Cutting Down the Guest List

Yes, we've had to make cuts. But honestly, I don't think it's going to be a problem. We wanted to stay under 100 guests, and we are. The problem came when about 6 months after we "finalized" the list, FH thought of a bunch of friends he wanted to invite (like 20 more people), and forgot to put on the original list. Most of them are friends we both went to school with, so I know who they are at least. The problem is that he hasn't seen these guys in years! I'm talking like 10+ years. I get that he wants to reconnect with his buddies, but I had to break it to him that our wedding is not the place to do that. He's so all about having the most fun and the best party we can have. But he forgets that we have to pay for it all. So, for every extra person he wants, there is a price tag attached. He was really sweet about it when I broke the news to him, but I know he's a little disappointed still.

I have told him that he can certainly reconnect with those friends outside of our wedding. So, he's going to do that, I think. But it is hard. We're fortunate that we're older, so our families aren't as big as they once were, and we had room to invite all of our close friends, ones we actually see regularly!

We also had distant family members that we didn't even invite. Aunt Milly who lives across the country, and hasn't seen FH since he was a teenager didn't make the cut!

Were the friends you’re now asking him to cut part of the original 80 guests? If they were, I don’t think it’s ok to ask him now to cut them and have you not cut anyone. We cut our guest list in half from our original number because our venue of choice (non-negotiable for me) would have nearly been 2.5x our budget with our initial list. We decided that if they weren’t immediate family/best friends or we hadn’t seen them for over a year (we celebrate holidays with both our families), then they weren’t going to be invited. We went from over 200 guests to 115 invited.

Can you cut out all kids and make it an adult only affair? Or distant family members?

My partner's family is way bigger than mine, so I am inviting a bunch of friends. I am not particularly close to my family. I am not sure what his relationship is like with his family/friends, but if my partner had suggested we cut from my side I would have said no. I really didn't want the wedding to feel like his family and our mutual friends. Luckily we never got to that point, but it may be important for him to feel like his people are represented too.

Is it possible for you to cut distant family members? If you haven't seen them in two years or more, I would cut them from the list. Of course, I don't know your situation!

I was in the same position that your FH is in. We wanted to keep out guest list at 100 and thankfully were able to do so. I only have my immediate family members (parents, siblings and their spouses), my sibling's in-laws(becasue they are like family too) and only a couple personal friends. All together I have 35 guests, he has 57 and we have 8 mutual. When my FMIL wanted to add more of her friends I told her no that we were already at our limit. I told him that if he wanted to let her invite her friends he would need to cut out people on his side, becasue my guests were must haves and her friends were not.

If over half the guests are your family, I think you guys may need to compromise and figure out a way that you could both make cuts.
My family is substantially larger than my husband’s, but when cutting back on the guest list, we both needed to make concessions. I didn’t think it was fair to have all the cutting come from his side just because my family is huge. We started organizing everyone in groups, and cut a few groups rather than a name here and there (his high school friends, for example, and my step-cousins). I made some hard and fast guidelines for my family invites (aunts uncles cousins&their partners only. No cousins’ kids. No mother’s cousins. No grandmother’s sister. Just the closest circle). At the end of it all, we were able to split our guestlist pretty evenly! Not that your numbers and his numbers have to be split perfectly— life rarely works like that. But if you’re having to make cuts, I think it is important to do so from both sides.

There is no one way to do this, you have to work with what you are both comfortable with - especially if you are both paying for it. You could say all family & limited friends for the space, or you could divide the guest list into 1/2 and say you can invite x amount, FS can invite x amount.

For us, we were in a slightly different position, I was ok cutting family that I didn't see that often, but FH had to invite every aunt/uncle/and first cousin. Our list is actually much bigger than we originally hoped for (we wanted 120x, and it is 201x - the venue can hold 240x & we changed our budget a bit to accommodate the guests). We will see how many actually shows, a lot of his family are out of town, and a lot of my family are semi local (within an hour) but don't drive, and we are not providing transportation outside from the hotel to the venue.

View Quoted Comment No, they weren’t part of the original 80. They were kind of an afterthought, and he even said he doubts they’ll come.

View Quoted Comment We will have a lot of little ones, but we want them there. My older brother’s wedding was kid-free and it actually caused a bit of drama. I’m very close with my cousins and their children, so I don’t want to cut any family if I can avoid it.

View Quoted Comment He’s really close with about half the friends he’s inviting (of the ones I’m not also friends with). The rest of his friends are people he’s met while in the military and hasn’t seen in years. I want him to feel represented, I don’t want it to feel like I’m taking over the whole show. But I just don’t know who I could cut from my side that wouldn’t cause hurt feelings.

View Quoted Comment I’m like your FH then. I’m inviting all of my cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. But my family is really important to me, and I have a really strong relationship with all of them. But also like your FH, all of my family is out of town, most in different states, so I doubt they’ll all be able to make it. And his friends and family are also about 4 hours away. So we’ll see!

Yea.. the ppl that I didn't invite but so And so invited. Like I invited my friend And her hubby and she invited her 3 kids. Yea originally I was fine with that but now I had to tell her I just can't. It's too expensive and it wasn't even my idea. Had another friend do the same. Told her she just can't bring her 15 year old son I've never even talked to. I have a hard time inviting ppl I am not really connected with 😑

It's a tough situation. We're going through that now. Our original guest list is what we went by when looking at venues. We choose the venue we did because this particular room was intimate and would be perfect for our size. Lo and behold after we booked it FH starts thinking of people he "has" to invite. My feeling is if they were so important wouldn't he have thought about them initially. He has more people than me but we need to be fair where we cut. We're starting by eliminating plus ones except for those in a committed relationship. After that we'll have to figure out if that's not enough. We still have plenty of time. But you might have to make hard decisions and cut some people on your side too as he cuts some people on his side. You can't worry if people will be offended if their kids aren't invited, etc. You have to do what's right for you and your FH together.

View Quoted Comment Oh wow, I can’t believe I didn’t think about that! Lol we have a lot of people we’re giving plus ones, since a lot of his friends are single. That would definitely help our numbers. I’ll have to see what he thinks about that. Thanks!

We decided on 80 as well and when we counted all of our guests we came up with 100 as well but since we were kinda having a destination wedding (about 4-8 hour drive for our guests) we figured a lot of them wouldn’t come anyways we ended up having 90 guests RSVP yes with 10 people (2 families) telling me they weren’t coming about 3 weeks before the wedding which gave us our desired number 80!! But then 3 no shows, and 5 people left right after the ceremony. So we are saying we had about 70 guests. I would just invite your 100 not everyone will make it

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I totally get that and he may not be like me about this at all! Just trying to give you a little perspective from someone who is on the other side of the lopsided wedding

View Quoted Comment People you do not regularly call up and make plans with, in your family, whom you only see at other people's occasions, and family who have not been in your home or you in theirs for about 3 year, can be cut. Yes, a few will mind. For ten minutes. But if you are close enough in distance to visit, but neither of you bothers, you do not need to start by inviting them out to dinner for $200. If feelings get hurt, make a point of visiting them not at the wedding. Just out of the blue, or with a group of other extended family who would enjoy reconnecting at a small gathering. One of the strange things ( to me) on WW is that people act like the wedding is the only time they will see anyone for 5 years. Which elevates wedding invitations too much. Family you do not see or talk to directly for years at a time, you can see outside of wedding events. You know, the other 360 days a year? If you and they can not bother, or make the time, then it really will only hurt someone's pride to not be invited. Not an emotional thing. If you felt more strongly about each other, years would not go by between personal visits outside of special occasions . So make extended family cuts. But make a point of entertaining the people you cut, once you are a married couple. So they know, you still want to be in each other's lives, long term. It is the idea that you do not want to see each other again that is where feelings get hurt. Weddings are not so great.