Anonymous wrote:
Drama was entirely due to DH and his stubborn-ness. I nearly called off the wedding.

But since you weren't stubborn, you went along with his requests, right? Did you put your foot down or insist on something in your dream wedding?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ILs invited people before my husband I said they could invite anyone. My parents paid. We allotted my parents and ILs 10 friends each--5 couples each--on top of EVERY family member on both. Sides already being invited. For a guest list of 120, this was ver generous--we really had to trim OUR friends to make room for them.

So they had to uninvite people. So tacky. SO not my problem. They offered to give us more money. No thanks; my parents gave a very generous amount, and if anyone gets to invite more people, it's DH and ME!

ITA. MIL *insisted* we invite certain people. We knocked favorite friends off my parents list. Guess what? MILs "friends" never showed up. A-Holes.

If they were willing to pay the expenses associated with their extra guests (beyond the first 10 you allotted each side), why didn't you let them do that?

We split the wedding costs three ways. My (bride's) parents said we can give you $10k. So my ILs said we will give you 10k and not a penny more. (Meanwhile DH and I paid the rest, which was like 40k.) ILs have a huge family, my family is tiny. We invited his entire enormous family but not many extra friends (to be fair, they don't have any close friends. We invited everyone they originally proposed.)

later, they got mad that my parents invited "so many" friends on top of their family guests. It was only like 18 people on top of about 8 family members, but they were enraged. They wanted to be allowed to invite an equal number of friends as my parents, despite the fact they already had incited over 100 family members. His mom was trying to add people on the list who she couldn't even remember their last names. It was ridiculous.

For the RH dinner, we had a set guest limit due to the size of the place. After subtracting the wedding party and parents, we divided the remaining guest slots equally. It so happened that my parents were able to invite basically everyone they invited to the wedding to the RH with their alloted #. His parents couldn't, obviously, as they had over 100 family members alone. His parents were so mad....they wanted more spots.

Also his parents were FURIOUS that my brother was in the wedding party but none of his relatives were. Totally my DH's choice, I thought it was lovely but in now way instigated it.

Well...we had a very small wedding and DH wanted to show up in jeans and sneakers. I told him I wouldn't marry him unless he wore a suit . That was 25 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My family and ILs were too worried that we'd elope if there were any drama so they STFU.

I'm the 19:12 PP and I think this is actually why we had such minimal drama. Our 30 person wedding was actually a compromise for us since we were originally just planning on eloping so no one pushed us too hard for anything.

I'm the PP you quoted. We had 50 people at our wedding (include me and DH!). Seems we're alike!

No drama.

My parents helped pay for it, so my mom and I sat down and talked about what kind of wedding and reception I wanted and whether there was anything that was really important to her. Turns out, we wanted the same thing: a fun party with dancing and good food. She did insist that we have some kind of food available for guests at the reception right away, which I thought was reasonable. She did ask that I invite my great-aunt and great-uncle, which I would have done anyway, because my great-aunt was one of my favorite people. Otherwise, she was incredibly helpful but not at all pushy. Actually, she had some great ideas that ended up making things even better.

She did want to invite some of her friends, but they were all people I had known my whole life, and she had gone to all their kids' weddings, and she was willing to pay the bill. I guess I could have put my foot down, but why? It wasn't a whole bunch of people, and it ended up being nice having them there. I suppose if I had really wanted a small, intimate wedding, I would have said no, and I know she would have respected that, but I didn't--I wanted a ginormous party with my ginormous family and as many friends as possible. I wanted the dance floor to be packed!

I even said something about it to her, and she said, "I've had my wedding. When I got married, my mom let me have the kind of wedding I wanted. You should have the kind of wedding you want."

My MIL was zero drama, too. She asked what color dress I wanted her to wear, and she and my FIL hosted the rehearsal dinner, and otherwise, they said absolutely nothing and were lovely guests. Oh, and she loaned me a sixpence for my shoe.

Yes, I know how incredibly lucky I am. I still thank my mom and MIL for being so awesome about the wedding.

OP.

How many of you who invited extended family members because you "had to" actually had them show up?

Anonymous wrote:My ILs invited people before my husband I said they could invite anyone. My parents paid. We allotted my parents and ILs 10 friends each--5 couples each--on top of EVERY family member on both. Sides already being invited. For a guest list of 120, this was ver generous--we really had to trim OUR friends to make room for them.

So they had to uninvite people. So tacky. SO not my problem. They offered to give us more money. No thanks; my parents gave a very generous amount, and if anyone gets to invite more people, it's DH and ME!

ITA. MIL *insisted* we invite certain people. We knocked favorite friends off my parents list. Guess what? MILs "friends" never showed up. A-Holes.

My ILs invited people before my husband I said they could invite anyone. My parents paid. We allotted my parents and ILs 10 friends each--5 couples each--on top of EVERY family member on both. Sides already being invited. For a guest list of 120, this was ver generous--we really had to trim OUR friends to make room for them.

So they had to uninvite people. So tacky. SO not my problem. They offered to give us more money. No thanks; my parents gave a very generous amount, and if anyone gets to invite more people, it's DH and ME!

Ours was drama free.

Anonymous wrote:Inlaws.

FIL got locked up couldn't come.

MIL forbade FILs entire family from being invited. Unfortunately, she already paid for some of the reception dinner so we felt blackmailed.

SIL told me she planned to fly her entire family and herself from Texas to do a second wedding reception for herself and BIL the same weekend as my wedding, and it was gonna be HUGE and MIL was thrilled. . So I forbade SIL and BIL from coming.

Lots of drama!!!!

Oh I forgot it gets better -

MIL asked me to cancel my wedding so SIL could have a second one.

MIL went ape shit on me to point we didn't speak week of wedding or at wedding.

MIL had nuclear meltdown at wedding during our dance in front of everybody. And she screamed and went off on the waitress at the rehearsal dinner, and at the brunch the day after the wedding.

#total#nightmare

Inlaws.

FIL got locked up couldn't come.

MIL forbade FILs entire family from being invited. Unfortunately, she already paid for some of the reception dinner so we felt blackmailed.

SIL told me she planned to fly her entire family and herself from Texas to do a second wedding reception for herself and BIL the same weekend as my wedding, and it was gonna be HUGE and MIL was thrilled. . So I forbade SIL and BIL from coming.

Lots of drama!!!!

Anonymous wrote:Inlaws. FIL was widowed and remarried less than a year before we got married. His wife INSISTED that all of her extended family be sent invitations--she assured us that they wouldn't come but needed to be invited.

Did they show up?

Anonymous wrote:Drama from the inlaws. It's customary in my family to have a more formal, adult reception and young children are not invited.
Dh's sister had a child that would be about 14 months at the time and threw a fit that he wasn't invited. Dh's mom told Dh that we should just do whatever SIL wanted because "she's the richest person you know" (actually not true--but why would that matter? Bizarre!)

Several months after our wedding, Dh's brother got married, and had children at the reception. Sister in laws son ran around the dance floor screaming and yelling while the bride's brothers tried to make a speech. No one could hear them because of his shrieking. Sister law sat and giggled and said "Isn't he so precious?" Mother in law got upset and even said to me "You had the right idea not including children."

+1

Similar situation here. Glad you had the opportunity to prove MIL wrong in front of everyone!

Anonymous wrote:ILs. Mainly my MIL but my SIL wore white to the late fall wedding. They were awful to deal with.

Bet THAT set the stage. They showed their true colors. Sorry to hear, PP.