Guest list "slippery slope"

If you are paying for the wedding yourself but it is important for family members to invite someone over the limit you set based on your budget, tell them that you would be happy to accommodate if they would be happy to cover the cost associated. Unless it is actually going over the capacity of the venue you don’t need to worry just because it is approaching max, and it is unlikely that every single individual will be able to attend

My grandmother is over the top. Apparently she invited a TON of people to my parents wedding.
I gave my grandma a list. It went 1-10. She was allowed 10 guests.
My mom got 20 for her and my father. (They used like 12.)We lucked out because FBIL got married 2 years ago, so FMIL just gave us that list and we went off it... she actually subtracted a few people too.But yeah, we just got ahead of the game and tried to limit parental guests since it's our wedding, and not theirs.

We planned and paid for our own wedding. We only invited people we wanted there.

We had this same issue. I wanted to invite 75 people, but my wife's family is quite large. Her mother provided us with a guest list of over 35 people of just "her people". I agreed to raise the guest list number to 100, and next thing I knew, we were inviting 113 people.

I eventually told my then fiancee that we each got to invite 50 people, for a total of 100, so to choose wisely. Both sets of parents made concessions on their invites and we invited the friends we wanted there. We still went a little over on invite count, but putting your foot down is the only way to keep your guest list from going completely over a cliff!

Maybe compromise with a “B list” if someone from the “a list” (people you’ve already invited) can’t come, then that person can be invited.

Yesss. I am on that struggle bus. We started with 135 guests. And nowwwwww we are at 172. Goodness. Send help! It's definitely not going up more than that. We shall see what the RSVP in March reveals.

I am in the same boat! My fiance is a social butterfly, so we see one friend we haven't talked to in 4 years and it turns into "we should invite them to the wedding". How about no haha. You just have to put your foot down is all!

I'm actually having this issue with my FMIL also. Our guest count when we sent out the save the dates was 290, now when sending the invitations we are at 322... and she still is trying to add more people. But with our wedding only a few months out i am completely done adding people. I would try to say something now so it doesn't get out of control like mine is at the moment. Good luck!

Luckily for us we paid for our own wedding so we dictated the guest list, but if others are paying for it you need to give them the ability to invite some of their friends. I would suggest giving them a firm number and if they want to add someone tell them they need to take someone else off because you will be over your number.

Part of the issue is that I have 76 in my close family (that doesn't even cover extended family. ha!) whereas he has 17 living relatives in total. I'm mostly only inviting family whereas my fiance wants to feel like he has people there loving and supporting him. I'm trying to be empathetic for him, but it's hard to tell if he's inviting people because he wants them there or because he wants bodies on "his side" (which we're not even doing sides). We had only planned on a wedding of about 125, so if he's trying to compensate for my family we're going to be way over. Eep!

Omg we have been dealing with this for the past 3 months...we have gone from 55 to 120 to 70 now to 105....we had couples bringing children and guests that weren't invited ....uhg

I'm starting to make some progress now. We're inviting a friend and her brother as two rather than letting each bring a plus one. I also learned that two of a my friends are pregnant and due around the time of my wedding, but rather than that counting as additional with the newborns they won't be able to make it to the wedding. But yes, I'll be happy when all the number fluctuations settle down soon!

I'm gonna tell you like steve harvey would say. "Go with your budget and the ones that are "Close" to you and your FH." If you are the ones paying. Usually with those words the list drasticallly drops LOL. I am getting married in July 11 2020. We are paying for our own and alot of it is DIY. I had only 20 guests since I got engaged in June 2019. its now down to 3 or 4 hell we could put the extra cash towards our honeymoon. Its YOUR day Do what YOU want??

My fiancé and I are really struggling with this right now. I feel like it's not just one more person especially if they have a significant other then it's 2 people and that's 2 more people to pay for and figure out where they'll sit etc. It's so hard to find the balance. I bought a wedding planning book that talks about how to cut people from the list and a big deciding factor is "Will you consistently have this person in your life AFTER the wedding?" and if the answer is no then they shouldn't come to your special day. Hope that helps!