parents - invitations - nightmare!

Im going to chirp in here with an option.

Elope. its bit cutting your nose to spite your face but if they cant be simply happy for your union and enjoy your day without causing upset it might be best.

the thing that's worrying me is their controlling nature is putting undue stress on your future marriage. is it worth that? This is the man you want to spend the rest of your days with. He's the one you want to live with and be happy with. With all the interfering stress at the begin of the marriage will cause bad blood and could jeopardize it. The hardest option is to have a hard long talk with them. Tell honestly what their actions are causing and that frankly there's no point to the wedding they're paying for if it eventually ending costing it in the long run. If you need backup i would consider taking to them to a relationship counselor to drive home the point.

This! I'm the same- my parents are making a significant contribution, and although my mum has been very opinionated at times, they haven't made any particular demands at all, and in fact, I ended up suggesting that they could invite some of their friends to the evening, to which my mum said she would like to do but hadn't wanted to ask. I know it would be difficult to finance yourself, but I think you would be so much happier if you look back in years to come knowing you had the wedding (even if it's smaller and on a tighter budget) you wanted, with the people around you that you care about it.

I should bloody hope so too!

I was told by a friend to get the 'inevitable' arguement with the parents about wedding planning over with early, to give time for it all to calm down by the big day....! Cynical but not too far from the truth. Glad this has come to a head and something's been resolved...... Your wedding shouldn't make you unhappy - which is far more important than having expensive things you can't afford or don't even want there in the first place.

Dont do anything with suppliers etc just yet and wait and see what happens with your parents and give yourself time to look at your own budgets and next steps etc. Well done for standing up to them though - tbh if i was your FI I would have been really upset if you had let your parents tell him to not invite his family, so I think you have done the right thing. Big higs and hope it all works out. Hopefully your parents will realise they messed up and made a mistake, and try to fix it all with you xx

Glad to hear you've had an apology - hopefully things will get back on track.

xx

Thanks for the support, guys.

Had a complete turnaround and apology from them. We are inviting all our relatives and all OH's.

I've accepted the apology (and apologised for anything I might have said in a rage!!) and hopefully we can just move on. None of us want more stress and arguing.

I am glad I stood my ground on this one. I think they can see that I wasn't doing it to be petty or selfish, or to try and exclude my mum's family but rather was trying to keep everyone happy - including OH and FI.

I am a little wary that this kind of arguing will arise for every little thing that comes up in the planning process. OH is worried that it will be like this for the rest of our lives. He said "what's going to happen if we have kids? What about when we buy a house?". He HATES confrontation so all this is the worst thing imaginable for him. Reckon I need to be very careful that there are NO more issues like this in the near future, or I might turn up on the day, to find no groom!!

x x

Im so pleased that you have sorted it out, I think providing you stand your ground if something like this does come up again, you guys have nothing to worry about (possibly point this out to OH to prevent a non groomed wedding!!?)