I'm struggling with intense guilt over the guest list. My partner and I decided we wanted a smaller destination wedding. We both sat down and wrote out who were most important people to us either lifelong friends or couples we're super close with - that also meant we wrote a "B" list with people we were friends with but who didn't 10000% have to attend. My biggest guilt is over a group of girlfriends. We've known each other for 6 years and used to work together. We no longer work together so we have a group text chat and we get together about once a year for dinner to catch up. There's 8 in total. There are 2 girls in this group that I am incredibly close with, I see them much more frequently and my partner & I spend time with as a couple. When we wrote the guest list, I immediately wrote down those 2 girls... the rest of them I put on the "b" list. I think I honestly thought that I would be able to invite them.
This group of girls are fun to be around, we always have a good time catching up in person annually. What I'm struggling with the most is that they ALL expected to be invited to my wedding, I am invited to one of their weddings a month before mine!! We all just got together last night for our annual dumplings dinner - first time seeing everyone (except the 2 i'm close with) since I got engaged before Thanksgiving - NONE of them congratulated me or commented on the ring. I know that sounds silly but another girl is engaged and has been since last summer, they kept asking about her ring, which we all saw back in September. I just left that dinner feeling so hurt and tried to put on a smile, I almost felt like I had to cover my ring.
While all that was happening our guest list kept getting bigger as we realized we needed to invite my partner's family (about 30 people) so our guest list is now 84. Our venue can only hold 90. My parents are graciously paying for the wedding and now have asked to invite some of their friends to the wedding. So i'm in pickle and feeling guilty because as of right now we a) can't afford to add more people to the guest list and b) my parents are inviting their friends. We've sent out almost all of our STDs to the super close friends & family and this girls group found that out before I was able to talk to them and let them know the situation.
I didn't want to tell them as a group over dinner, I felt that would be a crappy thing to do since 2 of the girls there are invited. But now I'm just at a loss.
I brought this up to my best friend last night, she said that real friends wouldn't be angry with me for not being invited if I told them the situation with the budget/venue size. I think I'm just looking for an outside opinion because this feeling is not fun and I'm upset. I think it's also, I'm a people pleaser and don't like the idea of hurting someone's feelings deep down (even though I'm 30!) Thoughts?
