Guest List Out of my control!

[kaleighMCL]

My parents divorced when I was very young. Both moving on – my dad with his girlfriend who has one son and my mom 6 years later with her late husband and his two kids. I lived with my mom and my late step-fathers kids were older and out of the house.

 

I did family vacations with my dad and his girlfriend and the weekends here and there that I spent with my dad. Since the age of about 14 I haven’t seen her son much. In the last decade I can count on one hand with fingers left over how many times I have seen him.

 

Now that the save the dates are out, and people are booking for our wedding – my dad’s gf wants her son AND his girlfriend to come. I have had to have the uncomfortable conversation three times now that I cannot accommodate anyone that was not on the guest list, and that he was not invited and cannot book under our room block, and if he comes to any wedding festivities there will be no chair or meal for him and he & his gf are not to take food out of my guests mouths by attending.  Each conversation getting more and more frank than the one before. My fiancé and I are paying for the whole wedding ourselves, not asking for money from anyone because of the cost.

 

This is really starting to take a toll because I feel like my dad is going rouge on the guest list and the stress is the exact reason why we chose to leave the country to not have guest list creep. My dads gf is acting weird around me now saying that I’m excluding him. Well I didn’t even know his gf’s name until this situation came up.

 

We made the difficult decision to NOT include my step family because my immediate family is large on its own. Now I find out that he IS booking, but not part of our room block (I’m not border control, I can’t control where he goes on vacation).

 

I guess I’m wondering – has anyone else encountered this problem? Did you end up with wedding crashers?

[causeyb21]

We had a similar situation. My mom and her (now ex) boyfriend of 10 years separated a few months before I sent out invitations.

 

I spoke with both of them before sending invitations that we are choosing to have a small wedding. Even after our conversations, my mom's ex invited his sister and her husband, who were not invited and not part our our guest list.

 

He did not tell me this. He told my mom and both of my sisters. I decided to call him on my own and explain that we only have seats for the people who were on the guest list. He said that they were only coming because they wanted to take a vacation. I really do not know why they would choose to come to a place where they were not invited. But, like you said, we cannot control where people decide to vacation. I do not want to make the trip awkward and leave anyone out, but we simply do not have the space for them. Our trip is in October, so hopefully it will go okay. 

 

Good luck with your wedding!

[misbosox]

Ours is out of control too. At first I figured we would be good with a resort that has a package for 40 guests. After going through our guest list it's now 69 and climbing !!! Stressing on wether to cut it down or just pay up the extra head count past 40