Wedding For those with small guest lists (less than 100)

[Shoopy]

How did you split up the guest list count?

Right now we have alist of 120. His total is 38, mine is 82. I want to cut it down to 60 guests only. I''m thinking that 50/50 is the best way to go but wanted to know what other couples did.

 

[kama_s]

We want around 75-80 people at our wedding, to the very maximum of 100 - including us. So I gave his parents 25 people, my parents 25 people, Mr. Kama 25 people and left 25 for myself. Now that everyone has given their list in, I''ve made more minor adjustments - my parents aren''t having their share of people since my entire family and family friends are attending our wedding in India/Dubai. Thus, Mr. Kama''s parents got to invite around 10 people more.

I''d suggest you split your 60 to 30-30, 30 for your friends and 30 for your parent''s friends. This way everyone gets an equal share. Also, your FI doesn''t need to add in anextra 12 people to make things equal, if 38 people are who he wants at the wedding, then you should leave it at that. You have to keep the intimate-fairness balance, which can be quite the task!

 

[CrownJewel]

we were aiming for 80 people to attend, so we invited about 120 people. we went through several versions of guest lists. we made it very clear to our parents that we couldn''t afford to invite all our relatives and all their friends. the first list we made, was a huuuuuuuge list of everyone we wanted at our wedding (just to get it out of our system), including people we thought our parents would want to invite. then we made a super teeny tiny list of only the ESSENTIAL people that WE wanted at the wedding (there were about 75). in this list, we did try to keep the number of our FRIENDS 50/50. i think he invited about 30 friends and i invited about 38.

we sent the lists to our parents and asked them to add just the necessary people. i have 12 aunts and uncles, each has a spouse and an average of 2 kids, so my family would have been over 48 guests, not including my immediate family. DH has one aunt.

obviously my parents had to whittle their list down much more than DH''s parents. DH''s parents had the liberty of inviting friends and far removed relatives. In the end, it somehow worked out fairly evenly anyway, even though we didn''t TRY to keep it 50/50

 

[palomablancabride]

Our "A" list invites just went out. We''ve invited 80 people. We would like to have about 70 in attendance. He has much more family than I do so of that 80, 48 are "his" guests and 32 are "mine." When we made our initial list we included family and our closest of friends and that''s how the list turned out. We are paying for the wedding so our parents didn''t have a say in the guest list.

 

[Shoopy]

We weren''t even considering any friends that our parents want to invite. We are paying for the entire wedding ourselves so I don''t feel they should have a say in the guest list. That said his mom does have a best friend that I''m sure she''d love to invite so we''re inviting them (only 2 and not inviting their children). My mom has a ton of friends. I''m not even going to go there with her.

I think it seems silly to have my FI cut 8 people off of his list so we''ll probably just invite his entire list.

But mine...what a headache. My list was originally 103 but I cut out 21 cousins that I never see unless I make the effort to go to NY and visit. I guess the next cut would be to not invite children

That''s 13 right there (FI has no children in his family).

I''m torn because 27 of my guests are my aunts and uncles from OOT. I really don''t want them there but if I want to live in peace, I have to invite them. 12 guests are coworkers that I don''t have to invite, but I want them all there.

*Grunt*

 

[neatfreak]

We invited all our "must haves" as a couple, whether family or friends, together. Then we gave each side a open slots to invite their "choices" (which really was only 2 couples per set of parents, we had a teensy wedding). It was uneven because DH has a much bigger family than mine, but it would have been stupid for me to try and make it even by inviting people I didn''t care about just to even out the numbers and leaving out people DH and I DID care about.

 

[CrownJewel]

yeah, the guest list was the toughest part of wedding planning (don''t worry, it will be over soon and then you can do some fun stuff!). and after you''ve made your final list, you can rest assured that your wedding will be attended by your closest friends and family. it really makes the whole day so much more intimate and enjoyable.

we tried cutting out children but then that meant our own nephews, and some new cousins. so we just went ahead and put some of the children back in (mostly babies or kids under 2). if you''re not particularly attached to any of the kids on your guest list, i think its fine to leave them out.

the other method of narrowing down your list of friends is to ask yourselves (and each other), when was the last time you called/went out with this person or the last time this person called you? that was very helpful for us, to include only those that we keep in constant touch with. also, i had to consider which friends i could see still being a part of my life in 10-20 years.

good luck and enjoy the rest of the planning!

 

[KimberlyH]

We had 25 guests total, I''d have to count to know the exact total on each side, but I know I had a lot more guests than DH. I have a huge family, his is now non-existent and at the time only consisted of his mom, so our invites went to my family (parents, sister/her fam, and all of my aunts and uncles) and his closest friends. My friends all live far away and weren''t invited for several reasons. It sometimes can''t be about numbers, and the two of you need to compromise.

 

[mrsv]

We invited 40 people and 25 are able to attend. We did close family and a few friends each. In the end I do have more guests who are able to attend then he does (I have a bigger family and we are getting married in GA where my family is from).
I think you need to do whatever works for you and your honey.

 

[LauraBabe08]

I agree with Crownjewel and only invited friends that I actively communicate with, or that I see myself still talking to in 20 years. FI and I did not set a number limit for guests, but we chose to only invite immediate family on both sides (aunts, uncles, and cousins). As for friends, he invited more than me because he has a pretty tight group of friends that he still hangs out with from high school.

So far we only sent out our save-the-dates, but overall I anticipate that we will have equal guest from each side in attendance.

 

[Gwyn]

we are having the wedding on the west coast where we and most of his friends and family live.

Our of the 41 guests in attendance

11 are from "my side" the rest his friends/family/co workers.

For the reception on the east coast, they are ALL my side (about 50-75).

 

[Rhea]

We worked our way out rather than splitting the numbers evenly. He's an only child, I have a sibling with a partner. He has one grandparent, I had three. I have double the amount of aunts and uncles. We did it by relation, working our way out from immediate family until we reached a place we felt made sense to stop (aunts and uncles) and then started adding in extras like the adult cousins we can actually remember the name of and have seen within the past two years.

 

[sparkly_stars]

I have a bigger family, therefore my guest count was by FAR higher-
we made our list in sections..
so we had the MUST invite (family very BEST friends etc), which by the way mine were always greater in count then his haha- then, with the remaining seats- we made lists of who we wanted to have- and again, my count was greater then his..
It depended on the attachment the guests had- I wouldn''t have said no to SO, BUT I also wouldn''t want to pass up on a close friend for one of his "acquaintance" from some old job...but, I also wouldn''t want the wedding to have JUST my friends.. hahaha.
We had a balance and worked through the list..talked about how important it was to have guest a, b, c there!!

 

[gtn]

We actually had a large wedding but we initially split the invites 50/50 which put me on the spot since I didn''t have enough room to invites friends, but he kindly allowed me to invite them using "his spots"

 

[supergirl10]

Well i have a huge huge family and they ALL have to be invited so unfortunetly it will be 130 guest that are invited. Our guest list can''t be equal because of my huge family. In total we will have 75 guest that are just family (assuming they all come).

 

[allycat0303]

We split it down the middle. However, honestly though, that was more for the parents then us. We wanted the people that love us to be there, and if he had more, or I had more, we would have made place.

 

[Nocturnius]

Our wedding was family and close friends only. In the end, the only friends there were our attendants.

In the guest list, there was 19 people.

5 of them were mine. The rest were my husband's. This is because ALL of his family lives right here; grandparents, parents, siblings, his aunt and uncle and his step-dad and step-siblings. I only had my parents, my two sisters and my brother-in-law.

Even our attendants were going to be mismatched; I only had two bridesmaids, and he had FIVE groomsmen!

(In the end it wound up more even... because two of his "friends" just decided not to show up.)

So we wound up with a total of 24 guests, and 7 of them were mine. So more than two-thirds of our guests were his, because he has a bigger family and bigger social circle.