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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle

My mother is unhappy that I don’t want to invite my cousins to my wedding

‘I don’t want to feel obliged to invite people solely due to a blood link with them.’
‘I don’t want to feel obliged to invite people solely due to a blood link with them.’ Photograph: Guardian Design Team

I am 32, male and getting married in August. It’s not a massive wedding, about 70 close family and friends. We have decided it will be ‘no children’, which rules out inviting five of my younger cousins. However, we have also decided only to invite three of my adult cousins and their partners to the evening do. This is because we only see them at Christmas extended get-togethers and although it is perfectly amicable, we don’t have much in common. After telling my mother this, she was disappointed and tried talking me round into inviting them. Her arguments have been that they are my blood; she invited all her cousins to her wedding; we grew up together; we are cousins for life and my friends might not necessarily be. My reasoning is that all the other guests are people we get along with and who we see out of choice fairly regularly. I don’t want to feel obliged to invite people due solely to a blood link with them. What should we do?

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