mother in law problems ALREADY!

[Meg1984]

I am well over a year away from my wedding and i am already having mother in law problems! She has ballooned the guest list! And i am major stressing over it. Our reception hall has a 175 min guest list. Which i think is ok. a little more then i had wanted but i fell in love with the room i couldn't help myself but to book it. we are going to be near the 200's now with all the people she wants to invite. Both of our parents are paying for the wedding. My mother and my fiances mother planned on splitting the reception 50/50. But now im thinking she should be paying for the extra people she wants to invite. I don't know I am very confused and frustrated over the whole thing. What was suppose to be a wedding with our closest friends and family is now Turing into a family reunion for my fiances side of the family. Help. Please!

[Mel]

i think if you set a number for each set of invitees (your parents, his parents, you two) and any one party exceeds their amount, without another party undershooting theirs and saying it is ok to adjust accordingly, then the people inviting more need to pay for the additional people.

though sometimes parents want to invite a lot of relatives they feel "need" to be invited but are 99% sure they won't come. i'd make sure to flush that part out first before getting too wrapped up.

but overall, i agree with you that she should pay if that was the agreement.

{wow, that hardly makes sense to me, but i'll leave it for now and if you want me to attempt to rephrase it i'll be happy to!}

[Mrs. Bebe]

The absolute best advice I can give you, as someone who had MANY in-law challenges, is have a good heart to heart with your FH and figure out what you are willing to bend on and what you aren't. Then, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, sit down with the in-laws and law down the law (so to speak). The more you have a clear idea of what your non-negotiables are, the easier it will become to draw your line in the sand. But make sure you pick some things that you are willing to compromise on too so that the power struggle doesn't get out of hand.

Just my two cents...hope things turn out well for you....!!! If there is anything I wish I could re-do about my wedding, it would be following my own advice lol

Zita

[carolinalady67]

Bottom line, your reception hall holds 175 people, you can't invite more then 175 people. I would not play the, some will reply no game. The first on the guest list should be the people you and DH really want there ... no matter who is paying for it, it is your wedding. Then the remainder of the guest list count should be divided up between the parents and FMIL has to cut her list to fit that number just like anyone else who plans a wedding has to do.

If she keeps giving you a hard time about it just remind her of the limit at the reception hall. You can't uninvite people if to many reply yes. Being under 175 you can deal with, being over is something that you can't.

[Winter_Bride]

It's a tough spot if she's paying for half. I think that if you had decided on how many people each party could invite, and she went over that amount, then she should pay for the extra people. If you didn't have that conversation before, you definately need to now.

If she keeps giving you a hard time about it just remind her of the limit at the reception hall. You can't uninvite people if to many reply yes. Being under 175 you can deal with, being over is something that you can't.I totally agree with this. Does your FMIL know the limit at the hall? Then it's not even a matter of who's paying for what people, but if your hall can only handly 175, then you really can't invite more thatn 175 people, and your MIL needs to be informed of this.

:hug: Hopefully it's all a misunderstanding! I hope you can find some common ground in all this!

[Mel]

Our reception hall has a 175 min guest list. Which i think is ok. a little more then i had wanted but i fell in love with the room i couldn't help myself but to book it.

based on this part, it looks like the site has a minimum of 175 guests, so the going over the site is not the issue, its a budget and what the couple wanted issue....

[Winter_Bride]

I'm so sorry!! I totally misread that!!

So yes, then if it is a case of your MIL inviting more than you've budgeted for, you should talk to your MIL. If she's willing to pay, then are you ok with the extra people invited? If you want it to be a more intimate affair, would your parents and your fiance's parents agree?

[carolinalady67]

Sorry, I didn't understand that correctly. Then I do think that rather then a 50/50 split, the split should be based on % of who's guests are who's. But, I also think that is more of a conversation for your parents to have.

[thefuturemrsgoss]

first of all, let me give you this : :hug99:

Your going to need it if you FMIL was anything like my FMIL! It was just a couple of months ago we were dealing with this.

First of all, "paying for half" isn't always fair, and you need to explain that to your mother in law. if your mom invites 75 people and your mother in law invites 150, then she needs to pay the other 33%! Or explain to her that you can only afford (insert number here) amount of guests, and if she wants MORE than that, then she'll have to pony up the money.

Your lucky she's paying half though! Mine isn't paying anything and invited 350 people. which we then cut to less than 50. So our entire wedding is 100 people. And there WERE fits, I mean :tempertantrum::gaah: fits from her, but she got over it when she saw I wasn't budging.

[Meg1984]

I think i am going to talk to her and see if she would mind paying for the other people. We still need to finalize the guest list anyway and it might end up that we have an equal amount. Thanks everyone for all of the advice!

[*Diane*]

How did this conversation turn out, honey? :crossfing:

[km]

I think this is really all you need to tell her "Our reception hall has a 175 min guest list"

[Meg1984]

We had a nice converstaion about it. She is willing to pay for the guests she is going to invite to the wedding. I am so relieved. I think it is really nice of her to offer to pay for her guests. And it will be helping out my mom in a huge way!

[Mel]

glad she was good about it! :hug99: