Fiance and I Can't Agree--Who's Right?

You're not off base here at all. It seems tacky and gift grabby.

You're right. It's unreasonable to ask people to invest that much time and money twice.

You are correct. The "party" should be for his side of the family, hosted by his parents, and for those who were not able to make it/invited. I would not call it a 2nd reception. I personally would not OK it. The whole thing sounds like B listing IMO. I'm curious as to what the other responses will be.

In all honestly I would have said no to a second reception. It is a lose lose either way. No, you shouldn't invite them to a second reception because it is expensive, especially if they have to travel. But also, it makes it a little weird for the people who weren't invited to the first reception...almost like a b-list reception for those that you guys didn't want to invite yourselves. I would cancel that second one if possible.

@kathleen you read my mind!

You're right!! That is unreasonable to expect them to pay for hotel and flight just because his family wants to have a huge party. Plus they're paying for a gift too. Stand your ground!!

If you don't cancel the second reception feelings will be hurt on both side. Unfortunately this is a lose-lose situation. The best way to go about explaining this to a naysayer would be similar to how you presented it to WW: a difference in cultures' customs will appear rude to the other.

I would not have the second reception. I understand family wanting to celebrate with you but I think they should have respected your wishes of wanting a small ceremony & reception. To me this seems gift grabby and honestly I would have hated to have to spend money on hair, make-up, and cleaning my dress just to wear it again for something I've already done.

If I were in your situation and someone in my family wanted to host a celebration for me and would not take no for an answer I would not call it a reception and I would just ask for something simple like pizza and bowling.

Okay, good to know I'm not totally crazy here. I'll stick to my original plan and not invite any of my guests from our actual wedding.

Basically, I'm not considering this reception as being related to our wedding at all, it's not going on our wedding website and the invites aren't coming from us. I'm thinking of it as they're throwing a party to celebrate their son getting married. If guests feel put out that they weren't invited to our wedding, that's not my problem (I doubt we'll even know anyone at the second event).

In fairness, we have basically made a huge departure from tradition by not inviting their whole community, which does expose them to the censure of their peers, so I get why they're doing the second reception, but I feel it makes more sense to keep separate guest lists.

ETA: Also, and this may be hard for people to understand, but when you're meshing cultures and dealing with a family that's a bit high maintenance, you just have to pick your battles and decide which hills you want to die on. For us, the hill we wanted to die on was having our wedding at the venue we wanted with our small guest list. We won that battle, but we didn't want to pick yet another on stopping them from throwing a party for their community. I think you're all right and it's very possible their guests may feel insulted they weren't invited to the first wedding, but it's just not my call.

How will the people invited to the consolation reception feel about not being invited to the main event? It feels like the world's tier-iest wedding. I think it's rude.

I don't think it is altogether a good idea. People are going to feel like they weren't good enough to be invited to the main event. It's still rude even if you don't invite people that were at the wedding.

I would refer to the second party as a celebration of marriage which is what it sounds like it is. You are correct to not include it in any of your invitations, website, etc. Leave this completely as something hosted and put together by his parents to celebrate their cultural tradition.

OP, I think you have the right idea. Do not call it a second "reception" or allow it to have any connection to your wedding. And I agree with not inviting any of the original wedding guests.

It is his parents throwing a party to celebrate a recent marriage for their own family, which is fine. They are entitled to throw a party for whatever reason they want. It's not a reception.

It does seem gift grabby to me to invite the same people to two different wedding receptions.

@Caitlin, @Emily, thanks for the clarification on calling it a celebration of marriage as opposed to a reception. We've been calling it that in discussions but celebration of marriage seems much more accurate, I will suggest to MIL that she title it that way on the invites. I am not too well versed in wedding terminology so this is very helpful!

OP, I totally get the whole second celebration thing. My FH also comes from a tradition where the weddings are ususally like 400 people (when we got engaged he told me his sister got his mom down to like 250 and that was a small engagement) so I said if they wanted to have their traditional reception after our wedding they are more than welcome to pay for it and throw it, but since we're paying the actual wedding and reception will be how we want it. If they do end up throwing their own we will just call it a celebration and I don't plan on inviting any of my friends or family.

@Meridith love hearing from others who have been through something similar! His culture is just the same, when his sister got married it was 400+ people, so you can imagine their reaction when we said we wanted to keep it under 130.... And we're paying for our wedding so we can have it the way we want it! It can be such a challenge when you're coming from two totally different backgrounds, but I like to think we can make it work!

The whole thing sounds like a mess. I wouldn't want anything to do with it.