Jamie sent me this...

Miss Manners: Wedding Guest List Clashes

A bride wonders if she has to invite her aunts, uncles and cousins to her wedding, while her mother thinks all family should be included.

Dear Miss Manners,
My fiancé and I are taking a six-month moratorium before starting our wedding planning (which I am dreading a little, having seen friends do it and pay for it). Meanwhile, my mother is pressuring me for an invite list that does not yet exist. Am I obligated to invite my aunts/uncles (her brothers and wives) and cousins who I see once every five years, at most? She seems devastated at the thought that they might not be involved.



Gentle Reader,
Does the idea that your mother is devastated carry any weight with you?

Shouldn't that affect you more than anything Miss Manners might have to say?

Rather, she is afraid that what has affected you is the appalling but prevailing notion that a wedding is "all about" the bridal couple, with everyone else involved expected to suspend their claims and comforts.

Your marriage will be all about the two of you, although Miss Manners hopes that you will have a warm group of relatives and friends. Your wedding, in contrast, is a civic, optionally religious, social and family occasion. As a member of your immediate family and nominative hostess of the wedding, your mother should be allowed to invite not only her—also your—relatives, but her own close friends.

Realizing this will also help you avoid the stress of personal clashes that are at the bottom of most of that stress your friends have been experiencing. So have a nice little furlough and start jotting down names.