Guest list issues

It seems like the fairness between families would be good to continue as your guide. If you have not seen them anyhow, they are probably more important to the siblings that to your FH. It may also reflect that the uncle is not that interested in your FH's family. Try to stick to your guns. It is nearly impossible for most of us to have all the relatives over, especially on our own budget and with the high wedding costs.

My question is if he is the only uncle or aunt not invited? If so then I could see why his family is upset. Typically you invite in groups so if all of your aunts and uncles are invited then his would presumably be invited as well.

A categorical rule is the best way to hold the line. You have made a rule that you won't include family members you don't both know. Completely reasonable. Once you start making exceptions, your people pleasing will take over and you'll be at 175 before you know it. I'm doing my best right now with kids. No kids. No, your little darling is not an exception. I know if I cave even once, I will have 30 kids at my wedding.

View Quoted Comment He is the only one from my fiancés side not invited. There are 4 from my family not invited as well for the same reason, they've never met my fiancé and aren't involved in our lives at all.

View Quoted Comment Yikes that makes it difficult that he's the only one from your fiance's side not invited. I can see why the family is upset because if you are inviting every other uncle or aunt on his side then it looks like you are singling him out even if that's not really the case. For us we made sure every aunt and uncle was invited regardless of whether I had met them or not. My husband's family is all spread out all over the country so me meeting all of them was impossible. I guess my question is if you are willing to possibly upset his entire family over not inviting the uncle and aunt. If it were me I wouldn't want to upset an entire family that I'm just marrying into. I would have made cuts elsewhere.

View Quoted Comment Yeah we don't want to upset them, but I'm scared if we cave and invite his entire family but not mine that my family will be upset, especially since my parents are helping us pay for some of the wedding. We each only have a few of our friends invited, our guest list is almost entirely family so we're not sure where else to cut. If we knew it would be this difficult then we would've eloped instead lol.

View Quoted Comment I know we cut children from the list when the guest list got to be over what we had expected. We also limited which coworkers we invited. I agree that it's not fair that your family can't be invited but his can. If you haven't sent save the dates yet then maybe rego over the list. Unfortunately it is very difficult to have an intimate wedding when you have a large family. My only other thought is immediate family and close friends only. In that case then no aunts, uncles, or cousins would be invited. Yes it will probably cause more of an uproar but it would then ensure everyone is treated fairly. The only other choice would be accepting that the wedding won't be as small as you envisioned and inviting every aunt and uncle that way it's fair across the board.

It may be easier to invite in circles and put the delineation at first cousins, second cousins, etc. Families are going to have to get over that weddings are more cost prohibitive than in the past so not everyone can come. You do not want a family reunion disguised as a wedding, no matter who may pressure you. Your friends are important, so I think you should definitely make them a priority. You do have 2 more years before your wedding, so I wouldn't stress too much now about invites that go out 6 weeks prior. Best wishes

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If your parents are helping pay, they do get a say. His side will have to back off.

Your fiancé’s siblings don’t get to determine your guestlist. The way I see it, the risk not inviting one uncle is: they get upset and cut you out of their lives. If they’re already not in your lives though, it’s up to you guys to decide if you even consider that a risk at all. I personally wouldn’t. The physical distance here is a huge one— its one thing if it’s a sickly relative that lives across the country for example— then there’s plenty of reason you may never have met them. But they’re close and accessible — there’s no good excuse, so seems like they’re just not in your life, and that’s fine. They don’t need to be wedding guests. Your wedding is not a family reunion, its a time for your nearest and dearest to celebrate you!

Btw— sharing the line helps. Uncle might be upset with his sibling, but if they can share your bottom line, that should help them not suffer the burden. So, define your line and stick to it. “They chose not to invite any relatives from either family that they had not both met”


I will say this though— if your wedding is a ways off, I do recommend finding a way to leave space open loft n case the circumstance changes. I say this because my brother and his wife had a similar rule when it came to cousins (he and I have a million!)— so their rule was only those she had met were invited. Maybe someone felt left out but for the most part , people understood. HOWEVER, my wedding (where it was important to me personally to include all the cousins), was a couple months prior to theirs, so she DID meet everyone— and it’s not that that made anyone mad about the rule, but rather — then SHE was sad because she met and loved them and then wanted to celebrate with them at their wedding too! (It was too late on their end and I think they felt a little disappointed!)

View Quoted Comment Thanks for the suggestion! You make a good point, maybe we won't discuss the guest list with anyone until it's finalized. It's hard because family members have been asking us questions nonstop, but we're tired of answering their questions just to have to listen to their opinions on everything.

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Oh. Sorry that so much stress and distraction is happening that way.

Tell them you are still planning and want to keep everything as a big surprise. So, you cannot keep answering all these questions. Maybe there is a strong reason that will reduce the questions.

Guest lists are hard and people do often get their feelings hurt. I ll be honest personally I could not imagine not inviting one of my aunts and uncles because they had not met my fiance yet especially when a chunk of those years has been during a pandemic. I always we feel like we never get to see family as often as we d like but celebrations like a wedding are a great time to do that. I can understand why his family is upset inviting every aunt and uncle from his side except for one is going to cause hurt feelings. Since it looks like your wedding is still a ways off I make a point of inviting them to dinner so you can meet them before the wedding. Ultimately its up to you and your fiance though best of luck you!

Do you have a lot of guests who would need to travel? Are there some people who you would imagine likely won't come? 120 isn't a HUGE leap from 100, and it's likely 100% of people aren't going to attend. You'd obviously want to plan for 120, because planning for 100 while inviting 120 is just asking for problems, but I don't think the additional 20 people will change an intimate event into an impersonal one.

The less details you give, the less opinions you will have. It gets stressful enough just planning, and having other’s input adds more stress.
After a while I started giving blanket responses such as, “Thank you. We are handling it.” and “You will find out on our big day.”
Shortly thereafter, they stopped asking questions.

View Quoted Comment Totally agree with this!

View Quoted Comment We have about 10 who will need to travel and only 6 on our list who we think might not come. Almost everyone else on our current list are people we see and visit on a regular basis so we think they'd all likely come. Most of the venues we've been looking at are right around our budget for 100 people too, so if we do end up caving and inviting our entire families we'll probably end up almost 10k over budget or have to start looking for different venues.

View Quoted Comment His siblings are about 10 years older than him and did get married close to 20 years ago, so I don't think they realize how expensive weddings are now.

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Right. And it depends on who is paying for the wedding. I wonder how the guest lists were determined when more of the parents were paying for the weddings, especially when the other side had a bunch of guests. And to the price difference, there was one post for a bride who had to delay the wedding a couple years. The dream wedding price at that time is a bare bones wedding now.