guest list- would this be weird?

[LadyJane83]

Hi ladies! I posted in this forum once before and found your responses very helpful! Forgive me if this post is a little jumbled

I''ve been engaged since April 1, and we are in the *very* early stages of planning. We''re just trying to get a handle on what size of wedding we will have. If it''s just us paying, it will be small dinner party. My FI has a large family and would like to have a larger wedding if possible, but says he doesn''t want us to pay for it ourselves, so really, anything would be fine.

Anyway, over Easter weekend, FI''s parents kept saying they "want to help." They invited us over last week to "talk about the wedding." So I did all this research about how much things cost etc., but when we got there, they wouldn''t give an estimate of how much they wanted to contribute.... I thought this was weird but my FI said this is just how they work? Anyway, getting around to my question....

I''m not really willing to contribute any more than it would cost to do a small dinner party (and at a more formal/larger wedding this might add up to just the photographer, our clothes, and little extras). But assuming we get more info from FI parents and they decide they want to pay for a large wedding, I''m wondering about this:

My guest list would be a max of 45 people (of these I am pretty sure about 8 or so wouldn''t come for health/other reasons). This number includes attributing our mutual friends to me. I could easily cut this list down to 30 people, or even less...

FI made a list of about 150. He said he could make cuts, but still...

I don''t know exactly what it is I am worried about here... this just seems like it might be a little.... weird? Has anyone else dealt with this?

Thanks!

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

I do think their approach is peculiar and I don''t really understand it. I had a small dinner party-type reception of 45 people (including DH and I) and it (dinner) cost us about $6k (just giving you a ball park idea). This event was held in a city, but not a huge city and it was at a restaurant. You could do it for a lot less with fewer guests.

I think you need to decide what you want first before you talk with your in laws. None of this well we want to do it this way unless we get a lot more money. Do what you want to do.

 

[LadyJane83]

Thanks, glad I''m not the only one who thinks it''s weird

I''d rather do a small party, but I also want to make my FI happy.

I guess I just think it is "weird" that the guest lists are so disproportionate. It''s hard to articulate why it bothers me... not even sure it does ... it just seems to be pretty uncommon that there is that big of a difference in the numbers, I guess.

 

[purselover]

Date: 4/12/2010 11:33:37 AM
Author: LadyJane83
Thanks, glad I''m not the only one who thinks it''s weird

I''d rather do a small party, but I also want to make my FI happy.

I guess I just think it is ''weird'' that the guest lists are so disproportionate. It''s hard to articulate why it bothers me... not even sure it does ... it just seems to be pretty uncommon that there is that big of a difference in the numbers, I guess.

Sometimes people just have bigger families/want to include more. I think my parents invited about 30 people and DH''s invited more like 100.

 

[Clairitek]

We also did a small dinner party wedding with 35 people, including us. The dinner cost about $6000 but it was in a resorty sea-side town (Newport, RI) where wedding stuff is generally pretty inflated. I would definitely ask your FI to press them a little bit more on his own without you present to find out what they are willing to contribute. My DH''s parents also generously offered "help" when we first started planning a large wedding. Then when we started to fret about cost they gave us a hard number. It was nice to know what we could hope for from them so we could plan appropriately. I believe their reasoning for giving us money was the same as your FI''s parents- they wanted a larger wedding where their families would be included.

 

[EmDressage]

Perhaps sit down with the FI's side of family and your side of the family to discuss just this (again). However, say that if they want to 'help', with what? Ask if they have a certain # ($$) in mind, and/or if they would rather just cover certain expenses, and to list them. You need that clarity as much as possible, and this way, they can either give you an exact amount they want to give or give them the option of covering the expenses of any specific areas, ie: covering your catering costs, the venue costs, the RD, an renting of tables/chairs/tents, etc., flowers, drinks, services, tipping, your dress, your groom's tux (or whatever y'all decide to wear, so lets call that aspect: your wedding wear, whether formal or casual, etc. )
Either way, they will be helping and that will give you a specific idea of what they are willing to cover. They might just not really give an exact price,but would rather be able to cover specific areas that are important in their eyes for the wedding. Know that they might also want to 'help' physically, either with areas of the wedding they want to cover if they go that way or with the jobs of the wedding that are needed to be done.
-Em

 

[RaiKai]

I really think you MUST come up with a budget that works for you and your fiance as if no one else was contributing a dime. In my opinion, until you have the money in hand, you cannot count on it!

I also really think you need to decide what KIND of wedding you want, whatever the budget. Honestly, how much money you might get should not affect what kind of wedding you and your fiance truly want. I however, do know that there are many who are willing to accept money and the giver''s influence on guest list and so on. This is just not me. I personally would rather decline money if it came with strings or meant a wedding far from what was wanted by myself and my SO.

On the other hand, if you really do want to give some (or all) control over to your fiances parents in respect of guest lists and wedding style, and then it might be time to sit down with them again and tell them you appreciate their offer to help out, but you need to have an idea what they plan on providing/paying for so that you can come up with your guest list and other wedding details once you know what you are working with. I think their offer is a gift, and not something that should be expected, but it sounds like they are willing to contribute something and have made that "pledge" to you. Find out you need to know WHAT exactly they would prefer to pay for, and what they have in mind.

FYI, for DH and I, we came up with a list of about 24 people to invite, 16 of which were able to come (it was rather short notice). We had it a small resort on the West Coast of Canada, and just had a sit down dinner in the resorts dining room following the ceremony. Guests just ordered from the menu (reprinted without prices) and altogether it was $1,800. They were able to order whatever they wanted (i.e. appetizer, entree, dessert, wine/spirits). We paid for it ourselves, and had just the wedding we wanted. We would not have changed a thing even if we had a spare $5,000,000 laying around! I have seen food costs for larger weddings range from $10,000 to $30,000 or more (including meal costs, catering, service, etc).

It is not unusual to have different "numbers" on each side, but together you DO have to decide what kind of wedding you do want. A wedding with nearly 200 people IS going to be very different than a wedding with 90 people and not just because of the budget! And at this point, you and your fiance seem to have a bit of a different approach to this...

 

[missy]

Hi and congratulations on your engagement!

I would be wary of planning a larger wedding than you want to pay for without a definite dollar amount promised by your future in laws. If they cannot tell you how much they are willing to give to you and their son for the wedding that they want you to have then I would just go ahead and plan the wedding you want and the one you are willing to pay for in total.

There are 2 things happening here. One, you want to have a small more intimate wedding. Two, you want to keep costs down.

Don''t let them pressure you into having a wedding that is not what you envision and then paying more than you wanted to in the first place!

Good luck!

 

[LadyJane83]

Thanks for the replies everyone. It''s nice to be able to throw some of my frustrations out there and get feedback.

I think I might give it another week or two, if the FI parents don''t volunteer a specific number by then, I think I''ll just ask the FI to give his parents a heads-up that we are proceeding with a small dinner party and tell them who we plan on inviting, just so there are no surprises on their end.

If I were marrying someone exactly like me, we would be having a small dinner party, or getting married at the courhouse and then going on a honeymoon. But this isn''t the case, so the large wedding is important to me because it is important to my FI. He acknowledges that it may not be possible for us, and doesn''t want to go into debt over it. He says that whatever we can do is fine, but his ideal would be a 100-150ish wedding. He has spent his entire life going to large family parties and get-togethers. He wants to have a "party" to "celebrate" and envisions his wedding as one of these larger-scale parties, with some friends mixed in, on a slightly more formal scale.

My family is not like this, we are small and don''t really make a fuss over anything. His family will have 50+ person parties for random birthdays and graudations... I''ve been to a lot of them I''m not crazy about large groups of people and making small talk. I can do it if I have to, but I always end up exhausted- like I just spent hours at a "networking" event for work or something... but I''m willing to compromise on this b/c I know that this is very important to FI... but I''m not willing to pay for it.

So I guess there''s a couple things going on that make it even more confusing. I don''t want to outright decline the parents'' help (provided they actually give us a number lol) b/c I think this could help give my FI the wedding that he wants.

Thanks for listening.

 

[fieryred33143]

Date: 4/12/2010 3:29:30 PM
Author: RaiKai
I really think you MUST come up with a budget that works for you and your fiance as if no one else was contributing a dime. In my opinion, until you have the money in hand, you cannot count on it!

Ditto this!

I don''t think any of it is weird. I know a lot of people here that never got an actual amount either from their parents or their FI''s parents of how much they were contributing. However, most of those people also had their in-laws be involved in every step of the process. It has its pros and cons. The pro is that they pay for the bill. The con is that they pretty much have a lot of power over the final decisions.

As for the amount of guests you have vs his list, it was the same between my FI and I. We originally had a guest list of 15 total. Then word got out and we thought well, if we pay for a big wedding what would the guest list look like. He had 30. I had 125. His family is really small and our DD is the first great-grandchild. I have a huge family and DD is the 25th great-grandchild.

At the end of the day I would follow RK''s advice on not planning anything without having either a final number they commit to, a check in hand, or without the understanding that as bills come up-they pay it off. If you don''t have any of this, I would plan for what you can afford.

 

[caribqueen]

Date: 4/12/2010 11:33:37 AM
Author: LadyJane83
Thanks, glad I''m not the only one who thinks it''s weird

I''d rather do a small party, but I also want to make my FI happy.

I guess I just think it is ''weird'' that the guest lists are so disproportionate. It''s hard to articulate why it bothers me... not even sure it does ... it just seems to be pretty uncommon that there is that big of a difference in the numbers, I guess.

To answer your question about the family invites, no I don''t think it''s weird to have one side significantly larger than the other. My wedding will have about 50 people from FI''s side and the rest will be from my side, for a grand total of about 230 people. My parents are paying.

As for the ceremony and seating, once my side is filled, we''ll direct ushers to seat people on the other side. At the reception, it won''t matter.

At the end of the day, if it helps, you could try to think of it as two families coming together to make one at your wedding.

Good luck on deciding the other stuff.

 

[PumpkinPie]

I also find it unusual that your ILs expect you to be able to plan a wedding without information from them on budget - seems very irrational - given this you have to plan it on a budget that you yourselves can pay for.