Guest list help

Hey Shevonn! I like what you're saying, I think it's admirable too that you were able to understand your family's perspective and also adapt your wedding plans. It's definitely a lot more preperation that you were originally planning, but I think you tried to make the best out of both worlds while respecting your own limits and that's amazing.

As of right now, they aren't bringing anything. If they were, then I woulnt have as much hesitation about inviting them because I knew that we were going to be covered from one end or another.
The know that we are both young and want to did it on as small a budget as possible. We are keeping out numbers realistic. We are not people for extravagance or anything and we know that wedding are going to have some expense to them, but we have our limitations.

50 people is as small and intimate as we could get. We are both really close with certain sections of our family and with myself being the oldest grandaughter/neice and oldest daughter, and him being the youngest son and only son to his parents. We could only get away with so much.
I am still very much for eloping. It was the originial plan, but there was a mixup in communicaition when my FH spoke to his parents about it and it came off as more of a suggestion to them then "This is what we want to do" so.

There are a lot of people in our family that want to see us get married and we thought, because we respect and love them, to have the full wedding,ceremony,reception-to-follow for them, Especially when they offered to help us out with it.

Thank you everyone for all of your help and suggestions. It was really nice to get opinions from people who are not a part of my family and have been in similar situations.

I really appreciate it

This is helpful!

We have the space to accomodate those people but it really bites into our budget. 20 adults makes a huge dent.

Thank you so much Micheala.

Hey Shevonn! That's not an easy situation to be in. What suggestions are the family members bringing? It's important to communicate your budget and explain why you made this decision. You could have a smaller intimate wedding, maybe even elope and then have a bigger party with the whole family. Could that be an option for you?

Yes i have had tue same experience with my family as its huge. My fiancée and i decided that bc it was going to be a problem we picked a venue that would only hold the amount of people we wanted to invite. We could only afford 80 guests on our bidget so now when i get the backlach all i have to say is sorry my venue is small and can only accommodate so many and i had to keep my guest list to very close family and frinds. Hope this helps

Oh no worries, it happened to me all the time. I had to program my name into my phone to make it stop.

Yes, I completely understand what you are saying. I'm like you, I just chose the people that I was close with and that seemed to fine until it wasn't which is an absolutley terrible thing to happen.
My grandmother on that side is veeeeeery old school, its very what she says goes. If she shows up and not everyone is there meanig her kids and there kids... Oh the wrath! lol

I'm thinking at this point we may have to bite the bullet and invite everyone, just to keep the peace, so the one or two times a year that I do see them, everything is civil. Its an extra 20 people...

It's a tough spot to be in and after hearing some friends and families opinion on the situation, I though I would ask this community, people with no connection to the situation and see what other people would do or have done.

I'm so sorry Shevonn, I just noticed my autocorrect changed your name (that's what I get for not double checking)!!!!

Totally understandable about the room minimums and budget and your comfort level! Oh that is so tough though. I think, if it were me, I would either just chose the people I was close with or talked to relatively often OR I would just give my dad like 10 (or however many I decided) invites and asked who he wanted to invite. Or maybe just have aunts and uncles only.

That's tough, I'm sorry

You are speaking my language Katherine! The original idea was for us to elope. But as you can see thats out the window lol. Oldest daughter/grand-daughter/neice marrying youngest and only son. I'm still all for it despite putting the deposit down on the venue :-D
We picked a max number and tried to stick with it. My mom and his parents have been great, they actually havent suggested that we invite anyone or wanted any invites for themselves. They all said invite whoever you want.

My father and I dont have the greatest relationship, its that side. He's just trying not to rock the boat or pushing for anything because hes happy that hes invited. I dont think he was expecting to be because of events prior but hes my father.
From the beginning they assumed that they would be coming despite barely being a part of my life. I get what you're saying though, an offer to help out would probably make the decision a little easier.

My mom is suggesting just to invite them just to keep the peace, she know them better than I do and know how they can hold a grudge.

50 is as small as we can go. 25 for him and 25 for me of our closest friends and family. Also 50 helps us fill the requirement for our venue.

Its my father side of the family. my father and I dont have the greatest relationship and have recently started speaking again in the last year - 2 years. Its that side. So he's not asking to invite anyone or anything.

It's basically up to me...

Part of the reason for the smaller guest list it cost, we just dont want to spend too much but more importantly, we are bother waaaay more comfortable with a smaller wedding.

We originially scaled back the amount of people partially becasue of cost but more importantly because we always wanted to have low numbers. We arent big on the pomp and circumstance that larger celebrations have the potential of being and after the idea of eloping was squashed we decided to keep it as small as possible.

We just made a list of everybody we could potentially invite and them went backwards from there.

That's a great idea! I agree with you, its a really good way to control how many people are coming especially if you are trying to not go over 80.
We sent out invitations extra early as well (my fiances family is coming from out of town) but we talked all of them before so we know most of them are going to come. I wish I could do what. Unfortunatley its one of those situations where if you Invite 1, you have to invite all. lol

Thank you Jennifer

My fiance and I had the same thing happen. We made a list and only had around 60 people. It has since jumped up to over 100 people. What we did was a list A and B for both sides; Invite those from list A who you know you want to invite for sure, if any of those people from that list reply with a no then go to list B and invite them. We are going to send our invites out a little earlier because of this. We don't really want to go over 80 people for our wedding and this is the best way to control that!

Good luck!

If I got to pick who attends the wedding our guest list would only have 30 people instead of the 150 people it currently sits at... If my FH would agree to elope I would do it in a heartbeat.
Things you can do... 1. Pick the max number of guests you can afford and split the invitations by whatever makes sense and is fair... For instance 10 for you and 20 to both sets of parents... 2. Invite who you want and be prepared for certain members of the family to not talk to you for a few years (they have to get over it eventually)... 3. Invite who your family wants. You didn't mention if the demand for more people came with an offer of money to cover them (whatever you want, but you will have to pay for it has been supper effective for dealing with my mom)... 4. Elope

This must be the hardest decision. Did you scale back the amount of people because of the cost? Are any of your family putting money towards the wedding?
At the end of the day it is your wedding and you have to have people that you want there. You can't please everyone and someone will always have an issue.
I agree with Valerie, sometimes having a super small and intimate wedding is best dorthis exact reason.

Hi Shevlin, The guest list is pretty much the hardest decision you will have to make! Everyone has to draw a line SOMEWHERE and someone will always be on the other side of that line. I'm sorry you ate getting so much backlash from your family. It's so incredibly frustrating when they can't understand that guest list are hard and you want to keep things small. Can you go even smaller than 50 and have an intimate ceremony with just parents, siblings and maybe grandparents?Or choose how many guests you can afford and let your parents that have 20 people they can invite and let them choose?Is the reason for your smaller guest list cost or are you just more comfortable with a smaller wedding ( I know I'd be happy with no more than 70 for that reason!)?