Mixed Indian/Christian wedding

To expand a little on the above (I wrote it v quickly in a stress!) we have been advised by my Mother in law to be that distant relatives need to be sent the invite, so that we are "announcing the wedding" to them in a way, and not actually inviting them. My fear is that they would turn up as a surprise or decide last minute they can make it and get a flight from India. I know I have to take control here , and we have actually explained that our venue are tight on numbers and we are pretty much at our max. I have tried to ask my Fiance to explain this and he just tells me that in India its tradition to send invites/letters informing of the wedding even if you know they can't make it or are not invited. We have also been asked if we can invite a couple of extras to the evening who are from India are family friends but we have never met them. It seems to be its about keeping face, or about doing what is expected rather than what the bride and groom want, it is detracting from the real meaning of it all for me, argh help

Oh gosh, I cannot help you but I can emphasise. I'm British and my OH is Caribbean and he thinks we should cater for extra because 'people will turn up uninvited'. I think this is crazy! I wouldn't dare go to a wedding I wasn't invited to. We've actually had arguments about this!!! We've reached capacity already Grrrr!!!

I guess what you could do it make up separate cards- like a notification I guess saying something along the lines of 'We know you can't be here but we wanted to let you know we're tying the knot'! We look forward to meeting you in the future'??

Sorry, that was quite poorly written, but you get my gist. That way you're not inviting them.

My manager is Indian and she is currently assisting her son plan his wedding so have been talking a lot about the difference between 'British' weddings and Indian Weddings (her son is having both an 'Indian' wedding and a 'British' Wedding both here in the UK) I know Indian weddings can be big on family and extended family as my managers sons guest list stands currently at around 400 people.

She was also explaining that they have a formal engagement type party which acts as an announcement that they are getting married.

Hi,

I'm Indian and my other half is of Christian origina so we're going through some of the same issues. Luckily though my family have told me to dispense with this tradition as they're not keen on extra people turning up either! Having said that I'd go with the approach that a distant cousin of mine in India took for her recent wedding (which I think ended up with about 600+ guests... eek).... anyway us British relatives only got the invite to her wedding two days before it was taking place making it almost impossible to attend.... did the job!!

Good luck!