Making cuts

I already know that this is the kind of post that will get folks heated in the comments. However, I would like to discuss what has been happening with one of my guests over the past couple of days, culminating today in my more or less dis-inviting her from the wedding. (This dis-invitation is somewhat along the lines of movies where the employee says, "I QUIT!" and the boss says, "No, you're fired!" Kind of like that, only without comic relief.)

I'll give it to you straight: I have been sweating bullets over the guest list for the past couple of months. I've been given a lot of grief from various family members, and I have created grief for myself. I got it to a place where we could all be content, and we went about sending out the save-the-dates.

Our M.O. for guests was the following:
1) spouses of guests invited, of course
2) serious S.O.s invited (fiances, or living together)

Most of the single people coming to the wedding are either not traveling to come to it, or they know lots of people who will be attending. No single people on the guest list were invited knowing no other guests.

A former co-worker who is about my parents' age signed our wedding website guest book last week, and said that she was going to bring her sister-in-law as her guest.

I wrote her back and gently explained that due to financial constraints, we were asking people to attend as would be addressed on the envelope (i.e., all "plus-ones" would receive an invitation, but no one was to bring a random guest). I said I had really struggled with the guest list, and was left only with this option. I reminded her that she would know four other people at the wedding, and thanked her for her understanding. I really did try to be cheerful in my reply, transparent in my reasoning, and firm in my resolve.

I won't give you the nitty gritty of every back and forth, but this unleashed a torrent of emails from this guest, challenging me on every level for my decision. Irritatingly, she also assured me that she was not taking "this snub personally," although she clearly was, and kept signing her emails "warmly." The long and short of it was that she wanted to bring her sister-in-law as a buddy mainly for the trip, which was long for her.

Well, as much as I would like to pay my caterer $150 for her to have a subway buddy, I can't afford that.

The last email she sent me was on Friday, wherein she began, "After all we have been through together...." and concluded by letting me know in an exceptionally passive-aggressive way how disappointed she was in me.

I thought about my reply for two days so that I wouldn't write back in the heat of the moment. This afternoon, I wrote the following:

With all that we have been through, I invited you to my wedding.

I explained to you the reasons for how the guest list has been developed, and it is what it is, I regret that it's not to your liking.

The card you received was not the invitation, those have yet to be sent. It was just a save-the-date.

I don't know what else to say except that I have a million things on my plate right now, the guest list is incredibly complicated, and I don't want to to be asked again to justify our decisions. I was hoping to be able to share this with you, I'm sorry we couldn't work it out.

I then emailed the whole exchange to my mom, who quickly called me at work to try to talk me off the ledge. I appreciated that; my mom was exceptionally calm, reasonable, and understanding. She really chose her words to me carefully.

Ultimately, I know there are a lot of people out there who will avoid conflict at any cost. I am a person who will avoid feeling bullied at any cost, and I was feeling bullied here, big time. This is a sensitive subject for me, because I just went through a painful experience with graduate school where I also felt bullied, and I just feel fierce right now (and I don't mean that in the Tyra way.)

I am not giving you the entire story because I know all the he-said-she-said can be difficult to follow and not interesting to anyone outside those involved.

I realize that I was tough, that many people will think I should have just relented. I realize I am setting myself up for judgment here, and that's fine. Maybe I did the right thing, maybe I did the wrong thing, but it is done.

The reason I share this story is that besides all the kooky "bride brain" and floral meltdowns we may have, there are ugly parts of wedding planning, too. I bet a lot of you have had ugliness (hopefully, many of you haven't). For those of you who have, even if your story is much different than mine, I wanted to share this with you. I just wanted to say, here is the crappy thing that happened here. Here are the grey areas, the bad behavior, the misccommunication. For what it's worth.