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I want a small wedding because I will be 3 months pregnant. My parents are very embarrassed and I don't want to make a spectacle of myself. However, all of my immediate family that I love will be attending the wedding. I have bought a beautiful Ivory colored gown to wear for the occasion.
My future husband is from a very, very large family, plus he is a member of a small church (about 200 people total when full). There are people of the church that would like to attend the wedding. My future husband wanted to be married in the church he grew up in and was a member of.
Problem: I gave my future mother-in-law nine invitations for the Wedding. She had requested 35. I have nothing against 3 people she wanted to invite, except she worked with them, and yes, they have met my fiancé. However, I didn't think it was necessary to invite these people. My future mother-in-law said, "If I have to cut them, I might as well cut the whole list."
Originally she would like to have invited about 200 people. She feels that 35 invitations was not asking to much. This amount would include immediate family members, friends of the family, great aunts and uncle's, and some co-workers. However, it is excluding church members, neighbors that my fiancé has known for years, high school friends, etc.
I am from a large family but we aren't that close. The people I care about will be at the wedding, which totals about 19.
This situation is causing some very hard feelings between my fiancé, myself, his folks, and the rest of his family. In fact, my fiancé's mother has completely withdrawn from being involved in the Wedding (his mother was the Wedding Coordinator for their church for several years).
Do you have any suggestions for a remedy?
Please answer quickly, we are sinking in to more trouble then we can bail out of at the moment.!!!!
I think creating and trimming the guest list is the worst part of planning
a wedding. First, and most importantly, make sure you and your fiancé
are very clear with one another about what you each want/need to happen,
and that you agree to support one another. Then, it's up to your fiancé
to take a stand with his mother about splitting his side's share of
invitations - if he wants his high school friends, he'll have to make it
clear that her co-workers go on a second list. Last, make a second list!
Send out the first batch of invitations a little early and for every RSVP
that comes back declined, send out a second list invitation. Amazingly,
you might find that you have way more invitations go out than people
accept! Believe me, the tension will end very soon! Good Luck & Congratulations!
"X"
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage and precious baby-to-be! Having recently (what over 19 months ago???) been through the wedding invitation dilemmas with "X", I truly understand your anxiety! "X's" future in-laws are the original social butterflies and the initial estimate for THEIR guests was over 200 people, only 10 of whom were family members! The future mother-in-law (FMIL) couldn't possibly cut a single person from her list. By the time we added the friends of the bride and groom and the 15 family members that I wanted, the total was well over 400 people. Definitely not in my price range, so...FMIL was told "this is how many you can invite, PERIOD.
BUT, your fiancé is the one who must control his mother! If she sulks and doesn't participate, she is only hurting herself. (Why do grooms' mothers behave so awful? Please someone smack me if I become a monster when my son finds a bride Relax (stress is bad for you and bad for your baby)!