# Would you not invite family to a major life milestone?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-not-invite-family-to-a-major-life-milestone/592660>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 14, 2011, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-not-invite-family-to-a-major-life-milestone/592660 "2011-08-14T05:55:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-not-invite-family-to-a-major-life-milestone/592660/41 "2011-08-16T00:38:00Z")

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Invite your parents.

For reasons I have no desire to post about, I don’t get along with several members of my family. But I generally invite them all to major events, because if I snub one, it puts the others in an awkward position.

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**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-not-invite-family-to-a-major-life-milestone/592660/42 "2011-08-16T00:59:13Z")

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Speaking as a parent, graduation ceremonies are a major snooze. If you want to do them a favor, don’t invite them.

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-not-invite-family-to-a-major-life-milestone/592660/43 "2011-08-16T11:43:05Z")

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> [@chizzuk](#):
>
> I am currently at my cousin’s wedding, which starts in 2 hours. This is the third cousin (out of 4) to get married and all of them have included all parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and first cousins in the invitations (plus any spouses or children). With this precedent, I would have to think long and hard before excluding anyone, because it would cause a huge uproar. My extended family is quite small and fortunately I like all of them, so hopefully this will never be an issue, but not inviting someone in that group would be a Big Deal.

The first one of my cousins to get married and his gf at the time invited their parents and siblings to lunch without telling them that it involved a prior stop at the civil registry for a bit of signing and filing; they sent post-facto notifications to everybody else. Then my brother got engaged to a woman with a huge family and of course my mother couldn’t have less guests, so she claimed that as my brother was #2 we had the duty to invite all those people who hadn’t been invited to #1.

I decided that if I ever got married, I’d go the #1 route.

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