I was just reading a post on another site about how to deal with inviting 1 family to a wedding (immediate family) and not inviting the other (barring the excluded family being cut off completely). Responses ranged from how it's rude to invite only one side to the fact that it's a private affair for the bride/groom to invite whoever they wished. One person commented that she found it equally bad for the couple to not invite either family & elope just to avoid the bad feelings. That it's almost punishment for the 'good' family to not be invited so that the 'bad' family doesn't cause a scene/unpleasantness. What do you think?
We did the third option (invite none to avoid 'unfairness') but now I'm wondering if my parents felt 'punished' or whatever.
And I'm going with the assumption that 'bad' can be anything from embarassing uncle's loud drunken outbursts, trying to take over (control) the wedding plans, to all out toxic-ness of trying to sabatoge wedding/relationship. In case the level of 'bad' changes opinions.
Ugh that's a really though one for me. The way we are raised says that we have to deal with those kind of relatives no matter what. So in my case my upbringing says that everyone gets invited and that the family will try to manage the "bad" relatives so they don't cause a ruckus.
If we didn't invite them all the part that we do invite would be very critical of us. There's no winning there.
It seems like the bride and groom should include their parents and siblings and their spouses. More distant relatives would be invited according to how close the couple is to them and how well-behaved the relative is.
My sister and brother were part of my wedding party and I invited one other relative group, My great aunt and her adult children, because that branch has always been closest to my family. That was it except for the other cousin who asked if she could come with them and I gladly sent her an invitation. We invited quite a few of my husband's relatives, but he has a bigger family and we see several of his cousins regularly.
All I can say is I would elope before I would let the families ruin it, but I would probably elope anyway just because I hate weddings, especially my own.
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What if the problem is one of the couple's parents or immediate family? Should it be both families or none of the families (elope)?
And Des - so I guess elopement isn't really an option either way?
I sometimes forget that not all parents are nice and relatively normal like mine were and DH's are. There are some pretty unpleasant people in the world.
So, yes if there are members of the immediate family who might disrupt or spoil the wedding in any way, I'd exclude them.
Do you think it would be unfair to exclude 1 side of the family, but let the other family attend? The original post I read, they originally were going to elope, but the groom wanted the bride's sister, mom & dad to be there, but not his family (due to past experiences they believed his family would make 'their' day less happy).
I think it[s ok to exclude toxic family members even if it's a parent if there's a chance they might make a scene and cause some major damage or spectacle.
I also think it's ok to only invite relatives you're close to.
I pretty much agree with the "you should invite whoever you want instead of inviting weird Great Aunt Mirabelle that you've never even met because her great grandaughter was invited and so it's rude not to invite that whole side of the family". But I'm also the type of person whose guest list wouldn't have topped 4 people anyways :)
What about eloping just to avoid drama (not toxic people) with one side of the family? Say the bride or groom's immediate family member(s) would have made things much more annoying/less enjoyable to plan a wedding, so the couple decides to elope primarily for that reason. Is that unfair to the other side's family (parents/siblings) that they had no problems with?
Oh it has it's good things, I'm grateful because we both are pretty close to our families and we now we can count on them as much as they can count on us. And with the baby coming you can feel the love and the family network around us, it's really nice :D
I get what you mean exactly. I was very worried for my neices two small children when she had her breakdown (she has been diagnosed with bipolar disease) but there are enough of us helping that it has been much better than I thought. We get mad at each other of course but I know they have my back and they know I have theirs.
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Make up your mind to be happy and happiness usually comes your way.
