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

[Howard]

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

Who ever makes money from extra guests?

 

[Geekbabe]

If it were me, I'd simply let people know that the wedding is an adult only event. Guests will have to find baby sitters to attend. I bet that will put a screaming halt to the demands for extra invites.

Who in hell responds to an invitation to an event by getting mad & demanding additional invites?

Btw, if you do go child free, you can still pay someone to watch kids if anybody is rude enough to bring them, they can be told at the door that their is childcare available for a fee

 

[ultimatebob]

well hopefully if she's bringing a family she will have enough sense to give more than $50. I actually made back $18k after spending about $27k. Good return, had no idea how much to expect back, fun times. Looking back though, it is definitely crazy to spend so much on 1 event regardless.

Oddly enough, it was the distant relatives who I barely knew who gave us the big checks. My mother in law must have known something I didn't...

 

[drebo]

We had about 300 people at our wedding (both families were big).

Our invites were specifically addressed to a family or to a person (with guest). And we put, specifically, on the RSVP cards that children under 13 were not welcome at the ceremony or the reception.

Worked out fine, no one complained, and only one family brought their children who weren't invited (we expected it, so it wasn't a food problem, but it still cost us $30/head).

 

[slayernine]

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

Yes this is an excellent plan but I would change it slightly.

I would tell the people you don't want to come that it is in Hawaii and when they find out later that it wasn't there just say something about how your Mother thought it was too expensive and that you resent invitations stating the new location. Unfortunately theirs got lost in the mail

 

[NoCreativity]

We were lucky we had no issues like this, at least that I know of.

On the other side of the coin, how about those invitations from people you don't even know. Mom's cousin's daughter, whom I have never met sent one the other day. WTF!? I've seen the cousin MAYBE 6 times. Never met the children. Hell, never even seen a picture of her until the "save the date" came in the mail. Ridiculous.

 

[JS80]

set up a webcam and send them a link

 

[IndyColtsFan]

We were lucky we had no issues like this, at least that I know of.

On the other side of the coin, how about those invitations from people you don't even know. Mom's cousin's daughter, whom I have never met sent one the other day. WTF!? I've seen the cousin MAYBE 6 times. Never met the children. Hell, never even seen a picture of her until the "save the date" came in the mail. Ridiculous.

Last fall, I got an invite to a friend's out-of-town wedding. I had seen this guy maybe twice in the last 10 years and both times, it was brief -- an hour or two. I just thought it was really odd to get this kind of an invite.

 

[lokiju]

I had people I was pretty surprised not only didn't attend when I was sure they would but didn't even send or card or make a phone call of congrats. That was a bit hurtful and has caused some amount of damage to my/our opinion of them honestly.

On the flip side I had people tell others or me directly that they were offended that they didn't even get an invite to come to it. In every instance that this happened it was always someone that was without question someone who neither my wife or myself were close with or had been close with in the past 10 years or more. It was pretty confusing as to why they felt like they were dissed for not being invited when I hadn't even heard or seen them in a solid decade.

Moral of story, people are weird and screw whatever they think or want. The wedding is for you and your to be spouse.

 

[lokiju]

We were lucky we had no issues like this, at least that I know of.

On the other side of the coin, how about those invitations from people you don't even know. Mom's cousin's daughter, whom I have never met sent one the other day. WTF!? I've seen the cousin MAYBE 6 times. Never met the children. Hell, never even seen a picture of her until the "save the date" came in the mail. Ridiculous.

Heh, just had that kind of experience within the past few months.

Started a new job at the end of September 2011 and after 3 weeks of working at this new job received an invite to attend a wedding of a person that works here but not even in the same group and I've had little interaction with. I guess it was nice to be invited and maybe I'd of gone if I didn't already have plans with family coming in from out of town on that date but was kind of surprised to be invited.

 

[CraigRT]

Make it a destination wedding. That's what my wife and I did. We had a reception with about 50 people instead of 300+. Its not that we don't like our families....we just didn't want to have a massive wedding.

This is really the most common idea, and it's hard to argue the direction the couple wants for their own wedding too.

I can say literally half the people I know now do this, largely for the reasons the OP is having troubles with.

People suck.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

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.

so who's going to pay for the inevitable divorce?

 

[poopaskoopa]

Forget them. I even rescinded an invite to free up 4 seats so I can give them to the people we like better for our wedding(I wanted 4 more guests at our wedding and they gave me an opening by insulting me). I struggled with this guest list thing quite a bit, but I got over it because it was our party, and I realize that some folks basically look forward to weddings as a sponsored family/friend reunion and I don't feel bad about not saving them money/time to do that on their own.

Some of the weddings I went to were even more harsh. A few folks weren't even allowed to bring their spouses while others brought theirs. That's how you know you were a bubble invite.

 

[SSSnail]

Or, you could have saved all the headaches by simply specifing the names of the people you're inviting to your wedding when typing up the invitations.

 

[lothar]

I'll never understand why people want to bring kids to a wedding. It is one thing to have a kid as part of the wedding party, but do adults think their kids otherwise enjoy stuff like that?

When you're saying "kids", how old are we talking here?
Teenagers can serve as grunt work during weddings and receptions.

 

[lothar]

Suck it up. Not worth burning family bridges over this shit. Everyone gets crazy around wedding time because people (incorrectly) view it as 'ranking' your favorite family members.

The sooner you realize this day isn't for you, the sooner you can start to not stress out about this type of shit.

You sent an invite. That is it. Period. You can tell them that *if* there is extra room because others don't them *then* you might be able to squeeze them in.

What he said.

 

[PingSpike]

this mentality is ridiculous.

Its the truth though. The god awful truth. You're the entertainment AND at least part of the funding source for most people. I thought I'd get to enjoy a lot of it too but honestly on the day of I spent most of my time running around and posing, prior to that I was mostly nervous and slightly worried. In the end I got to dance for maybe an hour and didn't even get to eat a piece of my own motherfucking wedding cake that I motherfucking paid for.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

When you're saying "kids", how old are we talking here?
Teenagers can serve as grunt work during weddings and receptions.

I was referring mainly to kids under 10, but does any kid (even teenagers) really enjoy weddings? Girls might, but most boys are bored out of their minds.

My wife's brother brought their 2.5 year-old to our wedding and she was literally running around and screaming during the ceremony. The mom finally got off her ass, grabbed her, and took her to the bathroom. I am still pissed about it to this day.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Its the truth though. The god awful truth. You're the entertainment AND at least part of the funding source for most people. I thought I'd get to enjoy a lot of it too but honestly on the day of I spent most of my time running around and posing, prior to that I was mostly nervous and slightly worried. In the end I got to dance for maybe an hour and didn't even get to eat a piece of my own motherfucking wedding cake that I motherfucking paid for.

This.

A wedding isn't fun for a groom either. As I told my wife later, I didn't care about the wedding at all, I just wanted to get it done and out of the way.

 

[PingSpike]

Last fall, I got an invite to a friend's out-of-town wedding. I had seen this guy maybe twice in the last 10 years and both times, it was brief -- an hour or two. I just thought it was really odd to get this kind of an invite.

Its not odd at all. He likely knows you have a decent job and can't make it so he won't have to pay for your dinner but you'll still feel obligated to send a gift.