How to tell family to go screw.......

[Elbryn]

This.

hard to do if mom's going to be under pressure about it... family rarely forgets that type of snub and will bring it up often..

is mom on your side or their side? if she's on yours, tell em to pound salt and live with the max num. if she's on their side, let her host a separate reception for the extended family. that's what we did for our wedding to let mom host the dog and pony show for the extended local social scene my mom belonged to. she setup everything, we paid her back from the presents... i think i said something similar in the other marriage thread though

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Didn't I tell you in an earlier thread to make your wedding much, much smaller?

We had like 15 people total at ours. There were some aunts and uncles who were not invited and who were offended, but my wife and I held our ground.

 

[JTsyo]

Yeah, I have always felt this way. I had tried to pitch a potluck style wedding reception myself to combat this. Please bring a dish for 10 people and the menu will be whatever the 10 people at your table bring. It didn't work out...

As a side note, I understand how you feel. In my case it was even worse. My wife's mother is the oldest of 17 children, and her father is the 2nd of 12. And worse, they all get along and often hang out, even the cousins, which total in the low 100's, not including the kids they started having. What we did was have a big party for the Engagement party and hand passed out the invitation there. The cousins who didn't get one... well too bad...

As a second site note, I know have tons of people over all the time. Most do not stay often, but we get a call every other day or so, with one of her cousins saying s/he is in the area and wanted to visit and if it was all right to stop by, or the ones who live in the area will call to see what we are up to. My cousins... I can barely pick out in a line up...

 

[manimal]

We had 400 people attend and there were 12 people who complained about not being able to bring all their kids/kin. My wife stressed about it for a while till I picked up the phone and called them all individually. Three people sent back snarky emails and didnt end up coming. To this day one of her cousins wont shake my hand.

Take the bullet for your wife and take care of it yourself. She will worry about this crap more than you do.

Funny story that one cousin asked me for a favor a year later. I actually laughed in his face and printed out his email to my wife.

Maybe you could troll them and send them a new invite with the wrong date...

 

[Jeff7]

"Do you?"
-"Yes!"

"Do you?"
- "Yes!"

"Good! You're married! Kiss her!"



Quick, simple, and memorable.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

hard to do if mom's going to be under pressure about it... family rarely forgets that type of snub and will bring it up often..

Meh, my wife's mom caught some flack because we didn't invite one of her sisters and her brother. My wife's grandma also complained that we didn't invite her dad's brothers. We stuck to our guns and said it was our decision and no more discussion would be necessary.

It is a freaking wedding FFS, not something that you must be at or you'll die.

 

[waggy]

way i solved it is we told poeple we paid for x number of guest. if they want more then that they pay $500 a head to cover food, entertainment, seating, etc.

nobody took us up on that and we didn't hear complaints about not inviting them all.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Funny story that one cousin asked me for a favor a year later. I actually laughed in his face and printed out his email to my wife.

LOL, how did he react?

 

[mvbighead]

Yikes OP. Not much you can do other than tell them not to come.

So glad I had a destination wedding. Basically gave out about 50 invites, about 15 to 20 people came, as it was on their dime. A big vacation for everyone basically. And, those that came were the ones we were more close with anyway.

Had a reception back home. No issues there. Just rented a floor in the local brewery and paid the tab for about 100 or so people.

 

[dabuddha]

I'm on the fence about this. I see your point since you have limited seating but I can see their point. My family numbers 4.5 so I'd be a little put off if I received an invitation saying I can bring 2 people and fuck the rest. If you know a family numbers more than 2, just say 2 people so it'd be the person and their spouse.

Of course in my case, I just wouldn't go which solves both problems

 

[Ns1]

You don't want to get more presents and money that the additional throng will generate?

They want to bring the grand kids

grand kids don't bring gifts.

 

[Stuxnet]

Vegas FTW

That's what I did when family started acting like 2 years olds. "Here's the place, here's the time... be there or don't. Later."

 

[OutHouse]

Tell them that each additional guest will cost $374.67. See if they still want to bring 5 extra people. If they do, profit!

this is actually more common that people would think. it cuts the drama and makes people realize that that shit aint free.

if they have a problem with it dont come.

 

[manimal]

LOL, how did he react?

Sadly I am a nice guy so I made him eat crap for a little and helped him out. I hate being the guy everyone calls when their car stops working or when they have a question that even REMOTELY has anything to do with construction or computers. When he gave me the sob story about how hes gonna lose his job I fixed his damn car....


Hard to be angry at a guy who wears overalls all day and shovels poop...

 

[sourceninja]

I told my parents that if they wanted to invite guests, they had to pay for the wedding.

My money = my friends, not theirs.

 

[waggy]

Sadly I am a nice guy so I made him eat crap for a little and helped him out. I hate being the guy everyone calls when their car stops working or when they have a question that even REMOTELY has anything to do with construction or computers. When he gave me the sob story about how hes gonna lose his job I fixed his damn car....


Hard to be angry at a guy who wears overalls all day and shovels poop...

your an ass. the last thing the guy needs is more crap.

 

[Stuxnet]

your an ass. the last thing the guy needs is more crap.

9/10

 

[paperfist]

grand kids don't bring gifts.

hmm in my family the more people you bring the bigger the gift you bring.

 

[PingSpike]

I recommend you accept all extra invitations. That way when you bar the door of the reception hall on the wedding day and burn the building down with them inside you'll ensure you get them all.

 

[Elbryn]

Meh, my wife's mom caught some flack because we didn't invite one of her sisters and her brother. My wife's grandma also complained that we didn't invite her dad's brothers. We stuck to our guns and said it was our decision and no more discussion would be necessary.

It is a freaking wedding FFS, not something that you must be at or you'll die.

i agree with you, to me it's a non issue.. others however? it's like a slap the face. i dont get it but it's a grudge thing i suppose.

 

[zinfamous]

just let all of them come, but do skip out and don't show up for your own wedding.

 

[rh71]

heh I can't believe people have the balls to invite grandkids. Do they not know seats cost money? Your closest family members want to invite the world because they are proud of you, but grandkids from another family?!

For our wedding, we had a similar situation where my grandpa wanted to invite an old friend. My former manager wanted to bring her toddler son. Since there were not many cases like this, we let it go. Lucky it went pretty smooth overall.

Wedding plans are always a pain in the ass. My brother's wedding - our parents and the fiance's parents wanted to be closest to the bride/groom table which is off to the side. This caused so much stress for days and my brother and his wife even came over to my house to talk to me to see how they could resolve it. In the end my mom just let her have it, which was surprising to me because she's usually very stubborn. Another big factor is who's paying for the wedding... even if you are, you know you've still got to compromise on a lot of things or you'll never hear the end of it.

In the end, the actual wedding reception is always fun. Stupid costly but you'll always remember it. Don't let things like this bother you once the wedding starts.

 

[OverVolt]

We had 400 people attend and there were 12 people who complained about not being able to bring all their kids/kin. My wife stressed about it for a while till I picked up the phone and called them all individually. Three people sent back snarky emails and didnt end up coming. To this day one of her cousins wont shake my hand.

Take the bullet for your wife and take care of it yourself. She will worry about this crap more than you do.

Funny story that one cousin asked me for a favor a year later. I actually laughed in his face and printed out his email to my wife.

Maybe you could troll them and send them a new invite with the wrong date...

I approve of this method haha. My family is very crazy and I have been telling them to %^&# off for awhile now with good results. Would highly recommend.

 

[Skillet49]

So I am a little confused. Did you put the correct number of people for the RSVP and they are trying to add unnecessary people like their grandkids or did you say less people can come than are in their family. If it's the first, I'd just explain to them the cost and say if they want their grandkids to come you'd be happy to accommodate that if they are willing to pay for their meals or celebrate sometime with you guys later like having them over for dinner or whatever. If it's the second, what did you expect a family has six people (mom, dad, four kids) and you say they can only bring four?

We encountered this some with my cousin's wanting to bring their children to the wedding. We anticipated this would happen so my parents just said that if people called to ask if they could bring someone extra the answer was that's fine and they'd pay for it because my sister-in-law was upset that she couldn't bring her kids (2 at the time) to one of my cousin's weddings a few years ago.

Edit: I do not regret having a formal wedding and reception despite the PITA planning could be. I loved every minute of it.

 

[Jeffg010]

I never heard of the you can bring guess BS. We had a set limit of 135. We invited 130 not sure if anyone extra showed up. If it went over 135 they were not getting a seat and I did not care either. Luckily we did not have this problem. My side of the family is pretty cool and I only invited like 40 my wife on the other hand had like 85 invites. The bigger problem was the bridesmaids she picked 6 of them and 2 of them were her sisters so only 4 of her friends get to be in the wedding. All hell broke loose because everyone she knew wanted to a bridesmaid.

The one thing that helped was I told my wife upfront your going to pay for the weeding because that is the traditional thing to do and she agreed. I did say I would pay for the DJ and the rings. She tried early on to split the cost of the hall and I a flat refused. After that she paid for everything guess what she kept the cost in check.