The wedding, the whole day, is about the bride and groom. At any point in that day, they are the most important people. I, being the groom, want the day to be as perfect as possible for my (future) bride. If she wants something a certain way, her and I should discuss it (like les said), and once WE make a decision, that is the way it should be, and WILL be.
One of the big sticking points is the invite list (which has been set for about 4 months, and is still a problem). Both of our parents had huge lists of people they wanted to invite. Luckily, on my side, my sister got engaged shortly after I did, and that helped take the pressure off. We took the hard line with my parents on it...and since they had another wedding to deal with, they didn't fight it. My fiance's mom is still pushing for a whole bunch of her friends and coworkers to be invited, many of whom have never even met me fiance, much less me. We want people that are important to us at the wedding, people that at the very least, one of us have met before. And this is 3-4 months after we sent out save the dates, and 2-3 weeks after we sent out invites.
The drama on my side of the family lies with my cousins on my mom's side. My mom is the youngest of 7, and her brothers and sisters are all quite a bit older than her. My cousins, of which there are about 35 (including wives/husbands/girlfriends/boyfriends) are all older and most have kids of their own, some already graduated from high school. Because I'm not as close with that side of the family, and because of simple numbers, we only invited my cousins, no kids. We really don't want a bunch of kids running around our reception, and that is something both of us agree on. (both of our mothers think we're completely unreasonable here, but we don't care) Some of our close relatives are bringing their kids, and a couple of my aunts are bringing their grandchildren as a plus-1 instead of my uncles. No big deal. My mom tells me that 2 of my cousins want to bring their kids, I say no. Mom doesn't like that. I told her that if the kids show up, they better go to McDonalds, because there will be no meal for them. THEN, another cousin on that side (one that is a real mess, drugs, baby daddies, the whole 9-yards, whom we didn't even give a +1, at my mom's suggestion, because her boyfriend is like a convicted sex offender, or something) sends back her RSVP with 6 people attending. Uh, no. You get 1, yourself. If that doesn't work, stay home.
