Help! Who gets invited and who doesn't?

View quoted message This is EXACTLY my situation. Lol. Right down to all my family except my immeadiate family being in England.

Our deciding factor was the venue. We would have loved to have a 200+ Guest wedding but we couldn’t find what we wanted in a venue that would allow for that many people. At the end of the day it was about what we wanted and we decided on a smaller venue and cut back our guest list. I don’t regret it at all!

My friend gave me a great tip when doing our guest list. If you haven't seen them in a year don't invite them

We started with immediate family. Both our families have had some drama over the years so there were some people we knew wouldn't get invited anyway. Then we figured out the wedding party and added them and their significant others. After that it was the rest of our close friends that we see regularly and some other people we feel are important to us. We sent out invites to about 95 people but our final list was about 75-80.

Our wedding is definitely on the medium size at 120 but Dave and I decided we are just doing family up to first cousins and no kids except his niece and nephew (who will play a part in our wedding). We both have fairly small families so about 80 of those guests will be close friends.

Other than his sisters kids there aren't any others in our immediate families - which I realize is definitely not the norm. If we invited our first cousins kids plus guests children we would have around 25 extra guests and since 120 in our venue is tight, that would be 25 adults we would really like to be there that would have to come off the guest list to accommodate the children (our venue considers over 10 an adult at full price which most of these kids would be). As much as there are a few little ones I would like to have, with kids (especially of relatives) it was an all or nothing situation.

And looking at paying $2000 for children to eat an adult portion made it an easier decision - it has actually allowed us to afford an open bar. So far all of the people with children that we've let know it's adult only are actually excited about having a date night!

I know a no kid wedding definitely doesn't work for everyone by we are looking forward to having a super fun wedding with all those grown ups we love.

We are at under 100, and we set a limit at 100. How we did this was: Friends- close and good all made the list. Friends from school and our past that we still talk to and really want there also made it. Friends that we didn't care of there were or not got cut. For family this was hard, my family is all in England so only my immediate family will be there, for his we got a list from his parents and crossed off those he hasn't met and those he and his family haven't seen in years. We also have no children so that cut the list down too. It's not easy cutting people and that might mean you should invite them. Neither of us current have co-workers we want to invite, both have former co-workers who are now friends but that's it. Goodluck!

We wanted a list of about 130 and ended up with about 180. We will see how many actually can make it.

The size or your guest list is directly going to affect the cost of your wedding so really it just comes down to what you can afford.... More guests means more food, bigger venue, more invitations, more tables, more decorations, etc.

For our it off we limited it to family and close friends. Theres a lot of extended family on my side who did not get invites... Im a little more ruthless than my FH is haha... But only family that i dont see often and i wouldnt be sad if they didnt make it anyway didnt get invited. And close friends means people that we see/ talk to on a regular basis and would like to go out for a coffee with. We had to cut some coworkers, some friends from university, and our sports teams to keep our guest list down.