Invitations and Rsvps

Does what you want matter at all here? I'd be more worried about the bigger issue at hand, that your FH doesn't value your opinion and has no compromising skills, than the fact that he's incredibly rude and wants to b-list his friends.

Ah it sounds like you two need some organization, you should ask your vendors when they need a final head count by to time the invites correctly.
Some people think having a B list is unacceptable period so you might get some cranky people if you do that, just a heads up.
I say send out the invites after getting a deadline from your vendors and then instead of sending RSVP cards just start calling the B list people instead of waiting, you'll likely need to call some people who don't send an RSVP response anyway.
It's not unheard of to invite only certain circles or extensions of families and kids for weddings but that probably should have been decided before you got to this point. The most useful piece of advice I have for that is see what the capacity of your venue is and work 5 people under it so you account for vendors ect.

Honestly, the kids topic is always controversial. Some will say all kids or no kids. I say 60 kids are a little much. Is there a way you can do a cut off like at 16? Or only children in the bridal party welcome? I think your FH is not thinking of the picture regarding the B list. I'm not a fan of B lists because feeling could get hurt. I would have a serious conversation about your budget and what you can and cannot afford. You got this!

Maybe your B-list should be people who would be okay with an informal email invite or phone call invitation. If they would be offended by an e-vite, then they would be offended by finding out they were B-listed and shouldn't be B-listed (either invited for real or not at all). If everyone on the B-list is chill friends then I think you can get away with it, but if they are more formal kind of people then you need to revisit the B-list idea. Especially if they are friends (or family) that talk with A-list people and figure out they were invited last minute

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Unfortunately what I want doesn't matter. I would rather just not have the stress of dealing with this. If he would handle it by himself than that would be fine, but I know it won't turn out that way. He will take care of it at the beginning, but then say that its overwhelming him and people are not responding (and he wants it taken care of yesterday), so I have to sort it out. That's the way I planned the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon.

He doesn't want to b-list friends, he wants to invite extended family if we have people that can't come. My FH has a large family. Right now he is inviting his siblings (he is 1 of 8), his nieces and nephews and their children, and his aunts and uncles. He wants to invite some cousins, but we can't invite them until we find out if some people can't come.

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I'm sorry, I'll correct myself...he's incredibly rude and wants to b-list his family. If you can't afford/fit more people, don't invite them. Not everyone can be invited, that's how literally every wedding works. I would rather not be invited to a wedding than get an invite to fill a seat because someone more important than me can't make it.

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Umm honestly I would be concerned with the fact that you just said "what you want doesn't matter to him" and that is somehow ok? Not trying to get up in your business/relationship but that is a big red flag if he can't compromise and/or just figure it out on his own. That's pretty childish (IMO) of him to say "here's what I want, no compromise, but you need to figure out how to make it work" ---ummm nope! Personally to me, 60 kids is OUT OF CONTROL and just asking for complete madness. The 6-8 kids at our wedding (4 were our ring bears and flower girls, the other 4 came uninvited) was enough for me. How about you nix the kids and do adults only and then add what would have been the b-listed people to your list?

How does your fiance think he will pay for everyone if they all chose to go?

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We go to a counselor who has been helping us work through these things. Unfortunately she is away for the next few weeks. His problem is that he has to find a solution for everything and will throw things at me to get what he wants by when he wants it. Sometimes his solutions are not very well thought out. I, on the other hand, need time to think about things and process them and figure out what is doable. I do tell him to give me time to think about things, but its really hard for him to let things go for a short time.

I have tried to explain that 60 kids is nuts, especially by putting them in a corner of the room and having them sit with their siblings. They are going to be running around like monsters. I have offered to have my friends daughter come (and have her bring 2 friends) so they can keep an eye on the kids during the reception. He doesn't want to pay for people that we don't know and he doesn't want them yelling at the kids. They aren't going to yell at kids, they can help take kids to the bathroom or get the parents if their is a problem. He also says that my niece runs around like crazy. Maybe she does, but its only her and her brother so its completely different than a family of 8 kids running around.

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I have recently found out that he is not good with money at all. Somehow he thinks he is going to take care of it all.

I have slowly been working with him on his money issues to get them sorted out.

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I'm glad you are working on it with him. I would look into premarital counseling as well, and possibly seeing a financial adviser.

Honestly a lot of these comments are kind of alarming to me. There seem to be some major issues that you guys need to get on the same page with— for starters: budget. You mention concerns about cost vs guestlist, and it seems like he wants to invite everyone he knows — this isn’t reality for pretty much everyone. As we were diving into planning we made lists of who we wanted to invite in an ideal (unlimited budget, I guess) world, but as we did research and learned what things actually cost, we had to do some reconfiguring. We established a hard and fast budget of what we could actually afford, and then made some serious cuts to the dream guestlist based on that. It was hard, and there were a lot of compromises to be made, but, the compromise was key! Regarding the money issues it sounds like you guys need to have a Real Talk conversation about how many people you can comfortably afford to host. I know
making cuts is hard, but willingness to compromise is essential.

Most everyone needs to make concessions when it comes to guestlist. We did have to cut entire circles of people in order to keep costs manageable. For me this was cousins’ kids. It was totally fine not to include them— just as it would be totally fine for you all not to include the whole circle of his nieces&nephews’ children— to me that circle is a bit far removed for a situation where you need to be budget conscious. 60 is also to me a bit of an overwhelming number of kids , and it is especially outrageous when you’ve never even met most of them (to me that’s a sign that they’re not close enough in relations to *necessitate* an invite!). Suddenly this is sounding more like his family reunion than a wedding. There’s an upsetting number of non-negotiables here from
gum regarding a day that is supposed to be able the two of you.

Regarding his B list, his timeline seems completely unrealistic. It all seems needlessly complicated (so I personally would probably handle it by saying : “you want it, you deal with it!” and washing my hands of it!). It’s unrealistic to send an invite mid September and hope for an rsvp already by early October, especially for a wedding that isn’t until December— this will become more of a headache than it’s worth. It’s hard enough to get people to respond when everything is happening with a normal timeline, it only gets more complicated the earlier you try to ask people. I’m also curious if the cousin invites are an all or nothing situation or if he just plans to prioritize some and invite more as RSVPs come in? Like if he has 12 cousins on the B list but only 8 “no” RSVPs from the original list , does he then choose only 8 cousins to invite or does he not invite any of them? Just sounds complicated to me— which is why I would make it: your issue, your problem.

when we made cuts to our guestlist it was hard, but , it was final. When we got rsvp regrets and found ourselves with a little extra space— I’d be lying if it didn’t cross my mind like “oh man i wish so and so could be here now!” BUT, it also crossed my mind that every “no” was a dinner i didn’t have to buy! And that felt GREAT. That’s part of why I think budget consciousness is SO important haha.

this just seems like something he stubbornly wants and hasn’t realistically bought through. We came across a number of issues like this, but after talking them out and really hashing out the reality and impacts of these things, we were able to find solutions that worked for us.

It sounds like you have other issues to address aside from a guest list. It's clear that your FH does not respect you as a partner in this marriage and that needs to be taken into consideration. His words and actions all sounds like red flags.

If I were planning to marry a man like this, and I almost did when I was younger, I would really consider postponing the wedding.