Better to invite all aunts/uncles or one aunt/uncle and their children?

It’s your day and if you feel better inviting them, then do it that way. I know many people get dramatic with that but I wouldn’t feel offended if that was the case, either way you know your family and could have an idea on how much could that affect them. If I knew it would create a crazy out of control drama I would not invite her children just for sanity. But if I think It won’t do much or if they’d get over it I would do it how I prefer

In the same boat as you but one thing all former brides have told me is that it is your day. I know something I am requiring not offending certain family is that after we send out invitations I am going to speak to each person coming and request they do not post pics on social media. Any pics posted will be by me because I am inviting my "aunt" which was my mom's best friend and has been more of an aunt to my brother and I than some of our blood related aunts and I want to avoid any aunts I am not close to feeling offended. If it is easier then invite them but something to avoid is the whole if you invite them then you should invite them. I think telling them we are keeping it small may help.

I'm in a similar situations. My mom's side of the family is huge and I have twenty-seven cousins alone! So I decided to just invite the people who are close to me! So far I haven't hear anything bad from the one's that aren't invited. But even if you would. It's your day!

I am also having a small wedding, and as it’s my fiancé and I’s both second weddings, we didn’t want to go all out. I initially wasn’t going to invite any aunts/uncles but ended up inviting them all. We’re having a destination wedding so I don’t expect most of them to make it, but I’ll still get credit for the invite. I understand that a wedding is for the bride and groom, but it’s also a special occasion for their families.

We have similar situations but ended up deciding to invite all the aunts/uncles but none of their children, making it an adults only wedding. This way nobody’s feelings would be hurt or people feeling left out etc.

Inviting in circles is typically recommended. It's completely okay to invite all of your aunts and uncles and not their children, but inviting one set and excluding the others will surely cause drama. Tons of people will say "it's your day, do what you want" and that's definitely true to an extent, but you should still treat people fairly and not intentionally cause hurt feelings.

I was in a similar situation and we were only inviting 50 people so I chose the end and I’ll go I was closest to and only invited them. It cost a little bit of family drama but it was my day and people are over it by now, so I would say do what makes you happy and don’t worry about other people because they will eventually get over it

Thanks for your comments! Another related question is: should I invite some relatives anyway if I’m pretty sure they won’t come?

For my family, if I invited one set of aunt/uncles and not others people would be very offended. If I were you I'd invite them all, and leave the children out.

To add, I also don’t want to invite *too much* family because my FH isn’t inviting much extended family at all (mostly just parents and siblings)

I'm only close to one aunt and uncle but we decided to invite all aunts and uncles and say no cousins. For us, no cousins saved us 20 invites. Everyone is married now so that would have really killed the budget, also I am only close to a few cousins. At the end of the day, it was more logical to invite aunts and uncles and say no to the cousins. It seemed more uniform and logical. Then again, it is your wedding, just know that if you only invite the favorites, it could not sit well. If you are okay with that then go for it! Can't please everyone!

View Quoted Comment I did. We were surprised by how many accepted though, and our wedding is out of the country and we only have 3 months notice, 4 month engagement. We were expecting 20 or less and 60 are coming.

View Quoted Comment Sometimes you can't help it.. we invited ALL of My husband's family and friends and I was so limited in who I invited. We probably invited 2-3 of his people for every one of mine. And still, I have 4 tables of guests and he has 2🤷‍♀️

View Quoted Comment I thinks it’s okay to do this as long as it doesn’t put you over your venue capacity. I invited relatives expecting them to say no and in the end almost all of them are coming. I’m really glad I didn’t listen to the 20% attrition rate advice because ours is only 10%. We would have been in trouble if we had invited over the venue capacity expecting 20% to not come.

View Quoted Comment I’m inclined for this too. Unless you never see or talk to the other two aunts/uncles, it’s better to invite all of them but not their kids.

Thank you!! I think I'm leaning toward inviting all of the aunts/uncles now even though I'm not too close to the others. The cousins I was planning to invite have a lot of young kids so might not even be able to make it anyway, plus that would add a lot to our guest list.

I had this same issue. We wanted a very small wedding ~40-50 guests. Well my mom is 1 of 9 children. So I have a HUGE! family. There are aunts and uncles I am closer to than others but my mother was especially offended when I asked if I could invite some but not others. So I just decided to invite all of them and none of the cousins (23-first cousins just on my moms side....not to mention all of THEIR kids...). I had to draw the line somewhere. We compromised. We just made plans for more guests than originally decided.