Parents inviting friends

This is your wedding, not your parents' wedding. Stand your ground! If your parents were paying for a large chunk of your wedding and if you had the space to accommodate these additional guests, then my answer would be different, but that's not the case! You simply don't have the space and I'd put my foot down on this

Agree with PP. This is your wedding and the guest list has been set.

I think parents do feel a lot of pressure to invite certain people because everyone gets all emotional and up-in-arms about who was invited to whose child's wedding. But you just simply can't invite anyone else. So be understanding but firm. They can't invite their friends.

Your parents need to respect that this is your wedding. You need to tell them no!

Be firm with your parents. Who is paying doesn't even matter here because you don't have the space. Tell them no!

Be firm. ‘No’ is a complete sentence. You don’t owe explanation for an event you are paying for.

Stand your ground and maintain boundaries. Get practice in now for further down the road. If there's no space, they can't be invited, and parents already got married so they can't decide anything for your wedding.

Parents trying to control the couple getting married with how things should go seems to be very common.


One thing is that this is your wedding not theirs and you are paying for it 100% on your own. You have to put your foot down with them. No means no. If you have to be blunt and a little mean then that's what you will need to do. Some people need the blunt mean version of people otherwise they will not respect the persons wishes. You need to tell them absolutely not we are not inviting anymore people especially people who you are not even very close with, if we were to possibly find room we still definitely would not be inviting them because no offense my fiance and I have more important people to us who would take those spots. You should also bring up what you said about why invite people who more than likely won't come and how what happens when we invite people we don't have room for and they actually come.
When I started planning my wedding my dad immediately started telling his friends that they were getting invited. I told my dad to stop telling people they are invited when we don't know if we can invite them. Then when we made the guest list my dad brought up about how I have to invite this person and that person, all people myself and my dad aren't even close enough for them to be invited to my wedding. When my dad just kept telling me who to invite I finally put my foot down and told him absolutely not that the guest list is final and how I'm not wasting money and seats on people who aren't an important part of my life. And how I'm not talking about this anymore, I told him don't like it to bad, plan a vow renewal with your wife and then you can invite those people to your wedding.

Also tell your parents that this is your wedding not a reunion. If they want to hang out with those people they can at a bar/restaurant but not at your wedding. I feel as though some parents use their kids wedding for a reunion.

For those of you who think parents have no right to invite a few of their closest friends and it's all about the money, just remember that when you expect them to drop everything and watch your kids for free.