Beabride: Sorry to hear you're experiencing this! Aahhh...the angst of wedding planning. We almost all deal with it. My FMIL wanted to invite several of her friends and we had to put our foot down and just tell her they would be on a "B" list, so if enough "A" listers declined, then we could invite "B" listers. It's a hard-nose approach to it, but at the end of the day, we are paying for the wedding ourselves, with no financial contribution from either of our parents so I guess that's a benefit to us in this case. For the record, we did invite 2 or 3 of her close friends so we didn't completely disregard her friends.
Now my dad wants to invite his relatives that live in DR, which is where we are getting married. These are people that I have NEVER met, and frankly I don't care to have them there - it'll be awkward for me, my FH, and my in-laws (even more so given a language barrier issue). In both cases, my dad, and his mom, we just explained it's not a matter of cost, it's a matter of space constraints. Some folks may have their feelings hurt, but at the end of the day, this day is supposed to be about YOU and your FH, and the people who you both wanted to be surrounded by....not what others dictate. So, if your FH's dad invited people without consulting you first, than unfortunately, he should take it upon himself to un-invite them. Don't feel bad about it because you didn't do anything wrong here. You've been planning accordingly all along and can't make last minute changes just to accommodate this.
Good luck!
Originally Posted by BeaBride
I'm a newb at this, and although I know this is an old thread with old posts, I just had to write something in hopes that someone out there right now is dealing with something similar or has some thoughts to offer. Yes...this is a vent.
I (unfortunately) know what it's like to have someone invite people to your wedding that you don't know and don't care to invite....so ladies, I feel your pain! My FH's father has invited extended family (some that my FH has met and some that he has not) . I do not know these people nor have I met them. I thought that we were clear about having a small, intimate wedding but I'm not sure if we weren't clear enough or if my FH's father is running his own agenda based on his cultural traditions. To ensure that we were being clear about our wishes, we wrote my FH's parents an email diplomatically stating our wishes on our big day. I guess I should also state that before we wrote them, we received an email from him stating that he invited extra people but he was not direct on how many, which is what started all this.
So....I now have no clear idea of how many extra people that may be coming to the wedding (maybe 10-15?? but that's just a guess). I'm upset because we already sent out our save-the-dates and will be sending out our real invites hopefully by the end of March to all the guests that we personally invited. I don't feel that I should send extra invitations to those that I did not invite because of the almost certain fact that it will bring more guests than just those people whose names are on the invite (cultural thing). It seems that when you invite a couple on an invitation, their adult children and husbands + kids are considered to be invited as well. I was not raised that way and my FH and I agreed that we did not want a huge wedding, which was partially the reason why we decided on a destination wedding. We are paying for the wedding and also have limited space for our ceremony and reception areas. Although my FH's father has stated that he would pay for the extra guests, we don't want to have to change our preferred locations because of people we didn't invite. I'm also worried that we will end up footing the bill anyway and have to be prepared to do so. As it stands right now, we have about 60 people (before extras).
Any thoughts??
