How much say did other people have in your guestlist?

[nikkiana]

How much say did other people (namely mother and FMIL) have about your guestlist? Did they try to add extra people you didn't want or try to delete people that you wanted?

[soulmates]

Our families have been very good about the guest list. At first my mom wanted to invite everyone in the office where she works but we got her to agree to inviting only the few she is closest too. I love all of them though and if it didn't mean inviting an extra almost 20 people I'd let her invite them all. I figured it wasn't really fair for her to have all of her friends there when none of the other parents would.

[nikkiana]

My mother has had more say in the guestlist than I've liked.... I'm not really up for fighting about it because she's paying though.... There have been friends and relatives I've wanted to invite that she said no to for no good reason... There have been distant family members who got sent invitations I'm SURE just to gift fish from.... I've tried to be patient through the whole thing but I feel FRUSTERATED!

[MrsAbi]

The guest list has been pretty much my thing. My mom did add a couple guests, but we had the room.

Really the best part has been that I wrote down a list and she did all the work tracking down addresses.

[KathyandJer]

My Mom wanted to remove a couple of people because she thought they would feel forced to make the trip. I veto-ed that and told her that she could tell them that I don't expect them to make the trip, but would definitely love for them to be included. Otherwise, I already had the friends on the list that I thought she'd like there.

FMIL removed two names and added two names - and the two she removed were people Jer wondered about anyways!

FFIL asked that his in-laws be added to the list, but that's it!

The guest list was actually not as bad as we expected it to be!

Can you talk to your Mom and at least ask WHY she doesn't want to invite the people that she didn't give any good reason to not invite? Would be nice to at least have an explanation!

[Jaci]

Oh boy, this was one of the bigger frustrations of the wedding. FMIL put a bunch of people on her list that I totally wasn't expecting, somewhere around 20 extra people, but that's not the worst part.

My mom was so difficult. She had all of her friends on the list, along with every second cousin on both sides of my family (my parents are divorced), and even some third cousins. I vetoed all of her friends that were on the list along with third cousins, and second cousins on my dad's side.

[nikkiana]

Can you talk to your Mom and at least ask WHY she doesn't want to invite the people that she didn't give any good reason to not invite? Would be nice to at least have an explanation!

In some cases, it's just dumb excuses.... In other cases, she has a point by not inviting them, but it would be easier just to save face and invite them anyway...

For example, we invited one of my mother's friends but we didn't invite her adult children. My gut feeling was that we should AT LEAST invite her youngest daughter and her husband.... I was best friends with her in middle school and I dated her husband for a short period of time and I'm still friendly with both, and while I wouldn't say that I'm really close to either, I knew not inviting her would raise questions. Oh, and it did.... My mom's friend called yesterday asking if her youngest was invited or not. She talked to my dad who doesn't know anything about the guestlist of course. LOL. So, I think an invitation is going to be sent out in the mail today for her... I'm kinda annoyed because I wanted to invite her and her husband in the first place and my mother wouldn't let me. I have a sneaking supsicion it has to do with the fact that my mother worked with her husband and now doesn't like him because he's a terrible person to work with (he's a nice guy, just a space cadet).

Another spot where this happened was with some distant cousins... My mother put the cousins that were on her generation in the guest list, but omitted their children and grandchildren... This kinda annoyed me because these were cousins I actually spent time with as a child and are somewhat friendly with, her excuse was that if she invited one of the kids, she had to invite them all. I honestly don't see why this is a big issue because A. we have room. and B. most likely the only ones who might come are the ones who live in the immediate area.

Yet, she invites cousins I don't even know. *headdesk*

[KathyandJer]

nikkiana - I definitely understand that. It's tough when you set some sort of standard and then you have to make an exception somewhere :( I think the guestlist is the biggest hassle out of everything! You worry that you're going to miss someone...or offend someone!

Just remember that no matter what, you'll be married at the end of the day whether cousin jimmy and great aunt suzie's kids were there ;) :grouphug:

[carolinalady67]

Our parents are free to invite whoever they want. Everyone will have a long travel to get here so if they want to be at our wedding bad enough to make the 18 hour trip they are more then welcome.

[Angela]

We told our parents they could invite, I believe it was 6 people each. They decided not to invite anyway, which is fine. Other than that FMIL was great in telling me who from her family NOT to invite, because they won't show up.

[nikkiana]

Well, I think we settled the problem with the friends... My mother's friend called today and she's just going to bring her daughter and granddaughter along with her so we don't have to send out another invite and the husband isn't going to go (which I'm certain my mother is releaved about, personally I don't care).

[*TanyaJeanne*]

My parents and Chris's parents helped with the guest list so that we were able to get all the family on the list that we needed to.

[jrbecca]

Good thread! Brian and I capped our guest list at 100 people, and when we had included all the people we wanted to include (and were short), we opened it up to parents, giving each parent an opportunity to invite five people of their choice. Surprisingly, everyone felt our list was sufficient and they added no one. So, it looks like we're on for a quaint little wedding day...

[*alissa*]

Scince my parents paid for all but $1000 of our wedding, they pretty much had all the say.

[katieandalex]

Pretty much 100%! LOL! Majority of my guestlist are my parents friends....which is ok though because I know every single one of them and grew up around them and such....but mine and Alex's portion of the guestlist is very small.

[*meghan*]

I'm SO thankful that my parents and FH's parents didn't get out of control with the guest list! We told them the max number of people our site would hold, and if they haven't seen any of these people in more than 5 years, they are not inviting them. Since FH and I are paying for the wedding ourselves, WE get final say on who is invited :D

[*Ashley*]

Well, my parents came back with a list of 102 people and Michael's parents have a list of 99 (75 of which are family because they don't have very many friends). Michael and I can name over 50 right off the bat we are inviting that we know will come...we're going to have to tell our parents to cut their list down -- I KNOW my mom has invited some people that don't need to invited (I can think of about 5 right now -- one woman who does hair at the salon I know only because I say hi to her).

[rowanmayfairs]

my parents wanted to invite family friends and people that had known me since I was a kid. No big deal cause most of those people already RSVP saying they won't coming :)

I don't think James mom had any say so..she provided the name and addresses of all family for him like he asked. Never recall her saying anything about wanting to invite any one different/extra :)

[angie]

Our moms have not interferred with our guestlist. It is completely our decision.

[lizaanne]

None. We are paying for everything, so we made the list.

My mom requested one friend, and so did my dad. So that was not a problem. But as far as "dictate" - there was none of that for us.

However.......because of political family crap I had to add a few people on where I would have prefered to have some friends from work who mean far more to me, but you know how families are. Especially step-families. People who are not related to ME in any way, but because they are in my dad's wife's family, I have to include them.

I so hate family politics. If it were up to my FH he would tell them to get bent. :) Oh well. It's only one day.

~Liza

[nikkiscott]

Well my mom gave us alist of people she thought that we should invite. And fhs mom said that it was our wedding and we should invite who we want to invite. Not who she thinks should be there. Also it helps when you and fh are on same page. We both knew who we were inviting and who we weren't inviting. Plus our guest list is around 100 right now. Anytime fh or I want to add someone else, we have to take someone off of the list. Its only fair. And if we can't think of someone to take off of the list then we don't need to add anyone else.

[destinationbride07]

honestly no say..i just asked my mother for address but some reason she put my lil bro in charge and he got them!

[PurpleFlower]

the only problem we had was trimming it down when we thought we had found our reception location. That was hard but now we have a lot more room and is wayyyy better. Anyway we are able to add people back on now!! I think collecting the addresses is going to be hard though