Guest list issue resurrected, then solved for good! Yay!

Posted Saturday, January 26, 2008 5:01 PM

Will and I had another spat over the guest list last night. For some reason it started at Applebee's while we waited for a table, so we ended up leaving without dinner. (No sense giving the innocent public a birds-eye view of private issues...)

It came out that he didn't realize I had seated my younger cousins at the reception. He didn't want kids at either half of the wedding, originally, and neither did I. Once I realized my second cousins were bringing kids(the 'make a vacation of it' approach), I knew things had to change, so we talked. He didn't like it....and we had a few arguments over it, but there was always a key element missing. When he made initial phone calls to his family, he told them up front not to bring their kids(that was his way of handling it; I refused to get involved in those calls 'cause he does things differently with his extended fam). I didn't say anything to my second cousins because that's not the way our family works.

Once we discussed the kids from my family coming, there were more arguments over seating, and he finally said, "I'm okay with it if we invite the kids to the ceremony. NOT the reception." He had his list of reasons, and he even said so to my mom when she recently helped us out. In my family, everyone shows up to weddings, even kids. Some family traditions  just can't be changed. I was always included, with my parents, and they took me almost everywhere when I was growing up. I'm pretty sure his parents did the same, but I'm just going to let sleeping dogs lie on that one!

 Well, last night, he finally told me that he'd "kicked out" at least 7 of his aunts' kids from the whole wedding, so I could make room for mine. Then the argument ensued. When we got home from Applebee's, he went driving, and I took a looooong walk around the whole apartment complex. When we both got back, we finally settled it.

He's going to call his aunts and invite their children. Whatever happens from there on, happens. It's the only fair way to do it, and we agreed to trust each other about the kids. My cousins are well-behaved; they're used to weddings, and they'll all be 12 or older by the wedding. I don't want his family to resent my side because they see my cousins there with their children.  

He was also worried that other aspects would change, like ceremony music.  I don't want to change anything else, and I didn't want to change our guest 'rules', but some things just happen.  This shouldn't have been an issue this far in advance. I think everyone made mistakes, on both sides, but now it's done. Obviously, we won't have 75 yeses, so we should have enough room, without extra costs. But everything's been settled.