Did/do you feel obligated to invite all of your extended family to your wedding?

Question

My mom and grandma always felt it was a MUST to invite everyone, extended family, friends, coworkers, favorite teachers, and even the people they dislike. Like whattafuq?  😂 I don’t give a damn about those folks. That would’ve been at least 160 fam members and about 200 people total if the friends/coworkers were included. A lot of my fam went through with it too. They had huge church weddings and receptions. I’d be having my dream wedding and that means leaving behind folks I can’t stand so that would narrow my list to less than 20 people. #FeelFreeToList

Lliam · Accepted Answer

My wife and I got married twice. LOL
The first time was in Cincinnati where she has a huge family. They obtained a really nice venue and provided the food, drink, decorations and entertainment for the reception. It was really fun.
Some of her old friends attended, too.
It was a full, formal, Catholic wedding for her parent's benefit. And my wife got to be the beautiful princess in a white wedding dress. It was special for her.
The only thing we had to pay for was the priest.

Afterwards, we went on a two week honeymoon to New England in the fall.

A month after our first wedding, we got married again in California where we lived. This time, our friends provided a wonderful venue, decorations, amazing food and refreshments.
A lay minister friend of my wife's officiated. My wife and I paid her. We also bought the cake and paid a really good saxophonist to provide the music.
My mom, dad, sister and nice were there, along with our friends.

But nobody who wasn't welcome was invited.

Jaximus-Lion · Accepted Answer

When i and the my wife were planing for our wedding back in 2012, my parents gave me a list of 300+ of guests (It's a tradition where we are from to have massive numbers of guests) but i told them it's my wedding and they have to step back and i forced them to and they weren't happy about it and they didn't even talk to me for a whole week. I took a way all the names i don't know which left me with barley of 100 people and the wife had like 80+ people, with some common friends and last minute changes, we had a total of 208 guests. That is considered ''VERY SMALL'' wedding in my culture.

jennifer_bloom · Answer

I was not invited to any of the weddings. One family was very very close to our family but their wedding was in another country and they did not want to burden us with the obligation to fly thousands of miles to attend. Another respected and liked us but did not want to burden us by making us fly all the way to another country for the wedding and another group used their wedding as a networking opportunity for meeting wealthy professionals and did not want us there because we were not as wealthy as the surgeons and bankers she invited to her wedding. And another guy did not invite us to the wedding cause he is too stingy even to buy his dad a cup of coffee and he thought we would not donate as generously as the other guests he invited. His wedding got canceled weeks before it's scheduled date because his fiancé revealed an unhappy secret to him he previously did not know. They won't say their reasons for cancelling but I believe she had a child in another country because she was speaking very sweetly to a male over the phone during the Christmas party I met her at and its not normal for an engaged woman to have a close male friend.

AviatorTom · Answer

It was many years ago. Yes, we invited our aunts, uncles and cousins to the wedding.

AdithyaR · Answer

It's a pretty common thing in India. And it's annoying as hell.
I've attended a couple of my cousin's weddings and there'll be some extended relative I haven't seen in over 10 years and they'll get offended when I don't recognise. Like my guy, the last I probably saw you was when I was 5, and that is if I ever actually saw you.
Plus it can cost the wedding cost to skyrocket since it's extended family from both the bride's and the groom's side.

ariadneR · Answer

I said this before. So even though I live in Canada, my partner lives in the US. So when we get married it'll be in the US, and then my 8 immediate family will come. (My youngest brother, his partner, their son and my younger brother, his partner their 2 daughters and my dad) I don't feel the need to invite my dad's sisters, that he's git here or my cousins. They don't give a flying fuck about me. I may invite my brothers best friends and their family cause they are cool as fuck. Even my brothers in laws.

The family I really want to attend live in the UK, so if we fly over at a later date, rent a hall and have catering with all my family in the UK, then I'd be happy.

Rab1901 · Answer

Absolutely not! I have a cousin off the top of my head that I definitely don't want to come to my wedding, and I definitely don't want to go to his either. I have had appreciation for my family ever since I was little, but being blood related does not necessarily equal someone I consider family.

electromagnetic · Answer

Nope.
My wedding is gonna be 7 people tops.
My partner and I, our 2 each witnesses and the person to officialize our marriage.

I’m not having no party, no bridal thingy nada. Saving our moneys to go around the world for 6 months. I will have a wedding registry though cause I want free things 😆

NathanDavis · Answer

I would not feel obligated nor pressured, no...

but yes, I would feel it's expected and yes... my extended family would want to be there, lmao

and yeah, chances are that the wedding and after-party could easily have over 200 people, and perhaps up to 500, lol (counting both families)

LostandFound__x · Answer

This is something I think about a lot. I have a lot of resentment towards my extended family and inviting them will basically ruin the vibe of my future special day. I also don’t think it’s fair to call them my family and introduce them like that on my wedding day when they have done nothing good to me, nor been there for me.

Anpu23 · Answer

When we got married the first time, every family member showed up including distant ones who were not invited. My step mother brought her sister who was not invited, so she could get wedding ideas. Too bad our aesthetics weren't to her taste.

When we remarried only our 3 kids were there.

Simslover92 · Answer

Nope. I'm an extreme introvert/shy af and don't keep up with my extended family nor do I really want to invite all of them. Maybe a few close aunts and cousins I'll invite but other than that, not really a big fan of having a super big wedding and my mom and grandmother knows that about me so they won't push it. To be honest, I'm not sure if we will be able to afford a big wedding anyways. And that's if I even get married. I'm not sure if marriage is in the cards for me atm.

exitseven · Answer

I had a small wedding and I invited maybe 25 people. Between my aunts and uncles nd cousins there was about 20 of them and i invited a couple of people from work and some of my friends. I did not invite any of my friends from college because it I invited one I would have to invite them all. I explained this to my closest friends and they understood. The only exception I made was that I had a cousin who was living in Sweden and he happened to be in town so I invited him.

kellytheman · Answer

Yeah if I got married it be mostly immediate family like parents and sibling and maybe grandparents. I only have one neiva so she might come too. I probably wouldn’t invite cousins, aunts, and uncles. No coworkers and friends maybe are best friend.

Mark987 · Answer

1000% yes. Especially being from two separate cultures lol. I am older now so I can pretty much get what I want. If I got married younger it would have been 400+ people, some who I have never met, just because they're part of the Indian community etc.

Christoff92 · Answer

Yeh. Because can't stand my extended family's. Everytime I saw them. They would act like a bunch of comedians. When if I see their kids. Can really laugh my ass out. But I choose not to.

My extended family's are a bunch of snobs and bias jerks. Just to let you know 😀

KatherineJ · Answer

Let’s put it this way. If I would have had my way, my wedding would have been in the back yard with 40 (or so) people, and just had burgers and hotdogs. Unfortunately, because my husband and I were not the only ones with input, we had over 200, and got married in church, then had the large reception in a different location.

TrillXHippy · Answer

No I don’t feel obligated. I have so many cousins I have 80+. My cousins alone is too much. I have aunts and uncles. I’m only going to invite my aunts (my grandmother’s kids). I’d invite my uncle which is her son but he was murdered when I graduated from high school. I have 9 siblings and I never met one of them before. Then there’s my mother’s side of the family. Yeah I think not

LovingLoverReturned · Answer

For my own anxiety I prefer a small wedding.. And then it also depends to if the marriage is deemed honorable (local thing) as to if I invite because some won't come anyway

Phoenix98 · Answer

Lmao I don't even know how big my family is to be honest. I know of the family members I know actually exist and who I'm aware of it'd be 50 or less people. Now family members I don't know that's any ones guess.

elizamichale1 · Answer

Well my wedding invitation had quite a few conditions n very strict ones so it was really upto them... i knew the ones i want filtered will be filtered with those conditions hehe

My conditions were pretty steamy

mstbooblover · Answer

No, we did not feel at all obligated to invite anyone. We still had a very few friends being also the witnesses of our wedding. The truth is we did not want family around us.

Did/do you feel obligated to invite all of your extended family to your wedding?

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