down and saying "Look, I'm not inviting anyone I'm going to be meeting for the first time on the day or people I've not seen/spoken to in donkeys just because they are 'family'". xxx

Ive had a very similar issue, we had our guest list all sorted to be told that 'cousins' should be invited. For 5-6 weeks it was always the same that they should really be there etc and they'd happily lend us the money to have the cousins there...lend? we didn't have these on our original guest list so we weren't too impressed with this. My mum is one of 10 so we pointed out it wouldn't be fair to have the all of one family and very many from my side... this didn't seem to be listened to. We stuck to our guns and it got to the point in which a big row was caused. The OHs sister even said let them have who they want, its their wedding, still was ignored. After a lot of stress (We both wanted to cancel, I refused to see his family and it got to the point, planning wasn't fun anymore) and pointing out that its £110 extra per head, we have added them. We will be asking for the extra money for these to be added.
Try and stand your ground with who you want invited, its your day and not theirs :)

x

ATM my hubby to bes mum hasn't shown much interest but I think she will start to demand about certain people being at the church! Which is tough cos its our wedding bit hers x

I had a big row with my mum... she wanted top invite some random friends I'd met briefly once in my life when I was younger. She is paying for the reception but when she was whingeing about numbers and I could count the friends I wanted there on one hand to stick with the budget and cost per head etc, I'd had enough. Surely the people hat should be invited are those that have been important to the bride and groom as a priority, and then if there's a little left in the budget, invite the "nice to have's". Anyway, we fell out but overnight mum saw my point of view and we walked the dog the next morning and had a chat and saw eye to eye. I agreed on some of the randoms she wanted to on the condition that I had all the important friends of mine on the list. As H2B has a huge family-she started whingeing about that and I said to her, if our family was as big as his (And ours is big too!) then she wouldn't be culling our side... I said we'd been careful with H2Bs list by eliminating those they don't really see or speak to, and not inviting +1s to those that don't have a long term (more than 1 year at the point of making the list) relationship to cut down about 30 people! It's harsh but we don't know the plus ones that don't meet the criteria anyway and they'll have siblings and family members to mingle with when they're there! :)

Maybe you need to ht out to clear the air?!

i have had similar problems with my mother in particular! we have a package deal - 60 in day 120 in evening but we are going to pay for some extras in the day to fit in a few extra people. the day worked out fine, but for the evening we sat down with each set of parents and asked for worse case scenarios so we could have a list of everyone and then cut it down. We ended up with nearly 200 for the evening reception so needed to cut a lot out! MIL has been very helpful and cut out some of their family, i cut out some of the maybe's from my side and my mom went mental. Turns out she has been inviting people to the wedding verbally without even checking with me first. The worst case of this was my brothers girlfriends mom and dad and sister (who i dont even know their names!!!). she has a very small side of her family - a few brothers and sister who are all coming to the day - so insisted that i was cutting people out of her list so i can invite more of H2B family.

Turns out the guest list of the evening reception has been the only thing that has been difficult with the wedding and its all because of my mom. it caused a week long argument and has been spoken about since. So since then I have decided to just invite everyone and hope that we get away with it for the evening! (Basically i just gave in cus it is easier lol!)- reception is 25-30 mins away from where we live and I know lots probably wont turn up.

And for +1's we have invited them if they are married or have been with each other for quite a while (i.e. before we got engaged) - we did this as I wasnt invited to H2B cousins wedding but the rest of the family was and that was a bit rubbish. H2B refused to go to the wedding without me.

My advice is to do what ever you want - if parents want to invite other people then they can pay for the extra places themselves - my mom is doing this and she offered to do it xx

my soon to be mother in law is just like this, we did our guest list and she started going on a bout how we need her sister in laws children's cousins & family even my h2b knows NOTHING about! we want only direct family there due to budgeting and the size of the venue, she was like "they need to be invited cause i told them you would" i have never met them, heard form them or had so much as a christmas card to h2b or myself, I've left them off the list and she can moan all she wants, they won't be coming, we aren't inviting people keep other people happy, if they want to be there we know that they want to be there to celebrate our day with us, don't let them bully you into it! xxxx