My parents have offered to pay for our wedding reception with a guest list of 150 people. It was a dream come true until my fiance announced that the list wasn’t big enough for him! He insists on including every last one of his friends (even ones he hasn’t talked to in years), bringing the total up to 200. The size of the site isn’t a problem — it’s my reluctance to ask my parents to cough up the cash for another 50 guests. What should we do?
A:
It’s time to put your foot down — this bad boy behavior has got to stop, or it could quickly lead to issues between the two of you and with your families. It’s not going to be pretty, but it’s got to be done. Make some time to sit down with him and go over the wedding details and budget. Simply seeing the sum of what those additional guests will cost may be enough to convince him (and if he insists it’s not a problem, you need to politely explain to him that it is). If your parents are already footing the bill and the guest list has already been evenly divvied up between all parties concerned, then it’s basically a done deal and he needs to learn to live with it. You should also try to get to the root of why he feels the need for so many guests. Is he worried his friends will think he’s ditching them for the married life? Does he feel he needs to show his loyalty to his entire fraternity, even the guys he wasn’t that friendly with? Demonstrate to him that you’ll support him — even let him have his weekly or monthly guy’s night out — and you should be able to get your numbers down.
