My mother's decision is going to offend fiance's family
Hi. I don't know what to do, I feel like there are no options here. This might be long, but I don't know how else to explain the situation... My mother (my father pretty much goes along with what she says most of the time) has decided to pay for all of the hotel rooms of any guests traveling from a distance of over 4 hours, for the entire weekend of my wedding. While that may sound like a fantastic idea, it is causing me tons of stress (and stressful discussions with my fiance).
I moved out of the area I grew up in (and where much of my family is) to a place about 12 hrs away, and there met my fiance. His family is about an hour from here, except for his sister who is about 8 hrs away. We've decided to have a semi-small wedding, about 34 from each side. My side is tiny, so I have invited my close cousins as well as the closer relatives and friends. My fiance's side is absolutely enormous, so he has decided to invite just siblings, their spouses, kids, his Dad and his Grandfather, and just a very few of his closest friends. Not aunts, uncles, cousins. We were having the small wedding because we want it more intimate, and also to save money. However, my parents are paying for the wedding (so nice of them, I realize), and though they said we could invite more people, we decided to stick with our current list. My parents aren't rich, and we wanted the wedding to be fairly low-key.
Now in what seems to be an effort to apologize to my family for me moving so far away, my mother is shelling out thousands of dollars to have everyone who is traveling (ie my side, with the exception of my fiance's sister) stay for TWO nights at the hotel/country-club-type-place in which we are to be married. My fiance mentioned it to his sister & her family, and she was offended! He is also offended because now it looks like we're trying to impress people by spending tons of money on hotel rooms, but not willing to spend money inviting the rest of his family. We could have gotten away with not inviting his aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. if we kept the wedding on a budget, but now I have a feeling that they are going to see us as complete snobs who want nothing to do with them. I do think we run a great risk of having them hold a deep grudge for a very long time.
I can't stop my parents from doing this now because they've already offered it to my family and we've mentioned it to my fiance's sister, so though she does not spread gossip, there's a chance people on his side will find out before the wedding. We weren't going to hide it, anyway, hate doing that sort of thing. Looks more underhanded!
We could just expand our wedding list (it's not too late), but that would add at least 30 people if not 40 (for his close aunts, uncles, cousins&spouses), which is about another $2000... and I imagine my parents would probably be upset because I think they're using that $ to pay for the stupid hotel rooms!!!
We really wanted a smaller wedding, but do you think the only solution to this problem is: talk to my mother and try to get her to understand how this might look to my fiance's family, and have them pay another $2000 to invite the rest of his close relations?
Or are we making mountains out of molehills? Or in between!?
I'd really appreciate any advice you can give me - I can't even talk to my best girlfriend about this because she's one of the ones on my side that has been offered a room - I don't want to make her & her hubby feel guilty taking it!!
THANKS a MILLION!
(This post was
edited by TWQadmin on Jun 14, 2007, 7:05 PM)
Etiquette Now
WEDDING ETIQUETTE EXPERT
Jun 15, 2007, 1:02 PM
Post #2 of 2
(956 views)
Re: [ashirley] My mother's decision is going to offend fiance's family
[In reply to]
Dear Ashirley,
Your parents are very generous and shouldn't be viewed as anything else. They are not obligated to pay for anyone, let alone your fiance's family. If they feel that it is a good idea, then they can do it as well. But, it isn't a negative in any way.
Equating this as they have is not fair to your parents. They didn't have to pay for the wedding, but did. To expect them to pay more so more of his family can attend isn't polite.
It sounds a bit one sided to me, especially in today's world.
My mother's decision is going to offend fiance's family
