Member- jacquiebee
- 11 years ago
- Wedding: September 2011
I’m currently working on my guest list and I’ve managed to run into a frustrating problem:
I have a pretty big family. One branch in particular, one of my father’s sisters, has 5 kids. All my cousins are grown and some have kids of their own. I love them all (for the most part) and couldn’t imagine any of them not being at my wedding. I’ve grown up with them and now enjoy being a part in their kids lives.
Except for one of these cousins. And his wife. And his step-daughter, and three children. It’s not that I do not love them. I do.. It’s just that THIS cousin is often a problem at family events. He drinks waaay to much, yells, makes a scene, spouts off innappropriate political opinions, allows his teenage step daughter to bring her shady boyfriend to gatherings, argues..etc. Also, I have little to no relationship with his wife and children. I’ve attempted to form relationships with them, but we’ve never mangaged to make a connection. I just feel like I do not know them.
So with my family and my fiance’s family being a bit substantial in numbers, and our venue having a capacity of 110, you can imagine the cuts we’ve been trying to make.
*Let me say first off, that wedding guest list management is an ART! Such a difficult task and I applaud the brides who’ve sucessfully accomplished this*
My fiance and I have whittled away college buddies we haven’t spoken to in years, B-list co-workers, and extended extended international family we haven’t ourselves had contact with recently. My problem? I’m basically at capacity, and I still have a few close friends I’d rather invite than my problem cousin and his family.
It’s bad. I know. Ideally, I’d just send this cousin and his fam an Announcement instead of an invite, but how could I possibly invite ALL his brothers and sisters and their children, and leave him out?! Most of my other cousins and friends who know him say, “No. Don’t invite him IF you can get away with it.” Some of my aunts have said–“Don’t worry about inviting him, he won’t even notice!” Which makes me think… Would I even WANT someone at my wedding who wouldn’t NOTICE? And what about my college friends? They’d notice, and they’d love to be there!
Also– this cousin has a track record of coming late to events and allowing his step daughter to just bring her boyfriend to weddings, baptisms, birthday parties, etc. (And this boyfriend is gross and offensive. Basically the yuckiest, greasiest, trashiest 17 year old. I feel like I can’t risk it, ya know?)
But still, even family assurance aside, I can’t quite come to terms with leaving him out. What if my Aunt (or his siblings) gets hurt feelings and not say anything. Yuck. I don’t want to be stressed about offending family members.
My fiance gets along with him fine..but has little to no opinion on this matter. Good grief.
I’ve thought about sending him and his family an invitation anyway, and hopefully only he and his wife RSVP, or they’ll all “Regret to Inform..” all across the board. But do I even want to invite him in the first place?
There are certain social, cultural, and common sense boundaries. And I don’t want to disregard them..
But at the same time– I have tight budget, I don’t really want him there anyways…
Ugh. What would you do??
Thanks 🙂
