fmil wanting to invite family from Europe

First, you need to have a serious conversation with your fiance. Despite the fact that they believe it's a courtesy invite, you're already over the limit of your venue and you should already cut back to be under that maximum number. I would also let him know that with your budget, it just is not feasible for additional people to be added and that you need to scale back to what you can afford AND not make your family feel like his is more important because your family has had to cut a lot out.

As far as the MIL, I would say unfortunately we're already over capacity and our budget does not allow for any additional people and that all you need from her are the addresses you originally requested and no additional invites will be sent and leave it at that.

You have a fiance problem, you two need to get on the same page about the guest list and all other wedding decisions and he needs to be the one to stand up to his parents when they make requests that cannot be accommodated. You already have a huge problem since your guest list is over the venue's max capacity. If the capacity is 250 you should only be inviting 250. What happens if all 269 guests RSVP yes? And now they want to invite more when you actually need to be cutting 19 people?

You need to have a serious come to Jesus talk with your fiance about why he is putting his mother's wishes over yours, common sense, and reality. I would have serious reservations about whether he will always put his mother's wants first in your relationship, especially when she is being unreasonable.

You shouldn't be over inviting over the venue capacity. Also usually any of your vendors are counted in the head count.

Your fiancé and you need to get on the same page about this. He need to start respecting the wishes of you and your family. Are his parents providing any funding for this? If not, I would suggest something like "we've had another look at budget and capacity, you may extend invites pre-approved by us for no more than X amount of people. No exceptions". This should come from your fiancé.

You already have a vey large guest count and with Covid not going away anytime soon, that could also a very valid reason to make with FH and FMIL-- especially with anyone having to travel. Also, if it's a "courtesy " invitation it tends to come off as a gift grab.

Why is your FH siding with his mother, does he even know those people? That's what's really weird to me, my FH pretty much threw away half of his parents' guest list because he didn't even know those people. Which also made me very happy, because the initial list almost gave me a heart attack... You obviously don't want to put your foot down too hard to salvage your future relationship with his mother, but maybe you could send your mom to talk some sense into them? Since your parents are paying for the wedding, she has final say. Your FMIL obviously does not respect your opinion, but maybe she will answer to your mom.

View Quoted Comment

I agree with this. You definitely need to be on the same page with your FH (and it sounds like you have a FH problem not a FMIL problem) and you *definitely* don't want to invite over venue capacity.

You and FH need to throw out what you have now and start over. Each of you gets 120 invitations (to allow space for yourselves and vendors). When you reach that number, you're done. Courtesy invitations should NEVER be extended - because what if they come?

I would be having a total meltdown over this. I got upset with his parents wanting to add their relator to the list. I did the same as you where I didn't invite all of my extended family in order to accommodate his side. It is unreasonable to invite people for the sake of inviting people, especially when your already exceeding the venue. The way I look at is the people I didn't want to send a "courtesy" invite too can be offended, but I wouldn't know since I never see or hear from them anyways.

Hi ! Am I guessing right that to attend a wedding all people have to be vaccinated...? That's not really the case of all people in France, who are many to be against... maybe they won't be even able to come then...?