Where do you draw the line on family?

Ugh. This is a sore topic for me. We're inviting our first cousins since neither of us know our second cousins. We're also letting FH's parents invite some of their friends because they're "like family" to them.

Aside from that, it's all friends.

We stuck with aunts and uncles. I have too many cousins to be able to invite them all! One of my husband's cousins came, but that was to replace an uncle's girlfriend who backed out without telling us!

We also invited my sister-in-laws mom and a couple of her sisters. Her sisters helped make our bouquets, and her mom, well, her mom we invited because my mom wanted us to. Since our parents paid for part of the wedding, we obliged. Especially since their "invite these people" list consisted of one person!

I am mostly sticking to my closest family, cousins, aunts and uncles, but I am inviting a few of my second cousins that I see the most. It is super tricky with family.

We only invited family we are close with. So I didn’t invite 2 of my Aunts and 2 of my uncles (I haven’t spoken with them in at least 15+ years). I only invited 2 out of 16 first cousins. Again, some of them I haven’t seen in 20 years, some I don’t like. Lol. Can you tell I didn’t grow up in a tight-knit family? Haha. FH sadly doesn’t have a lot of family. (Most have passed away) but we invited all his Aunts and Uncles (only 4 total) and a couple of his first cousins. We keep in contact with his family. So they were invited

I drew the line at 2nd and 3rd cousins that I never see except at big family events (Weddings, funerals, etc), especially if I wasn't invited to any of their weddings. I do have a few 2nd and 3rd cousins I am close to and see more often; they got invitations.

For us it's hard making a guest list, neither of us are close with our families other than parents and siblings. That being said I do have some family members that I chat with weekly on FB or text but have not seen in years. So we are struggling to come up with a list.

We were going to stop at first cousins, which left us at almost 150 people.... Then we cut "kids" (under 19), which cut 35 people, then my FH started cutting his cousins that he doesn't talk to anyways, haha... But I have "cousins/aunts/uncles" on my side who are actually my mom's cousins... So our lines are blurred... haha. Our rule is, if you're actively in our life, you're invited... It's not about how closely you're "technically" related. We have settled around 107 people right now.

Indian families are huge and never draw the line for them. We invite everyone and anyone related.

For our list, i just sticked with maon family to cut the numbers. Total would be over 100 if the line was drawn.

We didn't really "draw a line"... We're inviting the family members we're close with. Some first and second cousins are invited and some are not... same goes with aunts/uncles. If we haven't talked / hung out regularly then they're not invited. I don't see anyone being offended - I know I wasn't when I wasn't invited to a cousins wedding. We aren't close so why would I go/invite them? 🤷‍♀️

Honestly with my family I couldn’t not invite second counsins because I have some that I call aunts and uncles because we’re so close. And then their kids are super close to me. I got lucky where because my family is mostly in England and we have to account for people not coming, I didn’t actually have to cut people on my side at all.

My FH has a small guestlist of both immediate and extended family.

I honestly just chose the family I’m closed with now. There’s no way we could invite everybody soooo 🤷🏾‍♀️. It was either do it this way or elope. I’m sure there will be some folks who are hurts, but it’s ok, and they’ll be ok.

Right now, we are inviting grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins. Some of my cousins have kids but we are not inviting them since a lot of them are really young (under 10) and are chaotic, they would be running around during the ceremony and jumping in the pool honestly. Only two of my cousins are under 18 and can sit through a ceremony without fussing.

My FH is inviting cousin's kids since they are in their teens and behaved, plus I have more family and this is a good way to balance it out. Plus no one will know that his side got to bring cousin's kids and my side didn't.

We have some aunts/uncles/cousins that we'll invite since we don't want to start any family feuds, but will probably not come due to existing feuds. We're not close with those individuals so it won't affect us too much.

I was obligated to invite everyone in my family because my aunt said it was disrespectful if I didn't....I was upset about this because I felt that it was unfair that I had to exclude some friends of mine in order to save seats for a cousin that I've barely talked to in the last 5 years! Thankfully, most of the relatives from Asia decided not to come because my cousin is also getting married next year and they don't want to pick between the two weddings...I think this is a win-win situation and I feel great relief that I can take their names off and invite friends that I truly want to be present on my big day!

This is a tough one for us. When I made my family list, i have quite a bit of people because I have my dads family, my moms family, and my step moms family. I am quite close with my dads family seeing them multiple times a year. With my moms family we are still quite close, my step moms family, only her siblings and their kids will be invited so it is not that bad

My FH's family on the other side is Italian, and then his moms side of the family. His sister got married and invited everyone, but in the 5 years that we have been together I have not met all of the extended family, nor do I have a relationship with them. Thankfully my FH does not want it to be that big, but I have a feeling the in laws will feel that there needs to be more people invited.

I don't know if we really drew a line at all. It was really tough to cut anyone in our family (as I am sure it is for most of us). My fiancé's father has 6 siblings and they all have kids who have kids. The dilemma is the first cousins are at least 5-10+ years older than us and their kids are mostly under the age of 10. Growing up, he was always a part of their weddings and they enjoy family get-togethers every chance that they get. Soooo, thats how we ended up with 70 family members on my fiancés side right off the bat. I love it though, I absolutely adore them all.

As for my smaller side of the family - thankfully each of my parents only have two siblings each - I am close with my cousins who are all roughly the same age as us. But I was able to cut great aunts and uncles as I don't regularly see or speak with them. It sucks but if we won the lottery I would add them in a heartbeat.

We couldn't exclude kids - although we talked about it - because there are 3 young ones (all will be under the age of 2) in our most direct, close family (siblings & such) and it wouldn't be fair to say oh this person can bring their kid but you can't - so kids it is!

We are breaking the standard "invite in circles" etiquette rule and inviting based on our actual relationships with people, not on their blood relation to either of us. Some cousins are getting invited, some are not. Same is true for Aunts and Uncles.

We are both very close with some of our family and not with others, so we are essentially treating our entire potential guestlist the same - we are inviting the people who we are closest to and their family status has nothing to do with it.

Guess we will wait and see if anyone is offended haha but honestly, I don't anticipate that anyone will be and, if they are, well... it doesn't really matter because we're not close with them anyways ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We are inviting everyone that is important to us and our parents as long as we know them. Second cousins are okay but only to a point (aka the ones that I see at our annual family picnic are a yes, the ones I see less than once a year are a no). Anyone young enough not to eat an adult meal is not invited.

I am inviting my first cousins, but not second or anything. I do not really know them. Also not inviting great uncles/aunts. So just parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins. My Fiance is inviting his nieces and nephews but not their kids (large age gap with his siblings), his parents, grandparents, and some aunts and uncles. He does not really have cousins.

We invited our immediate families, friends that we have seen within the last year, first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins - with a big exception being that we are having an 18+ wedding. So if theses cousins are younger than the legal drinking age then they are not invited. We are still trying to decide to invite ones that are if they have siblings that aren't though.

All in all our guest list exceeds 250 people so we will be doing 2 rounds of invitations.

I didn’t invite anyone I didn’t know personally (excluding plus ones) and they had to be important to me or my family. Since I have more second cousins than first cousins, I only included those I knew.

We drew the line at first cousins, excluding their kids.