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Expert November 2021

Guest list and budget mishap

Jade, on November 30, 2019 at 11:04 AM Posted in Planning 0 8

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When I first got engaged my FH and I decided on a 90 person wedding. Of course that didn’t last because we have so many important people to us so it went to 130. I talked to my dad and told him I would prefer a not big wedding and asked if he was going to invite his work friends. He invited about 16(ish) people to my sisters big wedding, but that just wouldn’t work with the wedding size we want. He was super on board with the wedding size and agreed that we didn’t need to invite them. So we went and picked a small venue that could just accommodate the amount of people on the list. We have room to add like maybe 2 people. We also budgeted around the 130 amount and I have bought a ton of stuff for the wedding based on the budget. The price of the venue includes food and drinks.

Well this weekend I come home (I live out of state for law school), and we’re at dinner and my dad mentions that he has a couple of people to add. So I’m like okay who? And he adds like 15 people! I totally started to panic because he is paying for the wedding so obviously I have to accommodate him. My FH thought it was funny and was kinda making it way worse until he realized that I was in a complete panic and in tears and then took my dad to go pay lol. So I went home and tried to remove people off the guest list but there was absolutely no one to remove. The only person that I could MAYBE remove is a friend from school that already knows he is invited and has expressed his excitement multiple times. Basically everyone on the list is a family friend or immediate family. We already removed all kids and are doing no plus ones. So then I ran the budget and this is just not doable. With the extra people we would be extremely close to hitting our budget. So we would basically have no cake, alterations for my dress, hair or makeup artists, flowers, DJ, photographer, invitations, etc. With the amount I had originally planned and budgeted for we have more than enough wiggle room.
So now I don’t know what to do. Like I said, my dad is paying so I want to do what he asks, but I asked him before we budgeted and picked a small venue if he was going to be inviting his friends and he said no. The guest list was finalized before we picked a venue and everyone agreed. He says they probably won’t go, but they MIGHT. They were at my sisters wedding when he said they probably wouldn’t go to that either, and most of them are closer to me. I have no idea what to do. We have time before we send invites out but I’m in school so I can only plan during my breaks so a ton of it will be decided now. Does anyone have any advice?

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8 Comments

Latest activity by Becca, on November 30, 2019 at 8:52 PM

VIP September 2020
Neeva · on November 30, 2019 at 11:33 AM
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If your dad's paying, why would you have to eliminate the cake etc because he invited more people? If he wants more people, he will have to pay for those people plus the original costs.
I think you need to get a hard stop from the venue about max capacity and if you are over, your dad will have to tell his friends they cannot come due to the capacity of the venue.
Sorry you have to stress about this!!
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Devoted December 2019
Jocelyn · on November 30, 2019 at 11:35 AM
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I'm a tad confused is dad paying for the venue? Plus the cake, alterations for my dress, hair or makeup artists, flowers, DJ, photographer, invitations, etc? If dad is paying for the venue I would let him know that 1.The room for venue is already at capacity because he said he wouldn't invite his work friends. 2. Tell him the amount that 15 extra people would be for him to pay. 3. You don't have the extra money to cover that cost because you have xyz to still pay for.
I don't understand why he would want work friends there unless you grew up with them and they are like uncles. Remind him of the guest limit and how you wanted a smaller wedding. Tell him you can accommodate 5 if anything. There's ways around to make the tables work if you are doing circle. I wouldn't invite anyone who you think wouldn't be able to go, just let him know to tell his work friends you decided on a small wedding and the guest list was small.
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Expert November 2021
Jade · on November 30, 2019 at 11:37 AM
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I guess I didn’t think about the budget that way, but I’m pretty sure the budget is a pretty strict one that we can’t add to for more people, so I’d be expected to remove people already on the list. The biggest thing is the venue so I’ll have to bring him when we next meet the venue so they can say something. He doesn’t understand that we can’t invite more than the venue can hold! Thanks for your reply!
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Master September 2019
Sarah · on November 30, 2019 at 11:40 AM
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“Dad, with our wedding only 3 months away and all our major vendors booked, we wouldn’t be able to invite 15 extra people with our budget. Is this something we can add for?” Your dad paying equals him having a say but it doesn’t equal him steamrolling you just before invitations should be going out.
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Legend November 2019
Caytlyn · on November 30, 2019 at 11:52 AM
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“We discussed our guest list prior to booking our venue and you confirmed that there was no one else you’d like to add. I’m sorry, we cannot accommodate any more guests.”
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Super September 2019
Courtney · on November 30, 2019 at 1:16 PM
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I understand this because my family went back and forth on not inviting people and then adding them to the list after we had basically finalised the list. The only difference was we luckily had plenty of room. I think it would be good to have the venue explain that there is no way to have more people that the max due to fire regulations etc. and to have a really honest conversation that you really appreciate his help with everything but at this point in planning there’s no way to add more people. I think you did what you could by asking for his list a long time ago. He agreed to not having his work friends-it’s not rude or ungrateful for you to ask him to honor that.
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Master July 2018
Mcskipper · on November 30, 2019 at 2:12 PM
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Yeah just because he’s paying doesnt mean he gets to change the whole plan last minute and you don’t have to flip your plans upside down to accommodate him. Have an open and honest conversation with him and say exactly what you’ve said here. You planned everything based on your initial conversation and desire to keep guest count manageable and with the way you’ve worked our venue and budget you don’t know how you could possibly accommodate them now even though you wish you could. The guestlist was set and the venue was chosen based on that number and you don’t want to risk inviting more people than you can actually host.
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Expert July 2019
Becca · on November 30, 2019 at 8:52 PM
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One thing you COULD do is tell your dad you will invite them as people decline. We had like 40 declines (245 people invited wanting 220) so we had room to invite people we wanted but couldn't accommodate at first. You could go this route. Then everyone gets what they want. His wishes are being honored given that they were last minute and you are still within your budget. I know people say "no b-list" but frankly, who cares. If people want to come to your wedding and love you guys, it won't matter if they were invited 1 month before the wedding or 3 months before.
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