Inviting people you’ve never met?

FW and I will each have a few people from each other's families that we haven't met. There may be one or two plus ones or SOs that neither of us have met, but definitely not a lot. I think my biggest thing here is...who wants to go to a wedding for someone they've never met, just because they know their mom? No offense to you guys, I now know because of WW that this is fairly common. If you plan to send STDs to the rest of your guests, I would send one to MIL's guests as well. If it was me, I would also have her mention it to them in conversation so that they aren't completely surprised by the STD or invite.

I don't think a lot of people are at all honored or pleased to be invited to weddings of the children of friends, if they did not have a very strong relationship with those children growing up. I am just getting to the age where a fair number of people I have known for years, my age to 10 years older, have kids who are marrying. If I only met the kids now and then, I decline the wedding, no gift. I generally send wedding gifts when people I know well, and relatives I am close to, marry, whether or not I am even invited to the wedding. But even when invited to a wedding, I send no gift if I do not know and care for the couple. An invitation that should never have been sent to begin with. Why does anybody think they should send an invitation to a virtual stranger, just because those strangers know their parents, uncle, grandfather. One step too far. Not an honor. A waste of time.

There’s some family members/friends I haven’t met of FHs and vice versa so there will be some folks I and FH technically don’t know. We are also giving our parents 3-5 invites for them to invite who they choose. Not sure if we will know them or not lol

We had a smallish wedding, so there weren't many people that neither of us had met before, a SO or two. But there were friends of his that I haven't met and family of mine he hadn't met. MIL asked us to invite a couple of her friends, but they couldn't make it. I think that generally it's reasonable to invite some of the parents' friends or people they are close to. Couples seem to forget that their wedding isn't just about them; it's often a big moment for the parents too. It only makes sense that they would want to share it with people important to them. That being said, weddings are more often now hosted by the couple, and if the couple is paying, I don't think it's reasonable to add a financial burden of paying for a large number of additional guests.

Depending on the size of your wedding, having people you don't know there isn't going to feel any different to you, though. And if you absolutely plan to invite them, send a save the date. You don't have to send them to the entire guest list - I only sent them to out of town guests and family so I could refine the guest list later if I needed to.

We ran into the same problem when putting our guest list together. My FH dad doesn’t talk to his family and I’ve never met them out of the 8 years we have been together. He still insisted we invite them all and it was about 30 extra people added to our guest list that neither of us have met....none of them even RSVP’d.

View Quoted Comment You can tell how excited they were to be invited to the wedding of strangers, though relatives. I think it is fine to let each parent invite a few friends. But they should choose ones whom their son or daughter got to know somewhat, not strangers. When they choose friends who do not know the couple, most will decline.

I go off of this. I wouldn’t send save the dates to people you don’t mind missing out. In other words only send save the dates to people who you absolutely want there, everyone else just an invite. My fiancé and i are doing this and I think it’s going to save us a couple of bucks on save the dates.

I had a ton of people I had never met. Out of state family and family friends. It was great! So fun to meet new people. That is the whole idea of getting married right, creating a bigger family and network to help your love grow and flourish

My MIL invited “friends of the family” and we just said per our request to keep the wedding small we will not be adding any friends of the family or cousins and asked her to adjust her list to our request. We stuck to immediate family and parents siblings and our siblings and our friends. Remind yourself it’s your wedding. Not a family friend reunion

If MIL is willing to pay and make sure they are covered let her. She is excited and may want people close to her to be there. Let her be the excited mom.

That was one of our "rules" when doing the guest was that it had to be people we had BOTH met at least once. It helped narrow it down a lot. Our parents didn't add any requests, even though we ran the guest list by both families.

Ha, funny story.

Our STDs went out in July. My dad has some friends that he wants invited, so they got one.

Our last names weren't on the STDs, and one of my dad's friends had mentioned that she didn't even know who we were when she got it, didn't even know us when she went on our wedding website, only finally recognized who we were when she saw my son's name mentioned on our wedding website (my dad runs errands with my son when he's visiting, she's probably seen him that way).

It really sort of ticked me off tbh. A sure sign someone shouldn't be invited - when they have no idea who you even are. Just my story. I don't even have any advice...I'm still very salty

We have a handful of people we either don't know or don't know very well that FMIL added to the list. They are close friends of her's she wanted to share the day with...so well yes, it feels a little strange, I'm not too worried about it. As long as she isn't taking over the guest list or completely exploding the number, it should be okay.

My rule for my guest list was that me nor my FH had to be introduced to anyone, I only wanted people there that meant a lot to us and were there to celebrate us not just for a party.

We put on our wedding; no one invited anyone to it except us. There were a couple of SOs invited whom we had not met previously, but of course they were invited since they were SOs of invited friends.

I personally don't see why people you've never met have to be invited to the wedding but if you guys are ok with it then yes, those guests should get everything the other guests are getting, including STDs and invites.

My wedding will have a ton of people I won't know. It's fine with me, the people who are closest to me (close family and friends) will be nearby where I need them.

The others you kinda just smile, greet, thank for coming, etc. and then they go back to their seat or wherever. The ones I don't know are invited by my parents but I don't mind at all. They won't be interrupting me much and if they do I have enough family/friends to stop them.

We had a couple people we didn’t know— my parents’ neighbors, as a courtesy since we were having the wedding in my parents’ backyard. We figured instead of bothering them with a loud party or inconveniencing then with our delivery trucks and set ups, we should at least give them dinner! We know a
couple of them and had met others in passing, but there were a couple we’d never met.

We did NOT send them save the dates! It was a several-fold move — they obviously didn’t need to travel, but more importantly I wouldn’t really have cared if they had other things going on and couldn’t make it, and because they’d be the first ones on the chopping block if we ran into any sort of snafus where we needed to decrease the guest list! Plus our save the dates were magnets with a picture of us...and I didn’t care to be on strangers’ fridges

My parents suggested inviting friends of theirs to our wedding that we had never met, and I said no. I know there is no expectation that all guests will bring gifts, but I feel like most people do, and I didn't want people who had never met me or my husband to meet us for the first time on the biggest day of our lives and feel obligated to bring a gift.

That being said, if someone had a significant other that I had never met, I would invite the SO. We had a few of these situations because I have cousins who live far away, and I've not met their SOs yet, but wasn't going to invite anyone to my wedding without their SO also invited. None of my cousins who live far away could make it to the wedding, so that was a non-issue.

It's up to you, but I would tell my MIL no if the people aren't people your FH knows and wants there. It's an event to celebrate you, not an event for MIL to hang out with friends. It's one thing if it's the date of a person you know, but if it's inviting a couple who has never met either of you before, I think that's a little weird.

My bestie's MIL invited people like this to said bestie's wedding. they just dealt with it, and it was nbd especially since MIL was helping with the wedding. I personally, am not going to invite people i barely know or dont know to my wedding. I am having something as small as possible which will still be at least 120 people since my family is huge.