Entitled family members

I simply told those family members who were repeating what they said that those complaining were more than welcome to pay for their attendance if they want to come so badly.

Once I heard about some family members being upset about not being invited I flat out told them I hadn’t seen or heard from them in however many months/year so why do they think they “deserve” and invite?
There was probably a nicer way to say what I said but I also don’t have a great relationship with the ones I didn’t invite so it just ended up coming out🙄

I’m a very blunt person. “We haven’t talked in ____ years. Why do you think you’d be invited to the biggest day of my life thus far?”

We’ve said something along the lines of “making our guest list has been one of the hardest parts about planning our wedding. Unfortunately, we are unable to invite everyone. I would love to meet up and catch up outside of the wedding though!”

If they aren't complaining to you directly, ignore it. It wasn't meant for you to hear. Tell whomever it fielding the complaints "We chose to have a small intimate wedding" or whatever you wish.

We kinda ran into the same issues ourselves. My fiancé and I have both distanced ourselves from the maternal sides of our families for different reasons.
When we were only engaged for a matter of hours, my FH called his older brother to share the news. Big mistake. His brother went on about how we need to invite Gram and Pops because we’re family. Uh....no. Apparently word spread to aunts/uncles who complained when they were not being invited. Thankfully FFIL stepped in and said it’s our day and our decision.
Half of my family doesn’t even know we’re engaged and I’m fine with that.
I would ignore them. They probably wouldn’t even show up anyways.

Unless they're asking and saying it directly to you I wouldn't worry about it unless you're afraid of them showing up at your wedding.

My mom did this to me. She feels that just because we're related that I have to invite them. What she fails to realize is that it's expensive for each guest to be at our wedding and inviting someone who I probably don't like or don't know isn't fair to me. I'd be paying for strangers to attend a very important day for me. I told her that if she'd like to pay for them she could. Otherwise, they are not invited. I then ignored everytime she attempted to mention them.....

I wasn’t planning to invite my stepmoms family. We’ve never been close and I haven’t seen them in many years. They also had a falling out with her while drinking at her nephews college graduation and she eventually made up with them but I was worried about them acting out at my wedding if they were drinking. she put me through such a guilt trip saying they were expecting invites and would be so hurt and we did go on vacations growing up that I decided to add them and now they want to throw me a bridal shower and her mom is expecting a corsage. I don’t really care in the grand scheme of things, it’s not really a big deal, I just feel so awkward!

This is what I'm afraid of. I'm estranged from most of my dads side (long story) but I'm still in contact with a select few. I'm sure I'll hear all about it when those people get invited and the rest dont. But I'm just gonna tell them straight up that I dont want them there. That they havent acted like family so they wont get treated like such. It's tough but it's your wedding. You get to decide who comes and who doesnt.

This has been a touchy subject for mine as well but my fh and I are basically paying for the wedding ourselves with very little outside help. When the topic came of of who should be invited we gave a total amount of people for each side that our budget allows for, when we got push back we told them that they were welcome to pay for the extra attendance but we cannot financially budge for people who feel entitled to be there. Ironically enough they don't want to pay for anyone else so why should we. Hang in there, there will always be push back but don't let it rattle you

May sound mean, but I just say whatever to who's telling me that and ignore it. I have enough to stress about without people adding to it. 🤷

This has been happening to my fiancé and I as well. 2nd cousins and other family members that keep in touch with me or invite me to family functions are coming out of the wood works asking for an invite.

Oh man do I feel ya! I come from a HUGE extended family (my mom has 49 first cousins) and we're all pretty close, I grew up playing with my 3rd and 4th cousins every Sunday after church. Which leads to the issue of I have a lot of people expecting an invite that I'm not inviting, my grandma pointed out that it's just because of how active I am in the family and with all the family events and that everyone loves me and wants to be there for the biggest moment of my life...BUT I simply can't afford to invite EVERYONE, in fact out of my moms side I'm only inviting maybe 10 cousins...I know it's going to ruffle feathers and piss some folks off...

Also I'm not inviting my dads older brother and his wife, I haven't seen them in over 11 years, they've made no effort to be a part of our family's life at all and of course I've heard from them a few times since we announced our engagement about how excited they are for the wedding...

Their son and his wife that I'm actually close to straight up told me a shouldn't feel like I have to invite them, he told me that they probably wouldn't even show up for the ceremony but just for the reception