Honesty needed re: guest list

A tough one.

In an ideal world you'd just add them all to the wb and be done with it. But you've got two issues, firstly has your venue got the capacity, and secondly can your budget stretch that far (if we'd have done the "everyone to wb" route it'd have added about £2000 to our budget so it didn't happen).

My concern here is that people often feel they have some kind of entitlement to attend someone else's wedding, and by your own admission most of these people you haven't spoken to for 5 years or bothered to reply to your engagement party invitation.

What does your OH think about it? If your venue can stretch to these extra people, and you can raise the extra money for them to attend in the year or so until your big day, then I personally I'd probably just "suck it up" and invite them.

But if there's a "no" to either of the above, then you have your solution. You don't have to invite everyone to the wedding breakfast, which is usually the more expensive bit, but if it's a local wedding they can come along to the ceremony and then turn up for the evening bit which is usually fairly inexpensive to increase given that catering for most buffets stretch from 80% of the people coming upwards.

I would personally tend to lean towards the "I never hear from you otherwise so why are you making a big fuss of me now" angle. I know that meeting up with people is a two way effort, so has either side made an effort to see the other?

I call it the christmas card test - if you aren't close enough to people to see them outside of sending a christmas card each year, or don't even bother sending a card, then they probably aren't worth inviting.

What I'd do is, seeing as you've got over a year to go, just wait and see what happens. Maybe have a get together at some point or just watch what happens at Christmas-time. Then you might clarify how you're feeling about them

That crossed my mind too.

The older generation probably have no clue how expensive weddings are these days, when back in their day people often just went back to the village hall or skittle alley at the local pub to a sandwich buffet that a few friends had put together, did the speeches and had a bit of music (not necessarily from a wind-up gramophone in the corner), and that was pretty much about it.

That crossed my mind too.

The older generation probably have no clue how expensive weddings are these days, when back in their day people often just went back to the village hall or skittle alley at the local pub to a sandwich buffet that a few friends had put together, did the speeches and had a bit of music (not necessarily from a wind-up gramophone in the corner), and that was pretty much about it.

WSS

Or if you don't really want them in the main day list, if you send the invitations early enough to your other guests and you get any declines you could then upgrade them to all day. Either way I probably wouldn't mention anything to them either way just yet and just see what happens.

I thought the same, it does sound a little out of the blue to have not seen them for 5 years, yet they are saying you are immediate family.... If that was the case, where was the engagement acknowledgement?

You have to do what is right for you and your OH. However by inviting them to the evening, they still get to share your day! xxx

Thanks folks, it hadn't occured to me they might have been fishing for an invite. It didn't feel that way at the time, though looking back it could easily have been. Nobody really commented about the wedding or engagement, except for the younger daughter to say a joke about my hen night being her only potential important night out, and the aunty saying how sorry she was but her hubby had given her the wrong directions to my engagement party and her and Granny were driving around all night.

I don't think the Christmas card test would work in this instance - my mum and the aunty often send bday and christmas cards and just write whole family's names on, and my mum would proably include my OHs name in cards to people he has met!

It feels a bit one sided really, which is why I didn't instantly think of them. There is always this talk from them and my mum about memories and how big a role they played when I grew up. But I tend to feel more distanced than they do - when my mum lost my dad about 6/7 years ago, they turned up to the funeral but came nowhere near since then, despite being 'best' friends, until it was my Mum's 50th and I organised a few drinks for her and the mum and younger daughter came. A couple of years back we received STDs for the oldest daughters wedding, but then her and OH lost jobs and got pregnant so the wedding was cancelled - we have no idea if we were day or evening. Since then I sent them STDs, then the engagement do invite, and only after that we got an invite to the baby's birthday party and then the one just gone for Granny.

Now I think about it, I wonder if we would have been asked to these latest events, or if they invited us out of politeness because they thought I was inviting them to the whole wedding!

OH wants me to have whoever I want there. The venue has no limits, so adding numbers aren't an issue. The money side of it would add up, but I know if I pushed for them then we could find the extra cash and save a bit harder. It's just trying to see which is the right way to go. I think the advice here is right, wait and see what happens as chances are when I am sending out invites I won't have seen them or heard from them and may not be bothered. I just don't want to be rude and ignore such a long-standing connection, but at the same time it feels against my principles to invite people just because of who they once were to me.

This would have been a great solution but unfortunately it is all in one venue, a civil ceremony out in a converted barn up in the hills with not many places to go, and it is not an option to seperate the ceremony and wedding breakfast like that. Drat!

Thanks anniepie. I suppose I don't want to hurt my mum, given it is her best friend (no matter my opinion on how aunty has treated my mum, mum still loves her to bits and won't hear a word against the family), and given how supportive my mum has been and not pushed for anything, I know deep down she would want them included but isn't saying so.

Another aspect of it is that I don't want to be rude to the people themselves. If they genuinely do think of me as family, and spent many years looking after me and we have been on family holidays together, then it is quite a big snub to only ask them to the evening, along with work people and other folk we are not too bothered about.

Another side of it is the uncle, my dad's best friend, is a huge connection to my dad. Along with my dad's brother, they were a solid little gang as they were growing up and I guess I don't want to disrespect my dad's memory in any way by ignoring his lifelong friend.

As you can imagine I am pretty confused right now! I am assuming in several more months it might not bother me about being rude or snubbing them, but I guess it will not change how hurt my mum might be, or how the family might feel. I had never given it a thought as they haven't been on my radar properly, just one in a huge list of names to send STDs to (we sent to day and evening guests).