Does the invitation itself mean a lot to your wife, or is it a proxy for her general concern with her daughter’s mental health and her disappointment that this isn’t going the way she anticipated? That’s a totally serious question, and one I think you could help her find an answer to. If it’s really the invitation, it might be worth taking a stand. If it’s a proxy, it won’t do any good if she “wins” or “loses” this argument, because if that is a case, there will be another proxy and this will all play out again–except that there will now be a history of a power struggle and of winners and losers and past bitterness.
It works both ways though. I’ve gotten invitations from some weird people I had never even heard of, let alone met, only to realize as I get through the invitation that they’re throwing a party for their daughter who is marrying my good friend.
I don`t mean to make it out to be a hardship because they’re really pretty easy to decipher, but as a young person with a small family most wedding invitations I’ve seen with the parent’s names first are not at all helpful from a pure clarity point of view.
If people decide to go that route because of tradition or because the parent is paying for it, it’s fine… but it’s not clearer than listing the bride and groom first.
Very excellent point.
I like this.
The modern reality is that
a) Its practical for everyone to get listed on an invite if the wedding is large. Otherwise its “which one of your cousin’s kids is this…?” “Hell if I know” (I have a thank you note sitting on my counter right now. The last name indicates its from one of my husband’s cousins. The note indicates we sent them a wedding gift. I am sure that when the invitation arrived for a wedding we weren’t going to attend I said “which one of your cousin’s kids is this?” I’m also pretty sure a token check was sent with a note wishing them a very happy marriage - which is what I do when I do for shirttail relations.
b) Its unlikely that the entire bill will be footed by the brides parents without any help from the couple themselves and probably help from the grooms parents beyond the traditional grooms dinner.
c) Couples tend to be a little older and have established their own connections through school and careers than was common 50 years ago or longer when traditional etiquette made the rules.
d) Couples are much more about being a couple instead of each having a sphere. Grooms help plan the wedding.
e) Including everyone is the easiest way to avoid hurt feelings. Its a small concession to the grooms parents and is going to just make all those awkward in-law occasions that much easier if you start out as reasonable people.
Dinsdale, before starting this thread, why didn’t you go over the rest of your parenting threads and read my advice in those? Since you need to hear it again, here it is:
BACK! THE! FUCK! OFF!
Your daughter is clearly right and you’re clearly wrong. If the betrothed couple wants the names of both sets of parents on the invitation then that’s what you do. Without bitching and without trying to convince them that ETIQUETTE dictates something else. No one gives a shit about ETIQUETTE except for your 98 year old toothless grandma. Especially not your daughter, who sounds like a smart person.
And why would your wife get huffy if the fiancee stepped up to do wedding planning? Your daughter was having a rough few months and instead of pushing it aside with a harumph and a “That’s wimmin’s work!”, he manned up and helped out. You should be praising your daughter for deciding to marry someone who isn’t a douchebag.
Once again: BACK! THE! FUCK! OFF!
Thanks, MJ. A very good point indeed.
The exact wording of my wedding invite:
Hello Again and Phatlewt
together with our parents
Mom & Dad Again
and
Mom & Dad Lewt
request the pleasure of your company when we wed
Time and date
Location
Please join us for cocktails and dinner following the ceremony
If my parents had raised a stink about the in-laws being on the invitation, I would have put my foot down. It’s their son’s wedding as much as it is my parent’s daughter’s, and it’s just dick waving to pretend otherwise. The in-laws did help some financially, but that’s not the point. The point is that it is a merger of families, and to intentionally exclude one side in order to make them appear less important is both cruel and classless, neither of which I will have any part of.
And if I heard my father that the money was a gift to me, and not a gift to us as a soon-to-married couple, I would just give it back. I’m not interested in receiving that kind of gift.
This.
Also, I had a mom who would have loved to have planned my whole wedding, and would have made all the rest of us miserable in the process. So we gave her some tasks to do: we had her get the favors and gift baskets for out-of-towners. She got the tackiest and ugliest favors I have ever seen, but it kept her happy and busy.
Planning weddings and keeping your sanity is all about picking your battles, on both sides. Hey, it’s good practice for having in-laws. After the wedding we were all too exhausted to have major fights with my parents for a while 
…I bet your wife is like my mom and would be a lot happier if she had something to do that she had complete control over, and that the bride and groom didn’t care too much about; could you perhaps suggest this gently to your daughter as a possibility?
Oh, and one more thing: I went back and looked, and we have the traditional wording of “Dr. and Mrs. Elder Hunter invite you…,” with my husband named as “son of Mr. and Mrs. Elder Skeptic” after his name. It was something they did care about (and actually paying for the wedding was important to them as well, though we would have preferred they didn’t), and something my in-laws were accepting of, so. To some people it really is important, and to me, although I do find the wording a little silly, it was important to make my family happy. (Well, as long as it was relatively easy to do so. I nixed the country club reception suggestion approximately twenty times, even though it would have made my mom really happy.)
My sister just got married, and my parents paid pretty much the entire thing (my sister and her husband paid a little, but both are students with substantial financial loans, limiting their contribution). Husband’s family didn’t pay for a thing, abused the open bar and his brothers pretty much blackmailed them into forking over a large sum of money for one bro’s destination wedding this summer, “otherwise we won’t come to yours”.
Nonetheless, both sets of parent’s names were on the invitation.
Their wording:
Dad and Mom Bridelastname
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Bride Full Name
to
Groom Full Name
the son of Dad and Mom Groomlastname
on [Date]
at [time]
[address]
For my wedding, the cost was shared by us, my parents and his father (his mother is deceased). I don’t recall the wording, and I can’t seem to find a copy of the invitation at the moment, but it was worded such that we were the ones inviting people. I don’t recall putting our parent’s names on at all.
Amplifying my previous comment, is it a question of having his parents ON the invitation or does he want his parents issuing the invitation along with you?
Because we did feel that my parents shouldn’t get to be the only ones on the invite, even though they felt strongly about being the hosts. Our complete text was something like,
Dr. and Mrs. Elder Hunter
invite you to celebrate
the marriage of their daughter
Raspberry Hunter
to
O Skeptic
son of Mr. and Mrs. Elder Skeptic
…would something like that make everyone happy? From the text you wrote it sounds like having their names on it is what’s important to your daughter and fiance, and I totally understand that being important. [I see on preview that **mnemosyne** has also offered this suggestion, but I’ll post anyway.]
My husband and I decided to go with
Parents of the bride
And
Parents of the groom
Invite blah blah blah…
That was our decision, not what any parents tried to influence.
Look at it this way - surely what you want for your kid is a fantastic day to be remembered. When you make that your priority, it’s easy to work out which things are and aren’t important.
I chose the last options because I think it really depends on the situation. I don’t think there is a “should”.
I can’t remember what our invitation said as it was almost 20 yrs ago. Suburban Plankton seems to think it was along the traditional lines of my parents invited everyone to the wedding of their daughter, Rhiannon8404 to Suburban Plankton, son of his parents.
An “invitation” is extended when the guests are to be offered a banquet.
An “invite” is shouted out, when there’s going to be “a feed.”
I think the “son of …” is a really good option/solution which I’ll try to bring up.
(Really, you would have been impressed at my smoothness in decreasing the decibel level between these 2 women the other day. I kinda impressed myself!) 
Dinsdale
Just a thought- my mother was a crazy woman over my wedding plans. Everything I wanted to do was wrong , I wasn’t inviting the people she wanted me to invite , I should have gotten fur coats for the bridesmaids and rented a bus to drive the guests 10 minutes from the church to the reception . The real problem was that when she got married, her parents paid for the whole wedding and therefore decided on the guest list and had at least veto power on the other decisions. Since she didn’t get to plan her own wedding, on some level she expected to plan mine and was very upset that it didn’t happen that way. Is there any chance that something similar is going on with your wife?
This sounds like growing pains to me.
Are you and your wife concerned about losing your daughter or your changing roles in her life? She’s getting married and it sounds like she’s likely quite young (student teaching).
That’s a lot of change especially if she is your only or oldest child. You experienced pain with her going away to college but she was still somewhat dependent. Now she’s graduating and getting married so she’s more independent but there is this additional important influence in her life. Her future spouse takes precedence over her parents (his family is a also factor) just at the time she’s becoming a full adult. That’s tough.
It sounds like you and your wife want recognition as her parents but find it difficult to share this recognition with your future in-laws. It’s completely understandable.
My advise is to let it go. Your daughter has stated that she and your future son-in-law want his parents listed on the invitations in an equal stature to you and your wife. It does not matter whose idea it is (hers, his, theirs, his parents), she has made herself clear. It is in your best interest to learn to navigate your daughter’s independence and in-law issues now. These conflicts will not go away and the more you push her, the more she will likely feel like she has to choose- ultimately her spouse comes first.
Good luck.
I’d bend over backward to be accomodating because it will set the tone for future interactions with them. The wording of the wedding invitation is an opportunity for you to show the world how welcoming and supportive you are of the new blended family.
FYI, my friend’s parent’s were miffed when she added the groom’s parents to the wedding invitation. His parents hadn’t offered to pay for any part of the expensive reception, and her parents felt that they shouldn’t receive any sort of “credit” on the invitation. My friend ultimately won the battle. Fast forward a few months and the groom’s parents presented the couple with a 20% downpayment on their first home. For their generosity, his parent’s never received, or expected, any formal “credit.”
You don’t know his family very well right now. For now, assume that they will be loving and supportive and generous, both to their new daughter-in-law and their future grandchildren, and treat them in kind.
Expecting to get “credit” for paying on the invite seems weird to me, like seeking credit for a large charitable donation - it’s more for your own ego than caring for the recipient. Although, IIRC, that is the “correct” answer.
We paid for ours, so we were the hosts, and we were the only ones on the invites.
I agree with the idea that wife gets her own thing to do.
I may be thinking about the wrong poster, but isn’t your wife the one who threw the hissy fit about your younger girl braiding/twisting the fringes on a throw blanket? And the one who started a screaming argument with the oldest about what color sweatshirt she was wearing to watch a football game? If so, this isn’t likely to end well.
Having your mom take an active role in the wedding planning is only a gift if the two of you have a great relationship and similar aesthetics and priorities, and she knows when to butt the hell out. And even then, you occasionally find yourself wanting to climb a clock tower with a rifle. Having a mom with, as you put it, control issues who you have a volatile relationship with actively involved in your wedding planning is about as much fun as being locked in a closet with a rabid wolverine.
Your wife’s feelings aren’t wrong. It’s natural and normal to want to be involved in big, important events in your kids’ lives and use that as a bonding opportunity. But it’s not necessarily realistic to expect said kids to welcome your bonding attempts with open arms when there are interpersonal issues, and differing priorities for the planning, and that you guys seem not to like the groom very much. And you guys really do seem to not like him very much, based on the way you write about him…and if strangers on the internet are picking up on that vibe, you can bet your boots your daughter can pick up on it.
Look, unless it’s something that’s going to matter 15 years from now, it’s really best to let them have what they want without squabbling. Because if it comes down to your daughter choosing between making you happy and making him happy…you’re gonna lose. Every goddamn time. He’s her top priority.
My parents paid for most of my wedding, his parents paid for the music.
We had “irishgirl’s parents request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter irishgirl to irishfella, son of irishfella’s parents”.
Very civilised, quite proper by etiquette standards and nobody’s feelings got hurt.
If you aren’t hosting you can still get a mention on the invite as “together with their parents (names if desired)”.
At the end of the day this is their wedding though- all you can do is explain how proud you are to be her dad and how you wanted the world to know that.
A wedding is such a small part of a marriage-supporting her choice of husband and how they want to live their lives (and possibly raise their children), well, that is a bigger deal.