Guest list

Your wedding, your decision. Fiancé needs to be a united front with you setting your boundaries and making things clear to her. Mother in law can start a tradition of a family reunion picnic at another time if she wants to host all relatives.

Did your FH agree to invite your aunt and her kids and not any aunts or uncles from his side? I think you and him should talk about it and then make sure everyone knows that it's a decision you're both making, not just you. You really don't have to explain your guest list to anyone but I know that's easier said than done.

I’m in a similar position. We have a 50 person guest list & invited our closest family members & friends. I have a niece that I haven’t seen or talked to in over 6 yrs & she’s never even met my FH. Her name never even came up when creating the guest list (even when we had the list at 100 ppl). My mom is concerned that it will cause drama with Bro & SIL. While I wasn’t dismissive of her concerns, we stuck with the rules we set out for our guest list. At this point, we have 2 available seats, and we are still not thinking of inviting her. With a small wedding, it’s even more important to have only the most important ppl there.

I would stick with your list, although you may hear about this for awhile to come.

This about the only reason that it's advised to invite in "circles", to prevent hurt feelings.

View Quoted Comment I was thinking this also. I have two sets of aunts and uncles that I am very close to and we would really love to invite; but unfortunately, we don’t have room to invite all of our aunts and uncles (HUGE family), and I knew including some and leaving out others would come off as me ranking family members’ importance to me and cause seriously hurt feelings. So we decided to implement the “inviting in circles” rule, to remain consistent. I am definitely bummed to not be able to invite those aunts and uncles, but I figured it was better than having family members hurt and feeling as though they weren’t as important to me as other family members.

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It's just not something I'd be willing to deal with at every family event, every holiday, every reunion.

People can be petty, and etiquette exists partly for that reason.

View Quoted Comment Exactly! I just knew it would always be looming over us at family functions, and I would forever feel awkward and guilty.