Organizing a wedding can mean tapdancing a fine line between what you and your partner want, as well as what both of your families and friends expect from you. In an ideal world, the happy couple would be completely free to choose who comes to celebrate their Big Day with them. But in reality, there’s a lot of pressure from other people on who they think you should invite. They may need a reminder of whose wedding it actually is.

Redditor u/ShyBabyDolphin broached an emotional topic on the AITA subreddit. She shared how her mom wanted to invite the OP’s estranged half-siblings to her wedding… something she was dead set against. Read on to untangle the story and learn why there’s no love lost between the siblings.

Organizing a wedding can be a real headache. It doesn’t help when your relatives add stress on top of that

Image credits: Wavebreakmedia (not the actual photo)

A woman shared how her mom tried to force her to invite her estranged half-siblings to her wedding. This led to a big argument

Image credits: StudioPeace (not the actual photo)

Image credits: ShyBabyDolphin

Weddings are very expensive affairs, so it’s impossible to invite everyone

Wedding planning site Zola claims that the average wedding in the United States costs around $29,000, as reported by CNN. The average cost can rise to $35,000 and even more in some bigger American cities. So if you’ve got a smaller budget, it’s essential to choose each guest very carefully.

One thing that we’re nearly 100% certain about is that if somebody doesn’t make you happy, you shouldn’t invite them to your wedding, social politics be damned! Yes, it sometimes feels like you ‘should’ invite every single family member, friend, and coworker because you don’t want anyone to feel left out. Nor do you want to deal with the fallout when they don’t get the invite.

But at the end of the day, you’re organizing the wedding to celebrate the boundless love between you and your partner. It’s your day, not anyone else’s. So you should be ‘selfish’ and only have the people around you who make you happy. Especially if you’re paying for the entire thing out of your own pocket! After the honeymoon, you can always have a cozy little dinner or meet up for drinks with all the would-be guests who didn’t quite make the cut.

The OP was very clear that she didn’t have any sort of positive relationship with her half-siblings. She wasn’t sure that their last-minute reconciliation with the rest of the family was genuine, and she didn’t want to tarnish her wedding with their presence.

She butted heads with her mom who felt that the redditor was behaving inappropriately, like a ‘bridezilla.’ Her mom pointed out that she should forgive all the childhood issues that she had. However, these sorts of deep-seated issues and traumas don’t go away in a matter of days: they can take months and years of therapy to work through, depending on how bad things got.

“On my wedding day, I do not want to be reminded of the fact a part of my family hates/hated me for being born and has refused any kind of relationship with me for things outside my control,” u/ShyBabyDolphin wrote.

Image credits: Al Elmes (not the actual photo)

There’s always a huge list of potential guests, so naturally, you’ll have to cut someone out

When you start considering all of the potential wedding guests, you might feel completely overwhelmed. Even if you’re not a social butterfly, the list of people is huge!

‘WeddingWire’ notes that the groups of people you should consider inviting to celebrate the happiest day of your life with you include immediate family members (from your parents and grandparents to your siblings and their partners and kids) and the members of your wedding party (from the best man and the maid of honor to the groomsmen, bridesmaids, flower girls, and ring-bearers).

Then, consider inviting some members of the extended family (that includes your cousins, aunts, and uncles), close friends of the family, childhood and school friends, friends of your parents, and members of any religious communities that you may belong to.

Some other potential guests include coworkers, your more casual friends, and if you want to be extremely inclusive, you can tell everyone to bring a plus-one and their kids if they want to. You might also feel obligated to send an invite to all of the folks whose weddings you were invited to.

If you were to invite everyone and anyone, the event would be absolutely massive and extremely expensive. If you’re funding and organizing everything yourself, you’d better love the chaos that this number of people brings with it. Otherwise, you need to start cutting people out and leaving only the ones whom you’ve got good, strong relationships with.

So if you’re inviting someone just because you feel like you’re obligated to do so, you may want to reconsider. Think about why you’d be doing this and who you want to impress (or avoid disappointing).

However, if it’s someone else who’s funding your Big Day (say, you or your partner’s parents), they have a greater say in who gets to attend. If that’s the case, pick your battles and only voice your disagreement if you genuinely get along awfully with some of the guests.

Image credits: Photos by Lanty (not the actual photo)

The bride also shared some more information about her situation

Most readers supported the woman and thought she did nothing wrong. Here’s what they said

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