The thin line of wedding invitations

[foxy]

Sorry I can't help.

Reminds me of a wedding I was invited to last year. The groom invited me to the church service but I had no invite to the doo after!

I politely declined, they can get fucked if I'm just filling an empty seat so they can have a full church.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Good morning, Blues.

Out of those who have been married or like me, are planning one at the moment, where was that line drawn, (if at all), where you decide who comes and who doesn't?

Mrs P has a big family whereas there aren't many of us. Because she has so many aunts, uncles and cousins we said we were going to draw the line at immediate family and her nana, (my grandparents are long gone). I'm thinking now whether to invite my aunt and uncle from my mums side so it balances it out a bit and because they are the only bit of close family I have after my immediate family, but that then creates a problem of not being able to invite their daughters, (my cousins), as another reason we are keeping it low-key is the cost of it all. How the fuck do you invite an aunty and uncle but not a cousin? If I do then invite those cousins, she will want to invite hers and there's fucking hundreds of them. Not getting hitched until next year but.....

Agggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!

I presume all members of Bluemoon will be invited ?

 

[Pigeonho]

Cost is a big factor obviously, but when you start picking and choosing some family members to go and some not, some for the evening do and others for the full monty, you are storing up difficulties one way or another for the future. If cousins go on one side of the family but not the other, one side of the family will sympathise that you have four cousins and she has three hundred and twelve, but the other side of the family will not.

My two penn'orth FWIW, it's the quality of the relationship that counts, not the numbers on either side of the church aisle. If you want your parents' brothers and sisters and their children to come, it's not unreasonable for Mrs P to want the same. If Mrs P isn't that fussed, maybe you do draw the line somewhere but I'm guessing that the reason for this thread is that it's creating friction to a greater or lesser extent. If it is, and you dig your heels in, it may be an issue for you for a very long time to come.

If I were you, I'd either get your chequebook out and buy her entire family dinner, or you need to start making economies with what you had otherwise planned. Otherwise, there might come a point when you sorely wish you had done for one reason or another.

Besides, she's marrying you Pige. The poor girl obviously needs some kind of break...

Ha! Nice one mate.

She is cool with the idea of me inviting the aunt and uncle i've mentioned, as long as I don't then go down the route of inviting my cousins as then she will want to invite hers. I can understand that, but it's a matter of how I then say to my cousins, 'alright, how the the fuck is it going? Oh, and i'm inviting your folks to my wedding but not you'. I'd be a tad more tactful than that, but you get the drift i'm sure.<br /><br />-- Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:42 am --<br /><br />

Good morning, Blues.

Out of those who have been married or like me, are planning one at the moment, where was that line drawn, (if at all), where you decide who comes and who doesn't?

Mrs P has a big family whereas there aren't many of us. Because she has so many aunts, uncles and cousins we said we were going to draw the line at immediate family and her nana, (my grandparents are long gone). I'm thinking now whether to invite my aunt and uncle from my mums side so it balances it out a bit and because they are the only bit of close family I have after my immediate family, but that then creates a problem of not being able to invite their daughters, (my cousins), as another reason we are keeping it low-key is the cost of it all. How the fuck do you invite an aunty and uncle but not a cousin? If I do then invite those cousins, she will want to invite hers and there's fucking hundreds of them. Not getting hitched until next year but.....

Agggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!

I presume all members of Bluemoon will be invited ?

Christ, imagine that.

 

[MCFCTrick]

We had all this hassle when planning our wedding (1992!) So much interference that in the end we both said sod it, cancelled it all.....went on the planned 'honeymoon' (Three weeks driving around America's Southwest) got married in Vegas (pre planned and booked, Excalibur Hotel's chapel) and just had a big party when we got home.

Job done....

 

[Chris in London]

If she isn't close to any of her cousins but you are to yours, maybe the price you pay to invite your four cousins is that you also invite her 312. Or you explain to them that it's either all the cousins or none of them and you've had to say 'no' on both sides down to cost.

(They'll think you're a tightwad, but there you go.)

If she is close to her cousins, they should be there really, cost or no cost. She will want to share the day with them, whether she seems cool about them not coming or not. If she is close to some of her cousins but not others, it's difficult not to invite the ones she is close to, but it's hard to see then how you invite some but not all.

I sympathise about the cost, but the cash you save by drawing the line somewhere or other you might end up paying for in grief somewhere down the line.

Unless some of her cousins are rags of course.

They can fuck off.

 

[Banshee]

we said we were going to draw the line at immediate family and her nana

If you don't stick to this your going to make it harder for yourselves. You can't beat yourselves up that some cousin is miffed they're not invited all day, its YOUR day and YOUR budget.

 

[Pigeonho]

we said we were going to draw the line at immediate family and her nana

If you don't stick to this your going to make it harder for yourselves. You can't beat yourselves up that some cousin is miffed they're not invited all day, its YOUR day and YOUR budget.

Just wanted to gauge the thoughts of Blues' experiences on here. We are close to sticking to our original plan, with the addition of her aunt and the aunt and uncle i've mentioned. See i've seen these type of things explode into chaos when some people are invited and some aren't, and I would hate for that to happen with us.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

It's a no-win situation unfortunately and the best you can do is minimise the collateral damage. The best way is to be consistent and you'll just have to explain to those you'd like to invite but had to leave out that you just couldn't do it. Either that or ditch the future Mrs P & marry an orphan whose parents were both only children.

 

[andymafia]

The way that me and my girlfriend/fiance/whatever did it was to make a list of all of our families (her parents are divorces and remarried so it was like 6 seperate families in total).

We then went through each family and put a ring around everybody that we actually liked and would be bothered if they took offence at not being invitied. It was much easier to balance it up within each mini-family than saying "well, if all your cousins are coming, then we have to invite all mine" etc. as that's just not practical and you'd end up inviting everybody you've ever met in your life.

We generally found that making little rules like 'immediate family only' just made things harder, rather than easier. We also tended to find the people who say "It's YOUR day, do what YOU want" really mean "Invite who I want there".

My main problem at the minute is inviting kids. I don't really want them there in the day as it takes up a seat that another adult could have (plus they'll be bored shitless!) but obviously it's not very practical to say "Yeah, you can come to the day, but get somebody to drop your sprogs off for the evening do" so we're a bit stumped with that one at the minute.

 

[Bluemoon dan]

Get married abroad and invite everyone.

If they can make it fantastic, if they can't well they cant say they werent invited and get all huffy!