Limiting in-laws guest list

Just because your family is small doesn't mean you get to limit what family is invited in your FH's side. Who does he want to invite?

Does your FH want his aunts and uncles and cousins there?

Why should you get to invite your friends over his family? If he wants his family there it sounds like your friend count will have to go down, unless he is also inviting friends over his family.

The way it sounds it's the FMIL that is trying to invite people not FH. tell her it's not her choice to decide who is invited unless she wants to pay for the extra guests

I could really use some help in this department too.. I can feel this same scenario coming for me

It's. It about anyone being selfish. But if there's a guest list, there's a guest list. PARTICULARLY if your FMIL is not contributing a significant amount of money to this affair. You have to respect a persons budget. Because next year Aunt So-And-So and Cousin Such-And-Such won't remember your wedding but you (or whoever is paying) will still be feeling the financial aftermath of doubling your guest list.

If she's not contributing financially, she shouldn't really be telling you who to invite or what to do with your wedding.

If you're just starting your planning, the usual advice is decide budget then guest list. If you're paying for the wedding yourselves, the decisions about the guest list are yours. In terms of cost, there is going to be a huge difference in the cost of a 50-60 person wedding compared to a 100 person wedding. There are lots of posts that give great suggestions about how to prioritize the list to help make sure it fits your budget (e.g., start with you & FH, add immediate family, wedding party, other critical VIPs, if you're not yet at your maximum guest count, add the next closest group of friends/family [maybe aunts & uncles, but not cousins], stop as soon as you reach your maximum count). If the in-laws are helping pay for the wedding, then they do get some say regarding the guest list, but the total still needs to fit within your total budget, so they may need to prioritize their list, too.

You should find out whether he is offering to not invite some of his friends because it is important to him to have aunts, uncles and cousins there or if it is because he doesn't want drama with is mom.

Maybe I confused some with the way I worded this. My FH has not put anyone but his immediate family onto the list and his closest friends. My friend list is not superseding his family by any means or his friends . My FMIL has placed extended family onto the list, none of which my FH had invited. I'm simply wondering how to approach my FMIL with downsizing her list or prioritizing the family invited. I also would not know how to or even consider asking her to pay money for the extra guests, I would rather just tenderly approach this in a way asking to decrease the list. It's just a dilemma because we wanted it to be immediate family and closest friends and it is not that in any way now.

He should approach her, not you.

Is.she.paying?

It might be easiest to determine how many people you can add and tell her that she can invite that many people. It leaves prioritizing her list up to her.

My family is average size and I could invite cousins and aunts but we decided that we wanted our wedding small. That is why my extended family is not invited due to our plan to have a small wedding. My family is paying all of the costs for the wedding. I don't want him to have to pick his mothers guests over his own that he wishes to be there to respect her wishes. I don't want there to be animosity but when my family is paying for this wedding and my aunts and uncles aren't coming or cousins my family may become upset over that like we are catering to his side and dismissing my side , which we decided upon a small guest list which would limit to immediate family.

'FMIL, we are not able to host this many people due to venue constraints. We have allocated you xxx spots, please let us know who you would like us to invite." And don't budge. If she gives you the list then a week later remembers that Aunt Ethel just HAS to come, ask who she will replace on the list she already gave you. And whatever you do, personalize her STD and invite so she can't copy it and send it to all the relatives you didn't invite.

If your FH would really rather invite his friends than the aunts and uncles, he should talk to his mom about it. Don't force him though. Just because you'd rather invite your friends than your aunts and uncles doesn't mean he feels the same way. edited for spelling

@Kiwi said it perfectly. Although you and FH need to be on the same page. If you've agreed to 50-60 people that's where it should be. If he would rather invite extended family over his friends that's up to him.

DH has a huge family (like I'm still meeting people 7 years later). My family is small....literally there are five of us total. We made a list of VIPs on both sides (immediate family). On his side, we drew the line at Family I didn't know or ones that we don't see regularly (3 or more times a year). He had one set of friends invited. I had about ten.

If he is fine with no friends over extended family that's his call. But I definitely think you should stick to your original numbers of 50-60. (That was the size of our wedding and it was great!)

If it is not him but his mother who wants his extended family then he needs to talk to her and tell her that ye have decided to keep it small and can't accommodate them all, also tell her that you are not inviting your extended family for the same reason. Give her a relistic figure and tell her she can invite x amount of guests. It really is your FH who needs to talk to his mother though.

You need to be straight up with her. If she doesn't pay, she has no say.

Did you ask her for a list or did she just give you one? I would just tell her how many she is allowed to invite.

I feel like we ran into this with my brother's wedding. SILs parents were hosting but she was never clear with us about how many we could invite or any sort of budget limitations. Instead she would just ask multiple times to go over the our list to see if we were "sure" about who we wanted to invite. We tried asking my brother but he was clueless as hell.

The aunt/uncle/cousins thing is tricky. Personally I would have loved to do what you want and have immediate family and friends. However, the fall out from that with my parents would not be worth it. So your FH very much be in a similar spot. My paternal aunt was super upset we didn't invite her GRANDKIDS (yeah thats 1st cousin once removed...) to the rehearsal dinner. Everyone has different family dynamics to deal with.

She emailed me her list one day and just invited people. I really appreciate everyone's input and advice. Thank you very much. We need to give her a number and have her choose the guests because my FH didn't list any of them as a must have guest so we will leave it on her plate.

We did equal amounts even though my parents paid. There's no reason to ruin your dreams of a smaller wedding. People will through a fit, but will understand. FYI usually the fit throwers are people who you arent close with.