My fiancé and I have just completely canceled our large wedding of 200 people and downsized to a more conformable and intimate wedding of around 75. We were worried that we would be forced to downsize because of COVID restrictions last minute so decided to go ahead and plan our dream wedding with few guests.
We have moved venues, change dates, vendors - the whole 9 yards to make this wedding exactly what we want. And we are actually even more excited for this than we were the original wedding plan. The problem now is getting our immediate families to understand why we have to be selective with our guest list. My FH and I both agreed that we would rather have our nearest and dearest friends and family there, rather than distant family members who we haven't seen or spoken to in years. We are aware that some people make take this personal so we do plan on sending out a card saying we have downsized, or even a card after our wedding saying we are now married to all of the guests we couldn't invite. But our parents are still not understanding the restrictions and are continuing to give us a hard time about not inviting Aunt Bertha who "used to change my diapers", but has never known my fiancé and I as a couple - or even worse, grandparent's friends from bookclub. Most of our friends and family understand how selective the list is and don't give us trouble or grief about it, but we have a few important family members who don't seem to understand what we're doing and pitch fits when we tell them no. All of the people closest to us will be there, we just a aren't able to invite the people who they want there. NOTE: our list was made by the both of us, so we both made sure to add family who is very important to us on either side. I wouldn't tell my fiancé no to a guests, nor would he for me! This is more or less having to tell our parents that they can't invite everyone they know.
We're both very comfortable with what we've decided to do and aren't budging as we are paying for our entire wedding by ourselves.
How do I go about staying polite when discussing wedding plans with our families? My FH has had my back but he isn't as involved as I am in the planning process so our families come to me with questions or concerns rather than him?
