Small or big wedding

Small all the way. We're in the process of buying a house right now and spending money on stupid things like charger plates and aisle runners and all that other wedding-y stuff just feels so frivolous.

When it came to creating the guest list, I knew our families had to be there and just closest friends.

Personally, having a big wedding wasn't going to be affordable based on the budget. Small wedding of 72 guests total. Numbers starting at 107 and decreased by deleting whom I hadn't met or whom hasn't been spoken to over a year. Some declines came through the final numbers and ended up with a good number. Budget wise, all worked out great and not going overboard with the costs.

I felt the same way. I also felt there were so many people I had to invite. The guest list became so stressful. Making a list of the people I truly wanted there made it so much easier. If it wouldn’t make a difference if they were there or not, I decided not to invite them. My FH and I were able to get our guest list down to 16 people. Those are the people that mean the most to both of us. That’s what worked for us. It also made it so much more affordable and now we are able to save money for things we really need/want. Obviously that’s a very small wedding and you have to do what is right for you.

For me I put the guests first and ended up with a list of 300+ but we will have 2 rounds of invites. our venue is outside the city and holds 250 so it's completely possible to get both if you don't mind a drive and alternative catering (such as BBQ like we are having).

Here's where I find lists come in handy. Your and your SO, should make a list of guests then categorize them into "must haves", and "meh's". Remember to make room for the "oh, we should invite so-and-so" guests, that come to mind later in your planning process (there's always at least one).

If you're letting your parents have a say in your guest list, have them do the same.

Personally, I would always prefer a small wedding, because I like the intimate feel of it, but I come from a large family so I totally understand and respect the "need" to have a larger one.

I know exactly where you’re coming from. I feel exactly the same, we’re lucky enough that our venue doesn’t have a guest minimum, so if we decide to go small we still can. We are trying to keep it modest, but both of our Dads have large family’s, FH’s dad has 7 siblings with their own families, and my dad has 3 sisters with big families (his sisters are way older so they’re already grandparents to teenagers)

We’re finding it really hard to pick and choose who we want without insulting someone, so we decided to bite the bullet and invite them all and see who RSVP’s but I still have some reservations about this though, if they all come it’ll be about 100 guests, and I always said no more that 50... So it’s double, I understand it’s still really modest, but I’m a small business owner and my FH works in construction. We are also making plans to hopefully buy a house this year.. But we should maybe consider waiting another year fro the house and ask our guests for help with the down payment instead of registering for gifts.

We found an excel outline somewhere that sorted it in to 4 categories, A, B, C, D. A was must haves, people you can't picture the day without, B was immediate family, I can't remember what C and D was but I think C was friends and co-workers and D was like your parents friends and friends you haven't kept in touch with. I love it because when it came to cutting back on the quest list I started cutting from category D first and then if I needed to cut back more I would go to C.

I honestly think that as long as you have the people who are important to you there to celebrate your big day with you, then the size makes sense. If I were you, I'd create an "A-List" of people that you MUST invite, and a "B-List" of people who you could do without. Maybe meet somewhere in the middle of that list and go from there?

Good luck!

It really comes down to what you and your fiancé would like. I always thought I wanted a big wedding. But then when it came down to budget, who I really couldn’t picture the day without etc, my list got shorter.
Thankfully I am close to my family and majority of them will be coming. My FH is Italian so his family is huge, but he is not close with all of them. When it came to making the guest list for his side it all depended on who he spoke to, and who he wanted there.
If we invited everyone in our family we could be well over 250 once you factor in kids and spouses.