Hi all - writing because I am desperate at this point and would love to have some outside perspectives/opinions. It's a rant, so appreciate your patience.
Breakdown
- Got engaged 2 weeks ago, want to have a short engagement and get married 10/2021
- Got priced out of our current city/available date, so we are getting married in my hometown
- Wanted a small-medium wedding in my parents backyard (less than 80 ppl total) w/ family style reception
- Parents offered to pay for it, so they want to be able to invite guests
- We decided to give 15 spots on the guest list to my parents to keep it under 80 (including fam); this means FH/I are inviting 18 couples total, including our wedding party
- Parents: "we are paying for it, we get to invite however many ppl we want" and intend to send invites to 100+ people to put the total between 125-150 (and assuming that is w/ 20% of their invitees saying no). that's 3x our # of guests.
- FH and I are alarmed, ask them to compromise and please pull it back to ensure that 100ppl is the max number that show up; we also offer to help pay for the wedding up to 10k, FMIL offers to contribute 10k as well
- Parents refuse to accept that, they are happy to "front the money" as I'm their only daughter 
but that means they can invite whoever they want and since they've been alive for 66 years, that's going to be a lot of people
- At a loss at what to do now; we can only afford a 20k wedding in current city, and my hometown was supposed to be cost-effective bc my parent's backyard is free and they know a LOT of people who would give them discounts
- Anyone have advice on how to possibly negotiate further? They've turned down every compromise we've thrown at them. It's feeling less like a day to celebrate the 2 of us, more like them showing off their money for social status.
Hope that all makes sense. Any clarifications needed please let me know!
