People inviting themselves to my wedding

I haven't had this problem, however, FH and I decided we wanted a small wedding since it's the first time our families are meeting. We limited our ceremony to immediate family and a few friends. We both have large extended families spread across several continents, literally. We're getting married in my hometown; keeping our guest list on the smaller side so that everyone can meet and mingle, and for planning purposes has helped us with wedding prep. Talk to your fiance, consider your budget, and make your guest list accordingly. Do you want an intimate ceremony-- smaller guest list may help provide that feel versus a larger one. Good luck!

Well this is very harsh.. but.. we posted on FB we were getting married.. and several people commented and said “I better get an invite” or “I don’t have to say I’m coming. I am invited”. I’m sorry but no... not even family needs to go ahead and think they will be invited. We ended up deciding to have a DW... well people STILL invited themselves and actually my FHs Mother invited several people (many I don’t know and my FH isn’t close with but is HER best friends and such) and one guest invited her family that lives near by. I tried to nicely say no at first (which worked with the guest but not the MIL so much) but then I got “mean” I flat out said if you plan on bringing people we do not invite you will have to pay the fees for them and they will NOT be in any pictures so do not ask. we do not want them there.... you must ask before you invite ppl to our wedding... then I had the fight of no they can not come to the reception either! Cause she said “okay no wedding they will just come to the reception!!” (I get that there are probably people who disagree with what I did... but it’s not your wedding either and we get charged for every person so we have the final say. So please don’t criticize how we had to handle things)
I just had to get very harsh and have even had to say “if you can’t respect these requests don’t come. We love you and want you to come but not if you can’t respect us”. It’s really just best to say “hey we know you’d love to be at the wedding but there is no room on the guest list. I’m sorry and hope we can see you and celebrate after!” Or something like that it’s best to tell them sooner than later and just be honest. Sorry you’re going through this... it made me madder than a hornet people just automatically saying “I’m invited”. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment Hi Elizabeth, I have 250 on my guestlist. That is already too much and people are trying to add themselves.

I’m a sales rep and I have had accounts ask when to expect their invites. It’s ridiculous. I just say we have large families and a very limited amount of seats. It’s somewhere between the real truth and an outright lie, but it gets the point across without making me look like I’m being nasty.

Does you venue have a capacity limit? Explain that you want a shorter list so you can spend time with your guests other than greeting them and thanking them for coming.

I usually just said I'm at Max capacity already

Just say we haven’t had a chance to make our guest list but we do plan on keeping it more intimate and unfortunately will not be able to accommodate as many people as we might like.

I'm having a similar situation except my mom and fmil have been asking left and right if they can bring so-so. Most recent fmil asked if she could bring her therapist

Just don't send an invitation - they'll get the point.

Don't send an invite don't respond. If they get pushy just say our guest list has been maxed out at capacity of the venue sorry. They'll survive

Just don’t give them any details and don’t send an invitation. Also, stop talking to people about your wedding if you don’t plan on inviting them. I don’t know why it would be important to tell these people you’re getting married if you have no interest in including them in your guest list when you’re already inviting 250 people.

I’d just tell them “we are already over our max capacity” and then just don’t send them an invite. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I neeeever experienced someone saying "I better be invited". Uh what? General rule of thumb is that if they insist they don't get invited lol because that's rude. Don't speak details of the wedding. Your wedding is over a year away just say you are in the first details and haven't finalized any guest list yet.

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Exactly. Most of them won't ask beyond that. If someone does? "We would have loved to invite everyone but our venue is at capacity!" And if someone is honestly upset by that...then it's probably good they aren't invited anyway

In the meantime though - while you're still planning and nowhere near invitation time, just telling people "we don't have a guest list yet - it's too early" should shut them up

Yup I had this happened to us as well. I got a rsvp back from a cousin and she tried to add 4 people in. I told her absolutely not! People can be so rude!

After FH and I got engaged we went to visit his family and our college friends. (He is from Milwaukee and we met at college in Waukesha) We had two of his fraternity brothers (who we aren't close with/barely talk to) message him asking where their wedding invite was. FH just kind of said we haven't finalized the guest list (which since we had only been engaged for a total of three weeks was true). Then we were spending the night at his grandma's. His grandma would have refused to travel to Minnesota where we currently live so we chose Eau Claire. After we mentioned that to her, her words were "I know some of my friends will not travel that far." My eyes just widened. FH told her that they just wouldn't come then. Then when we met his mom for dinner the next day, she said a close friend of hers (who FH has not had a big relationship with) better be invited to the wedding, or the friend will just crash it.

It blows my mind how entitled people are when it comes to invites to a wedding. And again all three of these conversations happened three weeks after our engagement.

My advice is just honest. In reality, if you want to have a wedding on the smaller size, they should respect that. Or just be blatantly honest. One of the fraternity brothers of FH kept being insistent about it so finally, FH said in black and white "sorry man. We are keeping it to those close to us and while I value the times we've spent together we haven't spoken/spent time together for almost a year."

I just noticed this is from July of 2019 lol. I hope it has been solved by now!