Who should be at a wedding?
Some people go with close friends and family only. Others include business associates at their big day.
It should really be up to the couple getting married, but what if they disagree with each other?
A future bride turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback on her guest list.
Technical_Spell_2293 asked:
“AITA for asking my fiancé to cut 200 people from his guest list?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I (31, female) and my fiancé (32, male) recently got engaged. We have started making our guest list as part of our wedding planning.”
“My fiancé is a very social guy. He’s been in the restaurant industry for 10+ years and has made a lot of friends and business connections.”
“On the other hand you have me. I have a very small, but close group of friends. I get over stimulated easily and have to prepare for big group interactions, and usually can only last a few hours before I need to wander off and recharge a little.”
“We made our first pass at a guest list. I have about 45-50 people on my list—this includes mutual friends and their plus ones. These are the people I can’t see this day happening without.”
“I have a very small family. He comes from a Mexican Italian family, very large. He’s also a people pleaser.”
“He made his list and has close to 400 people on his. This includes people who he’s met in business and wants to essentially ‘shake hands and kiss babies’ with.”
“I forgot to mention he’s opening his own business soon.”
“He said he will take another pass at the list and cut it down so we have 400 in total. The thought of this makes me physically ill.”
“It’s easy for me to say no to inviting people because I have a small list and I feel ‘objective’ when looking at his list.”
“If I have to ask who is this? To a name on the list (unless it’s a plus one) I don’t think they should be invited.”
“He’s still stuck in the ‘trying to please everyone’ phase of planning.”
“I want to be supportive and invite everyone he views as important to him, but there are a significant number of people on the list that I have never even met, some I haven’t even heard of before this list.”
“For context we have been together for 2.5 years. I also saw names and when I asked him who they were he said, ‘well I was invited to their wedding 3+ years ago…’ and some people he only exchanges ‘happy birthday’ with every year and says they ‘need’ to be at the wedding.”
“Again, I want to be supportive. But I have a hard time justifying paying $250+ per person on people I have never met and who he only says happy birthday to.”
“I’ve tried explaining this to him, but I know we are both passionate people and sometimes I have a hard time expressing how things make me feel. I don’t want to sound like I don’t care about his friendships, but to me, some of his reasons for inviting people just seem childish or irrelevant.”
“Ideally I would like a wedding with 150 people—he wants closer to 500. I think I could do 250 without having a full panic attack and meltdown.”
“I don’t want to sound like a diva, but the thought of being around 200+ people I’ve never met and being the center of attention makes me want to crawl into a corner and hide.”
“Last time I brought it up to him, he got really defensive and said I was making him feel like I don’t care about the people who are important to him.”
“I don’t think that’s the case but, AITA for wanting him to cut down from 400 people to 200?”
The OP later added:
“I can’t believe I have to say this. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. It’s about the number of people making me uncomfortable.”
“We have two different personalities, which day to day get along BEAUTIFULLY, we definitely compromise and if we go out to a party with too many people or it becomes too much he lets me set a time limit ‘social battery dying in 2 hours’.”
“Or we skip events because I don’t feel like ‘people’.”
“For context, we both work in the food and beverage world. I have to be extremely outgoing and social at work and it’s EXHAUSTING.”
“A wedding is already a highly emotional day. I don’t want to increase that by feeling overwhelmed that ‘a girl who introduced me to these two friends who we actually see every year at least 2 times a year NEEDS to be at the wedding even though I haven’t seen her in 3 years’.”
“Sorry, but I don’t agree with THAT justification. The business contacts, some of them, I agree with them coming. Some of them absolutely not.”
“TRUTHFULLY the business contacts aren’t even the issue. It’s the random ‘friends’ that I’ve never met suddenly making the guest list.”
“We live in a very large city and the cost of everything is high! Venues (even small ones) run 7k-14k.”
“The low end venues don’t even include any amenities like linen rental, and those fees don’t even include tax.”
“But again. The cost isn’t my objection. Stop worrying about how I’m spending my money. Please.”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I state at the end that he thinks I’m being rude asking him to cut down his invite list and I don’t think it’s unfair.”
“I need outside opinions on if I’m being the AH about the invite list. The action I took was confronting him about it.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“NTA. He treats your wedding as a networking opportunity. To him it’s a soft launch for his business without any regards for your feelings.”
“I would be surprised if even half show up. I would not go to someone’s wedding when I last saw them 3 years ago.” ~ Momadvice1982
“But why use the wedding for that in the first place? If he is opening a business, he can have a ‘grand opening’ kind of event to promote it, his professional contacts are much more likely to come to that.” ~ Infinite_Slide_5921
“NTA. This is one of the reasons we have wedding socials here. A wedding social is held before the wedding, and you invite as many people as you possibly can for it.”
“It’s often kind of a fundraising event, the money going to the wedding. You have drinks, a venue, DJ, and mostly finger-type foods usually.”
“There are silent auctions, 50/50 draws, and other things of that nature. It’s meant to gather with all the people who you want to celebrate the marriage with, but aren’t necessarily close enough to be at the actual wedding.”
“Typically you’d have a few hundred people there, and it’s all about networking and socializing with these people. No ceremonies or speeches, no wedding rigmarole.”
“Just fun drinking and talking with all the people you want to bring together. OP, consider doing a wedding social. I’m surprised they’re not more common other places.” ~ M4UN4K34
“A wedding is also a terrible idea for a networking event, because most people are going to feel like it’s a gift grab if they don’t actually know him very well.” ~ gringledoom
“He’s not even going to be able to network with ANY of these people! I don’t think he realizes that the bride and groom have very little time to spend with people on their wedding day.”
“If they have 400 wedding guests and a 3 hour reception, they will have exactly 27 seconds to talk to each guest if they don’t take any time to eat, drink, go to the bathroom, dance, take photos, etc… NTA, OP.” ~ TopRamenisha
“And also, if I got this invite after not talking for three years or only ever saying ‘happy birthday’ annually, I would assume they were doing it with the expectation of me not coming, but sending $$ or a gift.”
“I wouldn’t think it was a NICE thing to do. OP should chat with fiancé and hope he sees that, too. May be doing more damage than good to some of these relationships.”
“If he doesn’t love OP enough to respect her boundaries, maybe he’ll love his connections enough to not make them think he only values their money. NTA.” ~ Broad_Reserve_1121
“NTA. You’re entitled to feel comfortable on your big day.”
“Sounds like he wants a business convention not a wedding. There’s no way on earth he has that many people that are that important to him that they absolutely need to be there.”
“You’re trying to compromise, he is trying to guilt you. Time for him to figure out if you are truly his priority or these people you don’t know are.” ~ ReviewOk929
“Him prioritising people he barely knows over you feeling comfortable and happy on your wedding day is super weird.”
“Is this wedding a business networking event or a day to celebrate your union with the people you love? He needs to figure that out. NTA, OP.” ~ Fun_Influence_3397
The OP definitely had Reddit on her side. Now she just needs to get her fiancé there too.