Couple with large families, desires small reception

I did not invite my seconds cousins .. we both have pretty big familys .. we kept out list to arpund 90 invited .. i gave anxiety and im hoping for about 70 guests

My FH's family is HUGE. Plus there are some divorces and remarriages which makes it even bigger. We go back and forth but honestly, we need to keep our numbers under 75 and are cutting out a huge portion of his family. I mean, 90% of his family. Not that we don't like them or anything, but we can't afford for them to come and still be able to have close friends so he is completely fine with it thankfully. We aren't really doing cousins but are more focusing on the aunts, uncles, grandparents that are very active in our lives. We will explain to them that in order to keep our budget, we had to make cuts to the guest list and that maybe we can do a small BBQ or something down the road to celebrate.

Pressed post too quickly, again...! My appologies, thank you for your help in advance.

As I was saying we have large families. Our budget is small to a degree, neither of us want to start our marriage in debt or burden our parents with large bills. I'd like to stay around 5 grand for everything wedding.

We've chated briefly about small intinate weddings that would include our wedding party, our parents, siblings, brother/sister inlaws, nephews and 5-10 friends each. We total to about 50 then which is comfortable for us.

Do you have a big family and had/having an intimate wedding and cutting out quite a few people? Is this poor in character?

Hi Liz! Welcome to the WeddingWire Community! I know how complex it can be to plan for huge families, as mine is extremely large! Have you tried using our Venue Search tool? After inputting the location of where you are searching for venues, you can filter the results further on the left-hand side by capacity to browse for venues that will hold your expected number of guests.

Good luck!

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While some people might be upset for being left off the list, no it's definitely not in poor taste to not include everyone you know. You have to have the wedding that you can afford and that feels right to you. If a 200-person wedding doesn't feel right to you, you'll only resent it if you try to plan one! I did have a big wedding, so I can't really give specific advice as far as how to deal with any hurt feelings, but just stick to your guns, and be honest! If someone asks why they weren't invited, just tell them you're having an intimate wedding, and that your budget did not allow for a huge affair.

We're still refining our list a little. We're inviting most aunts and uncles, some first cousins and no second cousins. Even that is difficult. I only have 9 first cousins (only close with 3) and he has over 20 (not close to any but we'd like to invite the one who lives in town).
The biggest thing is to remember it's not a family reunion. There is no reason to invite people you haven't spoken to in 15 years. You absolutely will not have the time to catch up. People understand that weddings are expensive.

I was in the same boat, my husband has 11 aunts/uncles (not including spouses) and I have 9. He has 30+ cousins and I have 40+ and these don't include their spouses or kids. We didn't want to have a large reception either, so we really pared down. He has a smaller immediate family (5), whereas mine is 25.

My H decided to invite only his family that lives close by, which meant one aunt, uncle, and their family. I invited all my aunts and uncles, but then only one cousin. I thought we'd get some backlash, but everyone really understood and we loved having the smaller wedding. We ended up with 60 guests.

Yikes, couldn't imagine the stress or cost of a large wedding (unless that sounds like fun to you). Totally doable to have a smaller reception. But come up a rule that would be fair to everyone. For example, immediately family only (grandparents, parents, siblings, siblings' children, your children if any). Or adults only (except for children in the wedding party if you want). But don't say "immediate family only except our cousins John & Jane." Then feelings will get hurt.

FH and I each have 4 siblings all of whom are married (or in significant relationships) and have children). Parents, siblings, and nieces/nephews quickly added to 50 people. These were our must haves and added minimal family beyond that.

Start from yourself and FH and work your family out (parents --> siblings --> aunts/uncles --> cousins). Decide who is a must have. Who can you not imagine being at your wedding? But like others said, keep it fair. We asked our parents who was very important to them (their siblings) but for the most part we had complete control.

I didn’t invite any of the cousins on my dad’s side because there’s 4 of them, they’re all married, and they all have 3 kids, so just them is 20 people. We have a very small venue limited to 60 people, so I just couldn’t make them fit. Also we’re not close and I only went to one of their weddings.

I feel your pain I only want 50 total something small and intimate but me alone have huge family my mother has alot of siblings one of my uncle alone has 10 kids and that just my mom side so alot of my family members will be t'd off

Our numbers looked very similar but in the end we stuck to close family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, 1st cousins) and very close friends. We knocked it down to 150 the first cutting round (elimated great aunts and uncles), and about 135ish the 2nd round of cuts (elimated friends that are not THAT close anymore). Find somewhere to draw the line and just stick with it!

Your budget sounds reasonable for the amount of people you want. If people say something about not being invited, just say "we're limited on space in the venue" and change the subject. (Don't say it's budgetary reasons because the some people will offer to pay for themselves). Try not to talk about your wedding to people who aren't invited even if they bring it up.

Good luck!

It's great you're doing the guest list before anything else! That really changes the budget as the guest list goes up, so now you won't be surprised