<p>“Hello, mother of the bride? Just calling to find out the age cut-off for the adult reception.” So simple. Yet we have 140 responses. Funny how sometimes a pretty ho-hum post can provoke so much commentary–and reminiscing, in this case. Now there’s a topic for a PhD thesis in sociology or communications: why some topics set off a flurry of responses on discussion boards, while others just lie there like beached whales.</p>
<p>DD recently had to plan her wedding for a sociology class in HS. She had a budget of 25K (choking) and had to use the money to plan whatever she wanted and had to research everything for her wedding and prepare a budget. She decided to spend the money on a destination wedding since she loves to travel. I was so happy that she invited AND PAID FOR both sets of parents in her budget and we had beautiful rooms at a luxury resort in Hawaii! The outdoor wedding was lovely and she actually found a resort which really does this sort of thing, with all of the frills included. She said she really didn’t care about wasting a lot of money on a one day event when she could use it to travel instead and wasn’t really planning on anyone being there except both sets of parents and herself and groom. It was a lovely wedding and I hope she remembers this when the time comes. (and has the $$$ to pay for whatever we cannot afford to contribute)</p>
<p>PS - zoosermom- maybe we are related! Large families are highly overrated! Some of my friends with smaller families lament about larger families, but I always tell them, there is more drama going on than you ever see as an outsider! I have a friend who always invites us to her large family gatherings because she says, with us present, we keep her large family on their best behavior!</p>
<p>It is so hard to set a financial and head count limit without potentially offending someone. To take a slightly different perspective, when did an invitation become an obligation? If the bride and groom send out invitations, they are extending invitations to those with whom they would like to share their joyous occasion. And if, due to head count limits, financial limits, or even a preference to not having little ones running around or underage attendees, why is this not ok? I guess I don’t get why someone would feel offended, when they are being included, if the hosts have some parameters they have to stay within.</p>
<p>My DH has a HUGE family. When a cousin’s dau married a few years ago, the cousins were invited (DH, his bro, sis, etc) but not the cousins adult kids, even though they were close in age to the bride and groom, and knew the bride pretty well. We got it. No problem. We attended without our adult kids. But BIL talked his way into bringing his 3 adult (uninvited) kids to the rehearsal dinner and the wedding/reception. The family hosting the wedding were on a budget and had space/numbers limits. I guess I dont get why this isnt ok.</p>
<p>My s#1 is in a very committed relationship and we are all assuming it a matter of time before they get engaged/married. We love his GF and her family. Wonderful people. We have met the parents several times. One time, in passing, the size of my DH’s family came up in conversation (seriously, both his mother and father’s family were HUGE and although the aunts/uncles are pretty much gone, there are a gazillion cousins who are actually age comtemporaries of my DH) and GF’s mother’s eyes practically fell out of her head. There will be limits on the number invited. It just is what it is.</p>
<p>jym - totally agree that an invitation is an invitation and people have their boudaries/parameters, which is why we opted to decline for logistical reasons and were okay with our children not being included. That being said, it was B and SIL that had the fit that we weren’t there for their “show”. When we found out from other siblings about all of the “unrelated children” at the wedding/reception and unrelated friends at the rehearsal dinner when siblings were excluded, it caused some hurt feelings. I sent a lovely gift and note and am not sorry we did not attend.</p>
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Sounds like you handled things exactly appropriately, marybee, and that the issue was your B and SIL’s not yours. Sounds like they may have had to deal with unrelated/uninvited “guests” who bulldoze their way to the event like my BIL did with his adult children. You were gracious and I totally agree with how you handled it. Very classy.</p>
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<p>It was intended to have an urban, clubby feel and the cocktail hour location was too small for the number of non-clubbing guests, with almost no seats for elderly or even middle-aged relatives. Very dark, very loud, very long gap between reception and wedding, food served very late. It would have been a great party for young adults, but everyone else was hungry, tired, headachey and miserable.</p>
<p>Marybee, if we aren’t related, I would like to be. I sometimes wish we could pick our families like a fantasy family thing a la fantasy football.</p>
<p>^^or brackets like basketball. The ones that lose get kicked out :)</p>
<p>jym, I think people may be offended when somebody breaks a previous pattern of inviting all the members of the extended family. If it’s for financial reasons, then I think people have to be understanding. But if I invited you and your 37 kids and grandkids to my wedding, I might be miffed if you exclude me from yours because you’d like it to be more intimate. Also, I think people may have hurt feelings when they learn that they’re not considered to be as close to a relative as they think they are.</p>
<p>Understand, to a degree. Can you clarify what you mean by “pattern”?
Are you saying that its expected within a family that certain tiers of relatives will be invited? </p>
<p>My family is very small, and half dont even speak to each other. On the other hand, my DHs family is huge and wonderful, but its simply unrealistic to expect all the cousins/cousins once removed… etc to be invited. As I said earlier, because there were so many aunts and uncles on both his mothers and fathers sides, there are actually cousins once removed (thats the kids of his first cousins) who are his chronological peers. Many of the first cousins are actually a generation older. Anyway, its so hard to know where one can draw the line. If you (speaking generall… not to you personally) invite one set of first cousins once removed, do you have to then invite all to avoid hurting someones feelings? We are talking a LOT of people. A LOT . If I invited an entire family with offspring to an event and in return only DH and I were invited to theirs, I dont thik I would be miffed, as I don’t see it as tit for tat. I dont feel they are obligated just because we invited their kids and aunts and uncles for them to do so in return. If they do, its lovely, but if they dont. I understand.</p>
<p>Still mulling over this one…</p>
<p>If our DS gets engaged, and the family of the bride handles the bulk of the wedding costs (we wil offer to help but dont know the protocol these days), it is quite reasonable to expect that they will give us a “limit” of how many friends and family we can invite. They will be the ones picking the venue, etc. I will have to then decide who we can and cannot invite, and while we hope not to hurt someones feelings, there may be no way around it. Simply cant invite everyone.</p>
<p>Threads like this make me nervous. For us, the plan is to invite my entire family but we’re not sure what to do about his family. On both sides of my family, there are a total of 35 people including aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins’ spouses, and cousins’ children. We can reasonably invite everyone on my side as we know not everyone will come. I come from a very tight-knit family. Only one small family rift and they’re able to put it aside for events. </p>
<p>On his side of the family, just ONE uncle has over 30 children and grandchildren. And there are 11 more aunts and uncles (just biological, not including spouses). We already know that many won’t come as they’re extremely religious and have already skipped their own siblings’ weddings which weren’t conducted in either a church or the right kind of church. I have no idea how he’s going to navigate that invitation process. Sometimes, small families rock :D. Plus, whereas I have close relationships with almost all of my extended family, he can barely name his aunts and uncles let alone first cousins (of which there are over 50 best he can count).</p>
<p>Weddings are complicated.</p>
<p>romani-
I think your fiance and my DH are related. H is mother was one of 9 and father was one of 10. Both sides of the family are pretty close. We are talking a LOT of people.</p>
<p>jym, except his family ISN’T close lol. I know there’s a huge rift with his dad’s family (don’t know the details, neither does he) and his mom’s family is significantly older (I think his mom was actually an “oops” many years later and she seems to have nieces and nephews which are around the same age as her). </p>
<p>Whenever there are family get-togethers, no one recognizes the fact that I’m not actually related to anyone. Although it’s fun to experience the “aren’t you so-and-so’s kid?” “No, she’s definitely so-and-so’s kid!”</p>
<p>Both of my parents had three brothers, one of which passed away without any family of his own. Each sibling averaged around 2 kids. We like tiny families. Even my mom’s parents had only one and two siblings. My dad’s father OTOH was a typical Irish Catholic one of 10.</p>
<p>My closest g/fs already said they won’t give up a weekend to fly to the worm’s wedding. Maybe his closest HS friends, UG and current grad school roommates may come. I will offer to pay for hotel rooms for anyone from our family or his friends. I suspect at most 10-15 of wedding attendees will be the worm’s. I sure hope I’m not expected to pay for 1/2 of wedding. I think it is so different being MOG rather than MOB.</p>
<p>Romani-
Especially with huge famiies its simply not possible, (etiquette be cast to the wind) to invite everyone. And then if you invite folks who may not be as close, in an attempt not to offend, there is the risk of their thinking “oh they just want a gift” (cue several relatives who were invited to DS’s Bar Mitzvahs-- and NO it was not just to have them send a gift). Can’t win…</p>
<p>Bookworm- is the worm getting married?? Congrats!!! And are you serious or kidding when you say your friends wont give up a weekend. Really?</p>
<p>When DH and I got married my parents had a coronary when they saw the invitation list. Most of DH’s aunts/uncles were still alive then, and remember, there is a generation of relatives such that the cusins once removed are Dhs age or older. The wedding was heavily attended by DH’s family even though the wedding was held near my parents home town (well, it was a meetropolitan area and some of his relatives were not far, but others were very far-- but came anyway). The rehearsal dinner was bigger than many people’s weddings!</p>
<p>Thanks, jym. On the bright side, if I do manage to tick off his extended family, it’ll likely because of our atheist wedding rather than a lack of invitation.</p>
<p>Theoretically, you’re supposed to decide who belongs at a wedding first, and where to hold it and how only afterwards. In other words relationships and people first, even if you have to serve cake. I agree with this in theory, but in reality there are always lines you have to draw. Inviting all the children of cousins on the bride’s side may open up a can of worms because the other side has 100. I think people can and should understand those kind of limitations if they are decided uniformly. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if I had a very close relationship with a second cousin but none at all with his or her siblings or the other second cousins, I would not hesitate to include that person as I would a friend.</p>
<p>S1 got engaged 2 weeks ago. GF’s parents have each been married 3x. She’s related to half the town, loves everyone, considers them all her relatives, and she’s really outgoing and social. Thinking it will be big but more informal, like a hog roast. Those are very common in our area. We’ll see what transpires 
Hopefully we have some time. Took him 5.5 years to get the ring; he’s not on the fast plan!</p>
<p>^D’s BF took eight years to figure out they needed to be married, but now we’ve had a six month window to plan the whole thing. (making up for lost time, I guess.) He may not be on the fast plan, but she’s on the “really dude? took you this long to figure it out?” plan. Which, though it’s making things a little stressy planning-wise, will hopefully ultimately turn into a perfect wedding and grandkids in my not too distant future. :)</p>
<p>DH and I were talking about this earlier today as we are going through the mental list of friends/colleagues to make sure we have affirmatively considered whether to invite. (I kepp coming up with names.) </p>
<p>He said that if <em>we</em> were throwing say, an anniversary party for us, the guest list of whom we’d want there would be very different than the list of who we’d invite to our son’s wedding. Not because the folks who aren’t invited to the wedding are less close than the ones who are, but because DH posits that our invitees should have an existing relationship with <em>S</em>. </p>
<p>I am also concerned that our side of the family not overwhelm the party, esp. since most of DIL’s relatives are not able to travel from England.</p>
<p>The distinction between the two events made a lot of sense to me.</p>