@TatinG - I’m sorry. I do think people see drawing lines at certain places to be prima facie fair, but it isn’t as it is applied.
I struggle a bit with the couple gets to decide everything. If they are paying for everything, then yes, I agree. Otherwise, I think there is some level of family obligation. As one example, I had a friend who had a wedding budget for her daughter. I attended the wedding, and I am thinking it must have been pretty generous. Anyway, daughter initially had the idea of taking that money and doing a small-ish, fly-to destination wedding and covering everyone’s costs. My friend the mom said, “Absolutely not,” because there was no way that elderly grandparents and other relatives could have taken a trip like that. IMO, she had standing to have a say-so about that because she was footing the bill. She wasn’t offering the generous budget with no strings attached.
I think about costs a lot because we have a very small family. I am also not of the mindset to invite people just to get a gift. I have a ds, so if we were to offer to pay for half of a wedding, we would be entertaining a whole lotta people we don’t even know. I can’t imagine our having more than 30 people we would want to invite. Probably not even that many.
I think the demarcation by type of relative can also play out unfairly. I mean, I am an only, so I have no siblings to invite. I am, however, close to one cousin, so I would be unhappy with a “no cousins,” rule because that would eliminate her.