Guest list dilemma

Your feelings are valid. Some sort of arrangement needs to be made where you are not spending more money that you feel reasonable for the wedding. Your FH also is not playing fairly by cutting off the discussion with a threat of a courthouse marriage. The marriage needs to start with planning that involves some unity of mind here, not manipulations.

Some people have avoided inviting close cousins so that they don't make the other cousins feel left out. So sometimes you just invite the aunts and uncles. I know there are some cultural exceptions where you have to invite the whole family. It would seem the parents should contribute toward the event in that case.

But still, you have to be comfortable in ceremony. If he does not consider that aspect, it is difficult to move forward.

Of course you're not being overdramatic, that's not fair for him to decide you get 1 extreme or another. 150 people is a lot and very expensive, you're not wrong there. A 75-100 person wedding would be a fantastic compromise, and it would be silly for him to not consider that.

I would sit him down and explain this, and honestly if he refuses to compromise on such a...simple? thing, I would think deeply about things in the future he may not be willing to compromise on. House choice/cost? Children (y/n)? Guest list for a wedding is a small choice in the grand scheme of things, so how will he be able to handle much larger decisions?

Both of your feelings are valid, since you are both getting married. You two will need to use the wedding planning process as a learning experience. If you can learn to truly work together as a team, compromise, listen to each other, and employ smart financial planning, you will be well set up for a good marriage and bright future. I wish you all the best!

Your feelings are definitely not invalid. I was in the same place - my fiancé comes from a huge family. Not only does he have a lot of aunts/uncles/cousins but his parents cousins are also very close to the family. We're splitting our wedding between 2 parties since we live on the west coast and I grew up east coast and even then, I still only wanted a small wedding - 75 people MAX.

We ended up inviting 104 and will probably have between 85 and 90 people there. For me, I felt the same as you - I don't like being the center of attention and having all those people stare at me? Hard pass. When we mentioned this to his parents, my MIL's first reaction was "that is legit not possible." So I asked to to make her list and see how close to 35-40 people she could get.

Not close. Her list was 57 and that was before my fiancé added his group of friends. BUT she severely cut the list. Most of his cousins are not invited. NONE of hers are (or his father's). She really made an effort to cut it off at a certain generation for each side of the family and only pick the family members that she knew my fiancé would truly care about. And in the end, I was okay with a slightly larger wedding, knowing it was only people we truly wanted there.

I would sit down with him and talk about doing this. Large families understand that sometimes, not everyone can be invited. Weddings are expensive! And it's not unreasonable to ask to cut down the list - as I'm sure you'll be willing to trim your list as well. If he's not willing to even discuss it - then maybe it's time to reevaluate the whole situation. Marriage is about compromise - on both ends - and this is only going to be the first of many.

One thought that came to mind is to do invitations to aunts and uncles as sort of a plus one arrangement. Maybe just saying this is an invitation to two of this family or household. so, for example, the aunt may be your mom's sister and has more interest in going. If the uncle does not want to go, a cousin could go instead.

So I think you need to finalize the guest list before you figure out the type of wedding you have. There are a million ways to have 150 ppl for way less than 145pp. Your FI is obviously being unreasonable with his all or nothing demand - it makes no sense that he'd cut out EVERYONE instead of narrowing down to nearest/dearest.

Does he have a pattern of proposing ultimatums? Putting his family over you? If so, these power-dynamics and other problems before the wedding will extend into your marriage.