your child's future wedding
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Anonymous
| Am I the only one getting that this is not just about a wedding, but the parents figuring out who their "people" are? |
Anonymous
Eh, this is not about you. It's about your adult child getting married and marking a major milestone in their life as they see fit. If they want a small wedding, you don't get to throw money and think that earns you the right to invite whomever you want. That's a quick way to alienate your child. I was in my 30s when I got married and wanted a very small wedding. My H felt the same way. We chose a venue for the size we had in mind. My parents did not help with the planning process, but wanted to invite more people. It would have completely change the character of the wedding. Even if they offered to pay, it's not so simple as to add more tables. Unless your child involves you in the planning process and you're paying a significant portion of it, you have no say in the guest list. Let your child flex his wings. |
Anonymous
Right, although in the context of who is important enough to invite to my DDs wedding. My answer (earlier) is that it was a combination of our oldest friends (mostly high school and college friends but some others), and the parents of DDs friends who had become family friends. You add to "your people" over time. In the wedding context, all the people invited knew the bride and/or groom well. |
Anonymous
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My parents didn't invite people to my wedding. Our guests were family (immediate + aunts/uncles/first cousins) and my and DH's friends. Part of that is we live across the country from our parents. I expect if we'd married in my hometown we might have invited a few couples who are friends of my parents', only because they are people I've known forever and are in the category of honorary aunts/uncles. Otherwise, my parents' friends would not be invited.
When my kids marry I expect it will be exactly the same. |
Anonymous
| He can invite whoever he wants. He will have cousins and aunts and uncles. I assume that, since it his wedding, he will invite his own friends and coworkers. He doesn’t need my old friends to attend. |
Anonymous
My fantastic parents generously paid for my wedding (15 years ago). They let DH and I invite whomever we wanted. It didn't even dawn on me to be a giant twat and try to limit who they could invite. They invited a good number of friends. The presence of those friends didn't affect my enjoyment of the day whatsoever 
That being said, this post is bizarre. |
Anonymous
| OP I think your question has more to do with whether it is important to have community ties and a social circle than how many guests will u be able to invite to your child’s wedding. People with community ties grow up to be happier more stable individuals so I do think it is important to invest in creating a community for your kids. It doesn’t have to be church... there are many other alternatives. I have been thinking of the same issue. I am an immigrant and came from a country where community ties and family ties are paramount. But with a full time job, a toddler, a kindergartener and another on the way, I am too stressed out to focus on anything but myself. But once things settle down I do think I will make a bigger effort to reach out, volunteer and create a community so that my kids feel like they are part of something. |
Anonymous
Well, they are my kids biologically, born to married parents, much beloved...so probably we the parents are important part of the equation? My kids are happy about it. Since they get to plan the wedding - from color, decor, venue to food, favors, entertainment - they don't mind if we get to call the 150-200 people that we want to call. After all, a lot of the perks they have enjoyed (free college, free car, down payment to condo, free wedding) has happened because we have paid for it. And a big part of our success has also come from the support of our network of family/friends and relationships that we have invested time and effort into. My kids weddings will be an important milestone in our lives and as parents we have a duty to fulfill our obligation to our children. Furthermore, they find the big fat weddings of our culture very entertaining and they want the same for their own. Big multi-day weddings are a part of our culture. Those will be paid by us along with the wedding and reception. The kids can pay for events they wanted to pay for like showers, rehearsals, bachelor/bachelorette party, honeymoon etc. That we don't care for and if they marry outside our culture, these probably will happen. What I have seen is that when friend's children married outside of our culture, their would-be spouses were thrilled to have someone else paying for their weddings and went along with whatever customs and cultural things that were followed. I don't anticipate anyone objecting to our plans. Certainly not our kids, and least of all the people they will married. Would you? 
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Anonymous
How old are your kids? |
Anonymous
| OP— Don’t count your chickens before they hatch! |
Anonymous
Same. It is definitely a culturally thing. It is very American to say that it is the bride's wedding and she alone decides how it plays out. In our view, the wedding is a cultural rite of passage that is celebrate not only by the couple jointly but by the entire family - both sets of parents included. The parents are celebrating having raised their child and that child's emancipation, and child celebrates his/her new family life. All parties are equally important here and I am not a fan of the Hollywood-led image that "it's the bride's special day" at the exclusion of the parents. It's about family, and it's a joyous family celebration at that. Others may not think that a wedding is that big of a deal or prefer to elope, and that's totally fine. But to insist that others cave to the same viewpoint is flawed. Some cultures prefer celebrations with friends, family and community, and we make a big deal of these milestones in life. Because, in my view, if you don't celebrate them, what else do you have in life? To OP, if you and your family embrace the idea that a wedding is something to be celebrated among family and friends, do it. IF you don't, that's fine, too. Your community will change over the next few decades and those are the people that you will invite to the wedding. If your community is small, that's totally fine. Just because it is not a huge community doesn't make it any less worthy of celebration. You can have a meaningful celebration with those that matter to help you and your family mark the important milestone in all of your lives. |
Anonymous
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I'd worry more about the fact that you don't have any friends.
My inlaws don't have any friends, so they only invited family members to our wedding. |
Anonymous
This is the crux of the post. I will say that when I had young kids, I had zero time for anything other than those young kids and work. Once they were older, we were able to get out more and become more involved in volunteer activities, professional activities, and kids extracurriculars (sports, music, etc.). Kids friends and our adult friends grew from there. DH has a very large family here so we have that community, plus we do go to church (on occasion) for the cultural ties. We are not religious but the church activities are where kids learn language and a lot of the cultural events. We didn't do much of that, though, when kids were babies/toddlers because too difficult. Community will grow as kids and family age. It's hard to get out much with little ones. |
Anonymous
This exactly. We paid ourselves and had a 100 person wedding at a small venue that could not fit much more than that. Only our friends and family we were close to, no parent friends. I very clearly remember MIL sighing and dramatically declaring she'd have to buy a table for her friends herself - big assumption, given that there literally was not room for another table. Weddings should not be about the parents and I find it really kind of pathetic when they insist on making the day about themselves. MIL ended up having a separate party *for herself* to congratulate her on her son's wedding. Bonkers. |
Anonymous
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It was a negotiation since my parents paid for a large portion of our wedding. I know reciprocal invites get awkward, but my threshold was that either my husband or I (and preferably both) needed to be able to confidently greet any of our parent's friends by name because we had met them before.
I also have a large extended family where weddings pull double duty as a family reunion, which put the squeeze on unlimited friends (ours and theirs). |