People inviting others?? WTF?!

[maridr2012]

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??

 

[BeaBride]

Maridr2012:  Thanks for your kind words and your thoughts.  The space issue is definitely a problem and so is the cost, but most of all, I felt like our wishes were completely disregarded, and that was the worst part of this all.  This wedding wouldn't happen if it weren't for us, so why on earth would anyone think it appropriate to go ahead and invite people to someone else's wedding without asking first??  

 

We didn't have an A and B list...just THE list, and now I'm just not sure what's going to happen.  We actually haven't heard from the FH's father.  My FH spoke with his mother to see if he could get an idea of what the father thought about the email.  

 

It's so frustrating because I feel like the bad guy here.  We were put in a position where we had to stand up to my FH's father, and I know that FH's parents think the only reason the wedding is a smaller destination type wedding is because of me.  Therefore, I'm the one making this difficult because they believe I'm the reason we aren't following the tradition of inviting every single close and remote relative and friend we can think of + those of the parents. To be honest, the destination wedding idea was my FH's idea to begin with, and I love it! I'm excited and I can't let this put a damper on things.  There are plenty of invited, super-supportive friends and family to look forward to.  

[JessiTaylor]

 

it sounds like a stressful situation for both of you maridr and beabride. particularly if extra people could potentially mean you would have to change your location!! i know how it is when people assume that as the bride the idea of a DW was entirely my idea...but my fiance was the one who mentioned a beach wedding and i just went with it! im hoping fiance will  make it clear to family, as they are pretty disappointed that we arent having a local extravaganza with friends, family and the local goverment (fiances father president of his mexican town) in his hometown. FMIL kept muttering that our wedding was my decision (and fiances) and shed have to support it... but she was going to be *incredibly* involved when it was time for her daughters wedding (lucky future sister in law hahaha)

 

My mum wants to invite her cousins (who im pretty sure ive never met, if i did it was over a decade ago and they werent very memorable. but my parents are paying for most of the wedding so i have to respect their wishes on that. though to be fair shes pretty sure they wouldnt be able to come

 

the problem is more my fiance...ive explained the maximum size cant be more than 100 people - cost reasons and the simple fact i dont want a mega wedding filled with loads of random people. And so far the planned guest list is way bigger and there are people on it who arent super close friends, just people he quite likes! we'll have to come back to that topic very soon!

 

i wuoldnt mind if friends invited people to the resort to spend time with them...providing they understand extra people cant come to the wedding itself

[Oct 2012 Bride]

I feel from all of you. My extra people requests are just now starting to come in. and other people have been getting on my nerves so I'm sure it's a matter of time before it gets worst. All I can say is find some time to yourself. Don't answer calls and texts if you have to for a while. And nake sure other people stressing you out does not interfer with the relationship you have with your FI. Becasue at the end of the day it is about you two.

[JessiTaylor]

my fiance said his parents would want to invite 4-5 couples. ive said that its fine i understand they will want some friends, but they need to understand that its the maximum OR fiance will have to cut his guest list

 

my list from england - is under ten. everyone else out of the 100 planned people is from fiances list (but makes sense, we're in mexico his friends are mexican so much greater chance of people he knows coming)

 

thing is, where we live (monterrey, north mexico) its standard to invite people in pairs...the US/UK thing of cutting the budget by inviting people as singles simply does not happen here as mexican music (not pop but standard music) is for dancing in pairs. so people dont need to ask for a plus one, we've factored in say 30-40 couples and our families. i have never seen a mexican wedding where we live where anyone was invited with out a guest. which is how our wedding is 100 people rather than the 50 that i would ideally want (but at least is not the standard size of weddings here 200-350 people!!)

 

places like yahoo answers (which would be more helpful if less trolls) kept trying to convince me that its not standard etiquette to do this and i could invite individuals...but is a culture different

[sbg75]

Oh my gosh - I feel your pain! We were always planning a small wedding (although now with 6 weeks to go, my fiance decides to tell me that he had no issues with a large wedding and I just didn't listen hard enough but that's a whole other story!)

Anyway - we are travelling from England and originally decided to just have immediate family. Then, because he is an only child and his dad isn't around, we realised this was a little unfair on his mum to be so outnumbered by my larger family. So we had a chat and decided to invite his family from the U.S as they would probably be unable to attend the UK reception. Although we decided to only invite aunts and uncles rather than cousins and family that he hadn't seen in years. 

So the first issue came when his aunt calls to give her response and says although she doesn't think they can make it, she is giving her invitation to her son, his wife and their 2 young children, oh and her other son who would like to come as well but he will come without his girlfriend! WTF?! Seriously? I am still reeling over the idea that an invitation is transferable, let alone transferable to more than the initial invited number of guests. Unfortunately, we are not having a formal wedding or reception - just a service on the beach and then a casual reception at our villa - so it was difficult to respond to that without causing huge issues within his family. We ended up saying they could come to the evening reception but the ceremony was just for immediate family.

 

Then there has apparently been a big uproar in England from his family who have not been invited as to why others have and they haven't. His mum said 'oh but they have all been waiting for S to get married for ages'. So what?! He is a person with opinions and feelings, not an object and neither am I so surely it's up to us who we invite? I realise (with hindsight) that he needed to have a conversation with his family regarding our decisions, which we haven't really done as we expected his mum to pass on our comments (which was unfair) - so that is on our growing list of things to do. However I lost my temper the other day and told her that I was annoyed as, as far as I can see, the reason they are annoyed about not coming to the wedding is because they wanted am excuse for a holiday, a jolly knees up on someone else's expense and a family reunion. Not one of them seem to be concerned that they are missing our vows.

 

Phew - ok, sorry for the me me me vent. I think I have been bottling that up for a while and it feels good to get it written down and off my chest. Sigh - sometimes I wish we'd just eloped!

[BeaBride]

Hi SBG75:

 

It feels great to vent, doesn't it!!?  I'm glad that a forum like this exists because there is always someone out there that knows exactly what you're feeling.  

 

I know EXACTLY how you feel, and I was soooo angry about it all.  In fact, I'm still angry about it because we STILL have NO IDEA how many more or who the extra guests are...even though we clearly requested that information in our email to the fiance's father.  How messy!  It's coming time to poke my fiance into dealing with his family on this matter and pressing the importance of getting this information.  I'm going to wait until everyone gets the official invitations which I'm working on right now.

 

As for your comment on how you feel everyone is using your wedding as an excuse for a holiday, that is EXACTLY how we feel!  In fact, my fiance said that very thing.  It seems that instead of a destination wedding limiting people from coming, people seem to be planning a convenient extended family/friend reunion.  It is NOT our responsibility to foot the bill.  Our response is that people are welcome to come for the same week that we are all there, but that does not mean that they are invited to the wedding.  

 

I guess this all kind of gets me mad because having the destination wedding has limited 3 people that I really care about from coming. Now all these people that I don't care to have at my wedding are going to be there, and I really wanted an intimate experience. I'm probably making too big of a deal out of this, but the anxiety of having to pay for this is also very overwhelming. I did not save my pennies over the last few years JUST for one day!!!!  I don't believe in spending all my hard-earned savings on my wedding since that is not what life is all about.  Life is actually about what happens after the wedding, and I don't want to start out completely broke.

 

[sbg75]

Thanks for the support BeaBride. I really didn't really how stressful weddings were until I started to plan ours. Life is way too short for this but I seem to find myself sucked in to all the melodrama!

 

The latest development on our wedding is that the extra cousins sent my FI an email saying they will be attending and asking him for the exact location of the ceremony and reception. That was all the email said. No congrats on your engagement, no proper hello after 8 years of not having contact, no looking forward to seeing you - just give us the address! My FI was pretty mad at this and contacted his aunt to see if she had made it clear that they could only attend the reception and reiterate our wishes. The response... oh, in that case they won't be coming to the reception because cousin's wife really wanted to come to see a beach ceremony!! So they couldn't care less whose wedding it was - just so long as it was on the beach! People seriously never fail to amaze me!

 

I hope that you manage to get through the whole invitation process with the minimum of stress. I just keep trying to remind myself that other people think differently so probably don't realise they are being unreasonable (in my eyes). Also, if they have never gone through this process then they probably don't realise how stressful it can be. Try to remember that they are not doing it to be spiteful or cause stress and it might help you calm down.... probably not though!

Keep smiling

[BeaBride]

sbg75:

 

From my perspective the email was extremely rude, and wow....the cousin's wife.....???!  That is pure thoughtlessness. I don't even know what to say to that.  I don't think that in either of our cases, the individuals are trying to be spiteful, but I just find them to be completely without regard to the hosts of the big bash..if you know what I mean.  Are people really that unaware of proper form/etiquette or do they just not care?  To me, it is becoming more and more clear that having proper manners is not universal.  So frustrating.

[junebride41]

You HAVE to put your foot down.  It is YOUR day!  And, people should be understanding when it comes to the wedding and reception.  Obviously if tagalongs want to go to Mexico while their friends are there at the same time, fine, but they should know that they cannot participate in ANY wedding-sponsored events!  Uncool!