Mum fumes as daughter won’t invite her friends to wedding – but bride defends guestlist

A woman has been left in an uncomfortable situation as her mother wants all of her friends to be invited to her wedding, despite knowing there’s a strict limit on the number of guests

If you opt for a smaller wedding, with a correspondingly-sized guest list, it can be difficult to choose who to invite. Nonetheless, one woman and her fiancé were happy with the selection they made ahead of their upcoming “intimate” wedding. With a strict limit of no more than 50 guests, they could not invite everyone they would in “an ideal world”, but did what they must to keep “costs down”.

Most importantly, they were happy with the plan; or at least they were, until the bride’s mum demanded her friends were invited. And the couple quickly found themselves in a tricky situation as the mum blasted her daughter as “ungrateful”, given her parents are helping to pay for the wedding.

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As a result, the bride-to-be has been with a dilemma, as she must choose between placating her mother or cutting down their guest list even further.

Posting to Mumsnet in need of advice, the woman outlined her predicament. She explained: “My fiancé and I are planning on getting married in a small venue with 50 guests at an absolute maximum.

“With our immediate families and then grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well as my fiancé’s best man, and two bridesmaids for me, this comes to 47 which we were happy with. My parents have very kindly offered to help us to pay for the wedding. My mum is now saying that she wants to invite her friends to our wedding.

“We aren’t having a separate day/night do with extra guests arriving later etc, our only friends who are coming are in our bridal party because we wanted to keep it small and intimate.

“When I said this to my mum, she said I was being ungrateful and said I should remember that she is helping to pay for it.”

Her post continued: “My fiancé and I aren’t even inviting all the friends we would have invited in an ideal world because we want to keep numbers and costs down, and we had also wanted to keep it intimate. I’ve tried to explain this to my mum and she keeps bringing up the money.

“She wants to invite her three best friends and their partners, as well as at least four other friends and their husbands too. This would take us over the 50 guest list limit and the only way we’d be able to accommodate it is if my fiancé and I cut down our list of family or don’t have anyone in our bridal party!!”

She concluded: “I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to upset my mum and she is helping us financially but I can’t help thinking she has had her wedding, my fiancé and I don’t want to invite loads of people who aren’t our own close friends.

“I don’t know how to broach this with my mum without her getting defensive, angry or upset with us. Does anyone have any tips or had a similar experience?”

But people were quick to blast the mum, advising the daughter to return the money and reject her demands.

One person wrote: “Tell her that you’re grateful, but you didn’t realise when you accepted her offer that it came with strings attached and you’d rather pay for your own wedding than have a wedding you’re not going to enjoy.”

A second said: “She’s being completely unreasonable. I’d offer her her money back.”

And a third agreed: “Give the money back to her and invite who you want.”

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