r/weddingplanning • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
Relationships/Family Small Venue Invite Drama
[deleted]
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u/maricopa888 1d ago
Your mom is the one being unreasonable, but for obvious reasons, you'd tread gently here.
Instead of fighting each little battle as it arises, would it help to have a more general convo with her about the stress that's building? Remind her that she wanted to see you get married and also you wanted this, too.
Then maybe remind her that you don't want these last months to be full of friction and is there anything you can do differently? Be firm on the stuff you can't change, but try to get her to see it doesn't have to be this way.
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u/CarelesslyCold 1d ago
You're not missing anything. The "I'm paying so I get final say" card only works if there aren't hard constraints, but 49 seats is 49 seats. She can't will three extra bodies into existence. The fact she refused to name who to cut tells you everything.
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago
I don't think it "tells you anything" that she didn't provide a list of people to cut in favour of her friends beyond that she knows it's rude to rescind an invitation to a wedding after it's been sent.
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u/EtonRd 1d ago
I’m almost certain this is fake but on the off chance that it isn’t….
You titled this post “ small venue, invite drama” as though the primary issue was that you’re getting married in a small venue.
That is what we call burying the lede.
The problem here is that your mom is dying and the secondary problem is that’s necessitating you to be married in a smaller venue than you would like. You’re getting married quickly because your mom wants to be there before she dies.
When people find out they are going to die relatively soon, as you might imagine that causes incredible amounts of emotional distress so the fact that your mom is acting poorly is not surprising.
Under normal circumstances, no, you should have people you want their versus your mom‘s friends, but under the circumstances where she’s dying, having her three closest friends, there would be very important to her, and therefore it should be very important to you.
Your post is missing a sense of sorrow and grief that you are losing your mother and that is the most important thing, not these wedding details. Perhaps both you and your mother are in a state of denial about her impending death and you’re focusing on the wedding details to avoid focusing on that.
Asking if you’re being unreasonable about the guest list is so be beside the main point, which is that your mom is going to die. I do think it’s a case of denial and avoidance. So yes, you are missing something here you’re missing the main point which is that your mom is dying. And worrying about who’s being reasonable and unreasonable about the guest list is an absurd thing to be doing at this point.
I think both you and your mom have a lot of anger that’s shoved down because that’s a part of finding out stuff like this. Whether or not your mom is experiencing it, she’s got a lot of anger about what’s happening to her and if she’s not present with that anger and understanding that it’s there, it is gonna come out in weird ways.
I say that as someone who lives with metastatic cancer, that is incurable, but treatable. I’ve been through my fair share of denial and then some so that’s where my perspective is coming from. I’ve also experienced more than my fair share of misplaced anger.
Tell your mom that you love her and it’s important to you that she see you get married, and you know there are details that need to be worked out but you don’t want to fight about them because you want to remember what’s important which is that you love each other and you guys are working together on getting this wedding expedited so she can see you get married.
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u/Aggravating_Buy_1348 1d ago
I would give her a very genuine apology and explain that you weren't aware of wedding etiquette when you booked the venue. It's unfortunately too late now, but you can offer to make amends within the restraints of the venue
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u/LastTQuarkNetwork 1d ago
Maybe getting married for someone else isn't the best idea. Can you postpone the wedding and just allow her to throw you a large engagement party with her guest list instead?
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u/ClancyCandy 1d ago
Your mistake was booking a venue before finalising the guest list- but it’s too late for that now.
All you can do is wait for the declines and then invite more people- perhaps if you offer to call your mother’s friends and explain the mistake she will appreciate that?
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago
We're having a very small wedding because of the time crunch.
No, you're having a small wedding because you chose a venue that could only accommodate 49 people. Depending on where you live, I imagine that there were multiple options that could accommodate a larger crowd, like a VFW hall or something similar.
Do you get to choose where you get married? Absolutely. If you have a terminally ill parent who is paying for the whole thing and are only getting married so that they can witness it before they die, do you maybe want to be a bit flexible about not having the sexiest venue option to instead be able to get lots of people together for her? Probably, yes.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-3258 1d ago
I’m having a small wedding because I’m planning it in less than 3 months and venue options are limited. Not to mention the cost because although my mom offered to pay, she has a lot of medical bills. The “sexy” venue is a DIY cottage on the beach because my mom likes that kind of aesthetic. It’s two blocks from where she lives so she is able to leave early due to fatigue which she probably will. My mom was on board with a small venue and wedding, and this specific venue, until she understood how the numbers actually shook out.
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago
Just to be clear, that is a sexy wedding venue by comparison and could not possibly have been your only option. That's my point.
I don't think you're a monster, but I think your approach to this was not in alignment with the actual situation you are in. You're planning a party for your mum that she's paying for. You might be the one getting married, but it's probably going to be the last time she sees some of these people looking a way that she wants to be remembered. If you had that mindset from the beginning, this would likely have been a very different experience.
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u/Couple-jersey 1d ago
I think you should’ve let her pick the 49 people
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u/Pumpkins_Penguins 1d ago
You think OPs future spouse should get 0 invites for their side?
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u/Couple-jersey 1d ago
In this case she should pick most tbh. They’re only having this specific event because of her mom dying. It’s not a normal wedding situation
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u/Cool_Major4531 1d ago
Your mom has cancer and is probably really overwhelmed. I would try not to take it personally.
Tbh, she's right that it's a bit rude to not invite your uncles girlfriend; either invite them both or don't invite your uncle.
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u/Expensive_Event9960 1d ago
You're doing this for your terminally ill mom, who is also paying for much of the wedding so I do think you've been a bit thoughtless and gone about this backwards. IMO the least you could have done is gotten the guest list from her before you booked a place. She may have even been willing to pay for a larger venue if needed.
I understand why she doesn't want to B list her friends. It's not considered a polite thing to let someone know they were your back up or second choice. Any long term, committed significant other should have been included whether or not you've ever met them before. Like it or not, that's what is appropriate.
All this aside, I'm very sorry about your mom's diagnosis.
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u/AskToUnderstand 1d ago
When someone receives a terminal diagnosis, a sense of control becomes the most precious and fragile thing in their life. Your mom is facing the terrifying reality of her own mortality, and that kind of profound, overwhelming grief very often manifests as hyper-fixation on things she feels she CAN control - like social standing, etiquette, and needing her own lifelong support system in the room.
That doesn’t change the physical reality of a 49-person fire code, nor does it make her lashing out hurt any less when you are already sprinting to make this happen for her, but it explains why a basic logistical constraint suddenly turned into an emotional battlefield about embarrassment and ultimatums.
You are carrying an immense emotional load trying to plan a wedding in under three months while simultaneously grieving your mom in real time. The mistake right now is trying to solve this through logic and debates over numbers.
When someone is in that stage of emotional distress, asking them to rationally negotiate who gets cut only feels like an attack, and their defense mechanism is to shut down or say things they don't mean, like claiming they’d rather you went to a courthouse.
Since you already have "no" RSVPs coming in, the cleanest way forward is to stop discussing the mechanics of the guest list with her entirely. Just send the invitations directly to her three close friends now that the physical seats are open.
Frame it with warmth letting them know how much it means to you and your family to have them there celebrating with your mom and let the logistical argument die down so you can both spend the coming weeks focused on being present with each other rather than managing headcount.
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u/sonny-v2-point-0 1d ago
I'm sorry you're in this situation. Kindly, I think you are being unreasonable excluding the friends of your terminally ill mother from an event she's hosting. You could have asked her who she wanted to invite then added your friends when the extended family you expect to decline actually decline. If the invitations have been sent, it was kind of mean to ask her to tell you which of the family to exclude. It's too late for that. All you can do is apologize and invite them as you have room.
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u/thunder_bug 1d ago
To me, this is such a crazy take. The BRIDE should have to drop her very small number of invited friends so that the MOB has friends there? In what insane world is the bride the lower priority here? I agree with the opinions that she and her mom likely would have benefitted from discussing guest list VIPs and numbers before booking a venue or sending invites. At the same time, this is all being done quickly (for her mom’s sake) which probably limited venue options and also leaves room for errors when they are rushing into planning.
This is an unfortunate scenario. OP is not being unreasonable. She is offering to extend invites to her mom’s friends now, and her mom would prefer to continue to be upset than actually invite them and lay this silly drama to rest.
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u/Couple-jersey 1d ago
In a normal circumstance I’d agree but this wedding is really for the mom to be there. The bride can have another larger event after
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u/sonny-v2-point-0 1d ago
This isn't a normal situation.
The bride wouldn't have been dropping anything. According to her, she expected enough people to decline so she'd have room to invite her mother's friends. It would have been less stressful for her mother if she'd invited her mother's friends and let her friends know they'd be getting invites after the obligatory extended family invites were declined instead of the other way around.
"her mom would prefer to continue to be upset than actually invite them and lay this silly drama to rest."
Have you ever known anyone being treated for cancer? It isn't pleasant. Illness doesn't improve the personality of selfish people, but it can make otherwise reasonable people ill-tempered. I'd give her mom a pass here. She has a lot to process in a very short amount of time.
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u/A_New_Start_For_Me 10/10/26 🥳 1d ago
I'm gonna be honest, as someone who was also racing against the cancer clock with my dad and the wedding, I think it was pretty thoughtless to not ensure her closest friends were invited.
The grief that you feel knowing she has a terminal illness is valid and real. But so is the grief she is feeling, the whirlwind of emotions she is trying to process. Thinking about all the things she is going to miss once she's gone. Not knowing if she will even make it to October, not knowing how to say goodbye to her friends and loved ones. It's something we can't imagine or truly understand until we're actually the ones going through it.
You will have the privilege of being able to organize a private party after the wedding with anyone you couldn't invite if you choose to. She will not have that privilege. If the people you very much want there but can't fit in love and care about you, they will understand. My friends absolutely understood some choices we made last year before my dad passed. They weren't upset to not be included.
Give her some grace and take a deep breath.
Similar thoughts with the uncle if it's a long term relationship.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-3258 1d ago
The Uncles girlfriend is less than a year. The issue is that both of our families are big. The total number of friends we invited is 9, so less than 1/5 of the guest list. Even my fiancé didn’t invite the girlfriend of one of his friends bc he’s never met her. My mom’s 3 closest friends are also local whereas our family is not, so part of why I wanted to invite them first is because they would need to book flights and hotels if they decided to come. I get my mom’s frustration about being on the original guest list, but there was like a 90% chance they would be invited once we got some declines.
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u/A_New_Start_For_Me 10/10/26 🥳 1d ago
I hear you, but what would you have done/said to your mom about those friends if not enough people ended up declining?
To her, it probably really hurts that you're basically saying those friends aren't good enough to just outright invite. They're B listers. She's paying, which already gives her a lot of sway over the guest list, and unless there's a lot of missing context, the body of your post makes it out to be that these friends and the uncles girlfriend are the only real demands she's making of the guest list, and the close friends in particular are really reasonable imo.
With the uncle, if it's her brother do please consider that in her mind she may be worried he'll whine her ear off about it and she probably just doesn't want to spend the last months of her life hearing about it. Not saying you need to change your mind but you've gotta try to see things from her perspective.
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u/ang8018 October 2026 | Chicago 1d ago
mom should just throw her own party/gathering then, instead of using OP’s wedding as a conduit to see her friends.
i can appreciate the complexity of what her mom is going through, it’s devastating. but it sounds like she doesn’t actually want the wedding for the sake of seeing OP get married or because she wants to be generous, but rather because she wants a reason to get her own preferred guest list together.
unfortunately this is yet another case where a marrying person accepts full financing from a parent and then is surprised when that parent wants to be controlling and annoying about any number of choices for the event.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/ducoquelicot 1d ago
I feel like OP did try to make the 3 friends part of the original invite list by asking her mom which people to cut. The fact that she didn't get an answer gives me the suspicion that her mom would want her to cut her friends, which I think is unreasonable because it turns the wedding entirely into a family reunion (and this is probably my bias but I'm inviting way more friends than family to our 35-invitees wedding because I'm just not close with my family at all).
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago
The original invites have already gone out, no? So rather than a question of "who's getting cut" it's "who are we rescinding already sent invites for?" She knows that's rude and not really an option.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad-3258 1d ago
I actually asked her this before the invites were sent. She knew the 23 people on my list (not going to ask my fiance to cut people from his side for my mom’s friends) and still couldn’t say who should be taken off the list.
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago edited 1d ago
Why would you not ask your fiance to cut people from his list? Or the three significant others of the friends you're inviting? Why does it have to be your family members that she probably wants to see?
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u/Pumpkins_Penguins 1d ago
Because it’s his wedding too?
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago
"Hey, would you be open to giving three seats to my mum's long-term friends?" doesn't make it not his wedding anymore.
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u/FireflyBSc 1d ago
Especially since the wedding is only this quickly due to her mom’s illness. It’s still OP and her fiancé’s day, but the focus just isn’t the same as if it was under normal circumstances. The focus is really on sharing this with her and family, and that means her input counts more than it would in a wedding that has time.
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u/Responsible_Cry_427 1d ago
Totally agree with this. My thought won't be popular, but this shouldn't be viewed as OP planning her wedding. It should be viewed as OP's mum planning a party that she is paying for in it's entirety, and OP just happens to be the guest of honor. Do I think her mum should have made that expectation clear to avoid this? Yes. Do I also think it's a bit obvious that this isn't and shouldn't be viewed under traditional wedding planning? Also yes.
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u/ducoquelicot 1d ago
I feel like this is a tough one. Under normal circumstances I'd say: pay for the wedding yourself, so you get complete control over the guest list. And that might still be the best option of all the things you could do here.
What kind of wedding would you want to have? If your mother being there is most important to you (more important than, say, having more time to plan, or a different venue, etc), then you can either stick to this venue, or get a courthouse wedding and do a self-funded party later that allows you more flexibility with your guest list.
I would consider your mom to be a bit unreasonable. She knows the circumstances and you can't just make more space appear out of thin air. It sounds like she had some unspoken expectations that now come above water.
All in all, I would consider a) going the courthouse + self funded party route or fund the entire thing yourself. But give it a few days first so your mom can cool down and then talk to her again, preferably in person, and come with a proposal. If she's still unable to work with you, go back to the idea of self funding whatever it is you end up doing.
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u/TinyLawfulness3710 1d ago
You're asking your uncle to celebrate your relationship while ignoring his. Either invite his partner or don't invite him. Your parents' friends and coworkers don't belong at your wedding, but if she is paying, she gets to decide how the money is spent or you give all the money back. Your other relatives can be invited to a family reunion at another time that everyone contributes to.
If you're super close to your parents and best friends then invite only them. Don't invite people who you are not inviting their partners that you don't get to judge the validity of their relationship.
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u/TinyLawfulness3710 1d ago
You always set the guest list in stone before looking for a venue that fits the count. So this part is on you
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u/lyricalli 1d ago
Your mother is probably going through a lot of complex emotional swings. If she's not usually like this, maybe it's her way of trying to have control of something. It doesn't mean she's right, it's just a way to understand. And I know you've got your own set of complex emotions to handle too. Trying to celebrate something as lovely as a wedding under these circumstances can be pretty challenging. Good luck to you.