Why/how is it selfish if you don't want to invite others to your own wedding?

johannalf88

No. You can't make everyone happy all the time. Someone is always going to feel 'gutted'. making your self happy is fine, as long as it isn't done at someone else's expense- in this case it would be a byproduct. You just have to weigh up whether it is worth it.

Em88

I think you should just have the wedding you and your OH want; surely you are the most important people there. We are having a small wedding with just the people we really love and treasure there (around 20 guests). This decision has upset some of our families but they appreciate it is our day and important it is how we envisage it. My OH is quite shy and doesn't enjoy big family dos so why would I put him through that just 'because it's tradition'? Some of our friends are disappointed we haven't allowed them plus ones but we don't see why we should invite people we don't know. One of my friend's other half in particular is angry at not being invited but he has made it well known that he doesn't like me (I've only met him twice and he has never met my OH) so WHY would he want to come to my wedding and why is it me being selfish not inviting him?? I really cannot understand this thinking.

shellsuit

Idiophreak wrote: »

To be devil's advocate: They'd be happy and you'd be gutted. Apparently they wouldn't care about you being gutted, as long as they were happy...Is that not selfish?

No, as they wouldn't know I were gutted. I wouldn't tell them or show them as I wouldn't want to put them on a guilt trip.

74jax

Em88 wrote: »

One of my friend's other half in particular is angry at not being invited but he has made it well known that he doesn't like me (I've only met him twice and he has never met my OH) so WHY would he want to come to my wedding and why is it me being selfish not inviting him?? I really cannot understand this thinking.

I totally agree with you.

I don't get on outside of work with this girl at work, we don't text, call, go out or even email outside of work. Why I would invite her I really don't know.

It was very nice of her to invite me to her wedding, although a wedding to me is a very personal thing and I would feel I was intruding by going. She has said her minimum numbers are 150 and she only has around 60 people to invite, so maybe I'm just making up the numbers, either way I'm with you on this one. Why on earth would you want someone at your wedding who you don't get on with..........

Plus 1's are hard too. I'm not doing plus 1s as I don't want people at my wedding I don't know, but if I had an invite to a friends wedding without my H2B I wouldn't kick off at all. I'd be overjoyed I could share their day with them.

antrobus

Lilypie wrote: »

This word seems to come up quite a lot whenever someone discusses the option of having a no guests/very few guests wedding.
Why?

I was always under the impression that a 'wedding' was a public ceremony to which any member of the public had a right to attend, so I'm not sure that anyone can stipulate who may or may not decide to turn up. How many people you invite to whatever party etc that you decide to arrange to celebrate this happy event would be another thing, and entirely up to who ever was arranging/paying for said party. I imagine that some people might be upset at not being invited to the party and might well use the word 'selfish' to describe those responsible for not inviting them. But I think that they're only deploying the word as the most convenient way of criticising the decision by implying that it is motivated by some lack of proper moral judgement.

JCS1

It can depend on personal circumstances too - my father died at a young age, and I remember in the weeks after looking at my sister's wedding pictures and thinking how lucky she was that he was there to give her away; and that it was something that I wouldn't have.

So any wedding for me would be close family only - it wouldn't feel 'right' to me to have a big weddding without my Dad there.

Belfastme

Me and my partner are going abroad to get married just us and our two kids. To us our wedding is about the comittment to one and other. Its about us as our small family unit.
I have been married before and had the big wedding organised by my family most of the guests where family i had not seen for years and friends of my mum. I hated every min off it
This wedding is just ideal for us and i cant wait

Pollycat

I can't understand all this 'we must invite Great Aunt Martha (even though we've not seen or heard from her for 20 years) 'cos she's family.

When I was married for the first time, it was a small 'do', my OH & I were just in our 20s and paying for it ourselves.

We invited close friends and some family that we saw regularly.
We invited my OH's cousin & his wife as we went out with them every Saturday.
We didn't, however, invite another cousin (brother to the above cousin) whom I'd never even met.

Invited cousin threw a massive strop (and I mean really stirring it by ringing round all the family asking who'd been invited and who hadn't and saying how awful it all was) about his brother not being invited to which we told him he'd been invited because we saw him more as a friend but after his behaviour all that had changed and we didn't want him or his wife there.

We never went out with them again and didn't care.

It was our wedding and we were not having anyone dicate to us who should be invited.

Was that selfish?
Maybe so, but that's how it works with me.

Willow92

I don't want anyone at my wedding, I'm terrified of messing up in front of other people so I'd just get really upset. I'd be happy to invite close friends and family (10 max) for a meal or something later on in the day. My mum and her partner would be really disappointed if we did this though so I really don't know what to do...

MrsC....tobe

My sister had the big huge wedding with all the party and all the family and friends and because of various issues within our family, and things that happened that day that my sister was oblivious to (I ended up walking out at one point due to other peoples behaviour) I vowed from then on that I would never put myself through that as I felt I would always be watching other people on the day to make sure they were all 'behaving'. My sister called me selfish as I said that me and OH would go away and get married.

Now I'm in that position, we would still love to go away but OH has 4 kids and I refuse to get married without them being there (my mum and step dad didn't invite any of their kids to their wedding and that hurt - a lot). So with 4 kids on a wedding day, we feel that we need someone to help us look after them so we can have a little time to ourselves. Cue, his parents. Because we have them we have my parents (all 4 of them). And grandparents. And siblings. And because I'm from a big family the minimum is now 40!

I don't think of myself as being selfish, our perfect wedding has grown to include all our immediate loved ones, all because I want to have his (our) kids there.

To me, it's all about having the wedding of your choice, and if you choose to extend your guest list in anyway beyond those you want, just because it is expected of you, then I actually consider it to be selfless instead of selfish.

Think of yourselves, if others can't be happy with your own decisions then it's them that have the problem and not you.

Go ahead, have the day of your dreams, whatever way you want!