Groom flipping out over guests :-/

I have had a flip out over guests as H2bs mum added people to the list that i have never met and h2b has not seen in 5 years! I don't want them at the wedding but can't turn round and say no now and worse their children have been invited too!! I had invited 2 of my cousins and my mums best friends son who i see at least once or twice a year, but not the other set as i could walk past them on the street and not recognise them! I worked out that as a percentage there would be less than 7% people i had not met. That made me feel a bit better about it but i still begrudge paying for them!

I totally understand and its true, some people are comfortable with lots of faces they dont know, some arent. For us we decided we only wanted people at the ceremony that really meant the most to us. We wanted our wedding to be very personal and intimate to us both so we only have a small group of immediate family and close friends attending. I must admit we both feel happy that we will know all the faces in the room. Everyone else, including Aunts and Uncles, cousins, people we havent seen for blooming years etc are coming in the evening and they have all been fine with that.

I know its hard when someone else is paying or contributing to your wedding as they then feel a larger group of people can be invited which is quite often people you yourself would not have invited. Maybe a compromise could be had, if you havent seen that person in a year they get an evening invite instead.

I guess the positive that has come out of us paying for our wedding ourselves is that all the decisions are down to us and everyone has respected that.

As my parents paid for the wedding my mother thought she could invite who ever she liked regardless if i had ever met them or not. After a few blazing rows only a few family members i had never met turned up.

Then when we were looking at photos of the evening party they were people we didn't have a clue who they were but it didn't make a differenceas we were too busy enjoying ourselves with our friends the people we really wanted there.

I also moaned that i didn't want to walk down an isle with strangers either side but you really don't take any notice of who is there. Untill you are pronounced Man and Wife you don't really realise anyone else is in the room with you.

Realistically I think there's going to be people who I barely know and vice versa.

However, OH did kick off that I'd put a lady who runs my cadet unit with me, because he's never met her. He has agreed to me inviting a few "newer" friends that he's not met yet, so I'm not THAT bothered really

I will know 100% of our guests, and my OH will hardly know any. Why? Because the only members of his family that are coming, are his 2 kids. He's not inviting any friends either, as he doesn't class them as real friends, more like people he just "knows". He knows some of my family, but as my mum is 1 of 7 kids, my dad is 1 of 6, and my step dad is 1 of 6 kids, I have LOADS of aunts and uncles, cousins etc who he has never met.

He feels fine with this. He's not bothered that he won't know them, they are my family, and he sees it as a chance to get to know them.

If he was inviting his family and friends, there would be a hell of a lot of people there who I wouldn't know, but i'd be OK with that. They'd obviously be important enough for him to want there, so I don't feel I could play my face up about it.

I think every bride or groom will have someone at their wedding that they don't like or don't know. I have at least 3 husbands/wives of guests that I haven't met, 4 members of family I don't like and OH's work colleagues that I'd rather not have because they'll get all cliquey. And there are a dozen people we'd like to invite but can't.

And we deliberately chose a venue thats really small so we had the excuse that it's a small wedding and we can't invite everyone!

Family polictics, social groups and work issues all add up. I think you need to reassure your OH that he won't be spending his whole wedding day with people he doesn't like or know, he'll just have to smile nicely and make chitchat for a couple of minutes before drifting off to chat with someone else. And besides, it's more important that he's there with you than any of your guests.

I was having a similar flip-out because my evening guest list is huge and mainly comprised of my dad's relatives who I wouldn't know if I walked past them in the street. But at the end of the day, they won't be at the ceremony and once we're married I really will not care. Ceremony-wise, there are a couple of H2B's relatives/family friends I've not managed to meet yet but I am excited about meeting them and getting to know them as canterburybride says.

I think it is slightly unrealistic in this day and age to expect that both the bride and groom know EVERYONE at the ceremony. Some couples will manage it, but we no longer live our entire lives in one village... everyone moves around and picks up friends, and relatives move and sometimes it just isn't practically possible to meet before the wedding day.

I would not describe him as shy. He is not as outgoing as me, but most people aren't (I can be quite trappy). I think he just means it in terms of the fact that it is an effort talking to people you don't or barely know compared with close friends. I know what he means, I am outgoing, but it does not mean that I enjoy making small talk with virtual strangers.

We are not having a receiving line as neither of us want this- too formal for our do.

We can only have 60 people in the ceremony (we have 120 on the list in total for the rest of the day- big families!) so he will be looking at a sea of familiar faces.

I have told him that we will both be on a high and won't worry about things like this anyway. Deffo having a little break from thinking about it!