Wedding guest list??

[slg47]

so FI and I have started talking about guest list estimates (for venue securing purposes)...and he has a LOT more people than I do! Anyone else have a similar situation? I just haven't really done a good job of keeping in touch with people from HS/College and would feel awkward inviting people I haven't talked to in years...

 

[Trekkie]

You're very clever to first think of inviting people who actually mean something to you and are still a part of your life. Your bank balance will thank you later!

 

[slg47]

Thanks Trekkie...I know that both sets of parents are totally committed to inviting however many people we want to have...I just feel sort of awkward not having as many (if that makes any sense...I know it doesn't matter but I don't want it to be totally lopsided!) FI's brother actually had a totally lopsided wedding, his wife is from a culture where they invite basically everyone they know to the wedding, so their wedding had around 450 people and maybe 80 were from his side...

It's also sort of weird because at least 80% of our guests will have to travel, so I am not sure how many will want to make the trip. The wedding is in the city where I grew up and I am inviting some friends from HS who are still in the area, but BF is from a totally different region of the country and I went to a rather large college in the NE, so friends are from all over...(the few that I am inviting, that is!)

ETA I don't want to sound spoiled...my mom's ex BF has apparently been saving for this for quite some time and I feel extremely lucky to have this. I also know that FI's parents are more than willing to chip in, so that is good.

 

[diamondbuggy]

Hi slg!

We have a similar situation but I'm the one with the majority. We're inviting about 180 people and only about 30 of those are from my FI's side. He's also feeling weird about it and keeps trying to think of more people to invite from his side. I told him it doesn't matter. At the end of the day it should only be people we really care about and not people from HS we haven't even spoken to in years, just because he wants to make up a bigger number. No one's going to judge him on the number of guests.

I have a huge family and he has a small one. (I have to admit that many of the family members on my side are only invited because of my parents. I have no relationship with them but because of family politics they have to be invited. If we invited this one and not that one it could start World War 3! ) We always joke that our wedding is going to be like that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

 

[nicoleben]

what we did is have both of our parents come up with lists from each side.. his mom had around 70 and my mother had about 79.. which is pretty even.. we then.. invited our close friends we still talk to who we would want at the wedding, and then we made our own list of mutual friends.. We came to exactly 200 people. Which is good. we are hoping to have at least 150 or more. I am sure we are missing someone somewhere but even if we are we had a good way of figuring everything out! We also cut out cousins under the age of 18. This helped with our numbers a lot! Good luck! I do not think it matters if you have more or if he has more. Just as long as you have who you want and he has who he wants. That's most important.

 

[KimberlyH]

I am the youngest of 36 grandchildren on one side and have 8 cousins on the other side, all but one of us married and all but two had children when my husband and I got married. My husband's mother is the only family member who was alive and in contact with us when we married. So we narrowed and narrowed and narrowed, because the guest list if we'd invited all of my family would have been something like 200 on my side and 10 on his, including his mom and close friends. We could have invited more friends of his, but we only wanted people that we were close to at the wedding. In the end there were `0 people on "his side" and 15 on "my side", but at the end of the day they were all there for both of us and it didn't make a bit of difference. If you're worried don't seat people bride and groom side, just let them sit wherever, or have ushers alternate.

 

[AustenNut]

We're attempting to have a smaller[er] wedding, and of the 100 people that are invited, about 70% is from "my side." But many of those are aunts/uncles, cousins that needed to be invited because of family politics. And my fiancee is only invited his mom and siblings, and no aunts/cousins. But because our wedding will be a destination wedding, I don't think the numbers will be as imbalanced once the RSVPs come in since many of my aunts/cousins won't make the trip, but our immediate families will.

 

[LtlFirecracker]

If it makes you feel any better, we have 61 adult guests (and 3 children who will leave before dinner). I have just under 20 and the rest are his. So that is a 2:1 ratio basically. At first I was hurt, but I have gotten over it. He is much more social than I am and has a big family that is very close to one another.

 

[Yimmers]

I had your situation. DH has a big extended family. I don't have a big extended family. But, my parents footed the bill (along with our own contribution). MIL decided to invite over 35 of her friends. Her excuse, "They will provide you a big enough gift to cover their expense at the wedding." Uhhhh....NO THEY DIDN'T. And for me, it's not about the gifts, it's about celebrating with the people we love.

On the other hand, I had a huge blow up with my mom about her refusal to invite any of their friends, saying that since their friends would have to travel they wouldn't invite them. They kept saying if we had the wedding where they lived, they'd have a lot of their friends come to the wedding, but they couldn't expect them to come to since it was in California. We even had a fight over my request to call her friend for a RSVP update. In her defense, she's been ill and was on meds, but it was so difficult to reason with her. So what happens? Well, she tells her friends I'm getting married, and they send cash gifts (we're Asian). It's just so weird. DH couldn't understand it as well and wanted my family to invite more friends. My family took up one table. We had to split his family among several tables, with the kids having a table to themselves. Luckily, we had a lot of our friends come as well.

My family didn't really mingle with his family either. In fact, my grandparents were furious that we sat them at a separate table from my parents.

So, we threw a big party for DH's family and a lot of their friends. We couldn't split the list half/half since DH said it was unfair he'd have to sacrifice his friends b/c he had a big family. Needless to say, all this drama still irks me a bit to this day.

 

[slg47]

Yimmers I am sorry to hear that you had to deal with so much drama! Luckily my parents are OK with FI's side inviting as many people as they want (well, OK, not like 1000 but they don't want to exclude anyone) and FI's parents are more than happy to chip in for the cost.