Dear Abby: Wedding Guest List Is Full of Questions for Bride-to-Be

[purlewe]

 DEAR ABBY: I am engaged to the love of my life ("Tom"), and I dread making the guest list for our wedding. I don't want any of my cousins there. The young ones are rude and obnoxious, and the one who's an adult I no longer talk to. I asked my mom what to do. She said if we invite any kids, then we must invite all of them.

We would like my fiance's young nieces and nephews to be in the wedding party. Tom said he isn't inviting anyone he doesn't want there. A few family members invited me to their weddings because my parents were invited, but I don't feel I know them well enough to invite them to mine, although one couple was kind enough to get us an engagement present. I want to be nice, but I don't want any nonsense. Please help. -- TORN IN THE EAST

DEAR TORN: Your mother has the right idea. Listen to her. Weddings can bring families together, but they can also do the opposite. The relatives you are thinking of excluding are the children of your parents' siblings. If you don't know them well, be gracious. Should you snub them while including your fiance's nieces and nephews, word will get back to them -- trust me on that -- and the negative repercussions could last for many years and affect not just you but also your parents.

Comments

[purlewe]

I posted this bc I came at this from a wildly different direction when I got married. We had been together for 6 years and we decided that anyone we had not seen or heard from (this means allll the cousins the LW is talking about.) would not be invited. We only invited people we knew and people who knew us. We did get a little flak from one aunt who wanted to know "where her daughter's invite was" And as her daughter was older than us, never met me, and had never seen or sent even a card to my wife in the whole time I knew her, we hadn't invited her. Aunt was put off but she came anyway. (another note. All the cousins were older than us. And we were in our late 30s. So actual adults who could have sent a card for xmas or called to say they would be in town and could we grab a dinner with them)

I realize it was strange, but in some cases we didn't invite spouses. We had never met them so we didn't invite them. This meant that the 80 people who did get invites were people we actually knew, people we knew wouldn't freak out at a gay wedding, and people who wanted to celebrate with us. I see no issue with inviting only people you really know bc you want them to actually celebrate the wedding with you, not mark it off their list as another family event they have to attend.

[rmc28]

I am absolutely with you and not with Abby.
If the cousins are obnoxious, and you don't want them around, you don't *have* to have them.

Also no, if fiance wants his niblings he can have them, and that doesn't magically mean all the other related children must come. (I would count niblings closer than cousins anyway, but what matters is the strength of connection felt.)

My only caveat would be depending on who is paying for the guest list. If mom and dad are paying it may be harder to hold the line. Though honestly, people who are going to make your life miserable because they were "snubbed" by not being invited to a wedding are really not the people you want there.

[purlewe]

true. if someone else was paying for any of it that is another level of maybe.. ownership (?) that they have control over. My wife and I paid for everything. So for us it was a no brainer. And I will admit that I often tell people to have a longer engagement and pay for it yourself because of exactly this.

[movingfinger]

You are completely correct and Abby is setting this LW up for yet another wedding of misery. There is no need to invite strangers or distant (in any sense) relatives to a personal celebration!

[delight]

Same! Now, my wedding didn't actually happen - we had to rush the getting married part due to a surgical emergency, and never got around to having the money for the rest after said surgery - but when it was going to happen, we planned on having a childfree-except-for-one-kid exception. (This being the child a friend of mine had when she was nineteen and who I had a hand in being the village who raised; this one child was one I Knew well and liked. Otherwise, my spouse and I both hate kids.)

For the most part parents not only didn't complain but were pleased to have a kid-free day, and we were happy to help find childcare for people coming from out of town so they didn't have to leave their kids behind, just no kids at the actual wedding.

Someone threw a giant fit that "weddings are about family," and I countered that actually this is about me and my partner and we don't want to have a kid-friendly wedding. We didn't plan on having alcohol there either, because it was supposed to be an all-disabilities-friendly wedding. I am still friends with this person, but it took them a bit to realize that no, weddings aren't "about family," they're about the people getting married.

tl;dr IT'S YOUR WEDDING. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE "FAIR."

[jadelennox]

i would always invite spouses/partners except in very weird cases, but in my family we only invite some cousins, and it's never been familial drama. All the first cousins, plus their partners, plus their kids ... that's out of the budget for most weddings before you even hit your friends! Most members of my family invite the cousins they're closest to. A couple of them had a big pre-wedding all-family shindig, which was marvelous, but it was literally only two cousins who did that, and their dad paid for it for both of them because he wanted to see us all, too.

And this has never caused drama.

(That being said, the time one uncle threw a part for my grandmother and invited us--the abroad cousins--but not his other sibling's local kids, I believe that caused drama that is still fraught between them 20 years later. But that was a small birthday party for their mother's 80th, not a wedding.)

[minoanmiss]

Who sent this letter back to 1955 Dear Abby? Can I borrow their time machine?

[movingfinger]

I have a shopping list for you, DM me when you go!

[eleanorjane]

I feel like Abby could have got at something really useful here, but took totally the wrong tack. The first half of her advice is bad, but the second half gets - badly - at the fact that there's always a price to pay when you're making these choices, and things go better if you make that choice deliberately and communicate it as clearly and tactfully as possible.

I think it would be more valuable if one framed it as:

"Look, LW, weddings set off all kinds of social expectations in people, and it's very common for those expectations to conflict. Tom has the expectation that you both shouldn't have to invite anyone to his celebration of marriage that you don't want there. Your mother (and possibly your extended family) have the expectation that a wedding is an inclusive event and you shouldn't exclude people individually.

You could get away with excluding your cousins if other kids weren't going to be there, but your mother's attitude signals the probability that your side of the family is going to get upset if you pick and choose attendees. It's up to you and Tom to decide whether and when you want to compromise one set of expectations for the sake of another - but if your decision is to go for wanted guests only, you might find your lives easier in the long run if you do some work now to communicate that stance as gracefully and kindly as you can."

[eleanorjane]

(I feel like there should be an advice columnist who specialises in wedding questions, given how fraught they are with social minefields.)

[purlewe]

That would be a great idea. I feel like wedding questions are a big deal and this would be a big help.

[eleanorjane]

Yeah. I mean, people get invested in weddings other their own, and there are all these social and cultural expectations that so regularly come into conflict. It doesn't mean people are _right_ (spoiler: it's the couple's wedding, it's for them, and what they want is what matters!) but navigating human relationships isn't about who's Right and who's Wrong.

[minoanmiss]

Your answer is exponentially better.

This is just the results of a quick google, I haven't checked them out yet, but I found a couple of what look like wedding specific advice blogs.

https://apracticalwedding.com/not-buying-15k-bridesmaid-dress/

https://www.pinterest.com/lizcharm/ask-liz-my-wedding-advice-columns/

[lannamichaels]

I have some convoluted feelings on this, but one thing is that Dear Abby's conflating "cousins" on the OP's side with "niblings" on the OP's fiance's side and those are two different things, especially when it comes to expectations of who gets invited to weddings. So being able to draw a line to mom and saying "we're not inviting my cousins, but of course the kids of Tom's siblings will be in the wedding party!" is, I think, something completely reasonable.

[cynthia1960]

Yes.

[melannen]

Yes, that was my reaction exactly too! And it's not like they wanted to invite some cousins but not others, they wanted niblings but not cousins, and that... makes perfect sense to me wihtou needing any excuses?

[lemonsharks]

Also, if Tom loves his neices and nephews more than LW loves her cousinage, so what? That's allowed? Maybe her cousinage should try sucking less if they want to be invited to things?

[mirlacca]

I couldn't disagree more with Abby. That wedding belongs to the OP and her fiancee. She has the right to invite or not invite whoever she damn well pleases, and if anyone objects, tough. It sounds to me like the "negative repercussions" are already longstanding and have affected many people already, so what's different?

She doesn't have to "snub" them. All she has to do is not invite them, not send them an announcement with bugles that they're not being invited.

[lemonsharks]

I'm on team Tom -- no one who the couple of honor does not want there gets an invite, period.

If people are going to be all mad about it, oh well, they can sit and stew in their feelings while LW and husband feel 0% of the guilt being projected in their direction.

[staranise]

Abby's reply made my soul leave my body a little.

[seperis]

I'm going to be contrary and say Abby's not wrong; not inviting those relatives is going to piss them off, there could be consequences, and it could cause problems for her mother with her siblings. It's not the LW's responsibility or fault, but she can only control what she does, not what other people do in reaction.

That doesn't mean the LW shouldn't go with what she wants to do, but there could and probably will be consequences. If her ideal outcome here is 'I do it and everyone is cool with it and my aunts and uncles will still like me and invite me over for Christmas and family shit and I won't be excluded from anything I want to go to that they're hosting', yeah, no; sure, it could go that way, but chances are low. No advice columnist on earth can tell you how to make that happen.