Big Family Drama

I can empathise, I have a large extended family (mum is one of 9 siblings, dad one of 5, and all the extended second cousins are all friendly). By contrast, my OH has 1 aunt and 1 uncle and that’s it. It’s very hard, and it’s not fair on you that people are complaining if they can’t bring their kids etc.


I know I’ll be in a situation where If I ask this person that means asking that person, and it all just snowballs. So I’ve been very strict and am inviting one aunt (one of whom is my godmother) from each side, which is at least even and “fair”.

Can you get a parent on board to help you with the messaging? For example, given my mum has loads of siblings and many cousins on that side, I’ve had her help me with messaging to the family that we just can’t have that many guests, much as we might like.Two prongs to this: mainly, we don’t want to and can’t afford to have hundreds of guests, but there’s also insurance issues - we can’t have more than 100 people for that reason. People sadly understand the insurance reason more than the reason that we simply can’t afford to have everyone…
The other thing we’re doing, which I don’t know if it could be an option for you, is having a party after the wedding where all the extended family are invited. Much more cheap and casual and than a full blown wedding, but still an opportunity to celebrate with extended family. It softens the blow a little when we have to tell aunts and uncles and cousins that we’re keeping the wedding small (for whatever reasons) but we’d still love to be able to celebrate with them

Thankfully we don’t have that problem with a big family but I’ve already had a slightly tense conversation with my mum about the top table and someone else not wanting to sit with their brother ( both are my uncles). I then realised I was getting way ahead of myself as the wedding isn’t until July and we have only just sent invites. So I slowed down.
But I felt the same about upsetting people and people talking saying why is so and so not sat on that table blah blah! Honestly it is only for a few hours as well so I realised I needed to get perspective and realise it’s only a day!
But large families must be hard, my parents are one of three and one of two so two uncles one side and a (deceased) aunt the other. But since I’m an older bride (45) there are less family around sadly so it has made it much smaller, for instance neither my fiancé or I have any surviving grandparents and my fiancé doesn’t even have his dad. We’ve probably got more friends than family to be honest.Agree that you could get mum on board to send out messages about children. I also had a friend who lives abroad who assumed her kids were invited ( no kids except mine and my sisters) and was a bit sniffy when I said no! She had been told but it didn’t seem to register in the group chat! It’s so hard lol I can see why people elope 🤣

Thsts sounds jyst like my family my mum has 3 siblings my dad nine then all my cousins could make it to 15 then there kids and my partner is from a small family of 5 so we went for the easy option do a runner and get married its not gone well when family found out but what you need to remember its about what you both want not your family xx💗

I don’t think it’s selfish at all! At the end of the day your budget will only stretch so far and your family will just need to accept that! I have 26 cousins but there’s no way I could afford to invite them all! Much less invite their children too. Just stay firm about who you are able to invite. You don’t need to apologise or explain yourself to anyone.
As for the hen do, please don’t listen to demands for who should be invited. Invite the people you want. If there are people who don’t like each other then they are grown adults and can deal with it themselves. X

1) Make sure you and your fiance are united - you both need to produce the same response all of the time. And always use 'we' in any response to underline that this is a joint decision.

2) Practice stock phrases and bring them out without any alteration any time you get hassle. E.g.

"We're sorry you are disappointed that your 25th cousin 19 times removed hasn't been invited, but our guest list is finalised and can't be altered."

"We're sorry you don't feel able to attend our wedding because of this, but we respect your decision."

3) Never explain, justify or engage in discussion over your choices. If they argue, just repeat your stock phrase without any variation.

It's amazing how quickly most people stop the drama once they realise you won't engage in it.