Guest list without any outside obligations/expectations

Oh my gosh, it would be a HUGE difference. We are only wanting 40-50 people. If my parents had it their way, it would easily be at least 250.

We did it completely our way and only invited our parents.

Honestly, I don't think our list would have really differed. While my mother-in-law gave us a list pretty much everyone on it was going to be invited anyways as she literally included everyone in his family even the obvious ones like his siblings. My mom just asked to have her two friends who I probably would've invited anyways. My husband's older brother was the only person to make a request which was to bring his nanny with him so that him and his wife could enjoy the reception. Their children were in the wedding which was why they were there.

We'd probably have around 20-30 fewer people at our wedding.

We would have accidentally missed Hubby's godparents. His parents read our guest list, and said they wished we had invited them. Then FI did not realize we had forgotten them. We come from large families, and the few family friends we had were on our list before parents or family saw it. No one asked to add any more, and we did our friends when we knew the rest was set. One cousin of FI had married and we did not know it, so we added his new wife. But that was our oversight. I appreciated our parents' restraint, knowing we had a limited budget and respecting it.

We had a 61 guest count for our wedding. And we had full control of the guest list, neither of our families asked to include any one on our guest list, so I’m very surprised at how common parents controlling guest list is.

We had full control over our list from the beginning. Fortunately, our families are pretty chill.

The only things we asked for help from our parents on navigating were certain family groups who have issues with others (e.g., someone wouldn't show up if someone else was there, or would only go if a certain person was in attendance). But we ended up settling on inviting everyone and letting the people with the problems sort out their own issues.

We had to downsize our list significantly because of COVID, so it ended up being a non-issue.

If we had unlimited budget, space, and there wasn't a pandemic, we could've easily doubled our original guest count -- but we would've been dictating the list either way. Our parents might've suggested a handful of people, so the final number wouldn't have varied much.

My dad added 4 guests, 1 of which declined. So our guests list wouldn’t have really changed.
One thing I realized after our wedding is how big of an event this is for our families as well. Yes it is your day and your event. But our parents and families have been looking forward to this day too. To decline your families (parents especially) guest of their own to celebrate with is extremely rude and selfish. I get limiting how many they can add and keeping the list under control. But they should be allowed some guests.
For reference. First and last pic of the day of My dad. This was his face ALL. DAY. LONG. I have never seen him smile so big in my life

I come from a family where weddings involve inviting guests of the parents’ choosing (and grandparents’ choosing) in addition to those invited by the bride and groom and it is a big affair with lots of festivity. Our guest list is therefore sitting at 150 but to be honest, if it weren’t for them, I would have eloped with only our close family present.

We’re doing a big glitzy white wedding and had we had our guest list of about 50-60 people (without all the extras) I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Our guest list wouldn’t have been any different, no one else had any say in our wedding planning.

Generally, the couple only makes the final and only decision regarding the guest list if the couple are the ones paying for the wedding. Our parents played a significant role in determining our guest list because they paid for almost all of our wedding (both my parents and his parents split the wedding costs 50/50). It certainly would not have been fair for my husband and I to make important decisions about the guest list because the money wasn't coming out of our wallets. It didn't matter in the end because the number of guests for our wedding likely would have been the same anyway.

Because we’re middle aged we don’t have that outside pressure, but I do feel some “they would probably be upset if we didn’t invite them” pressure.
So far that’s about 5 people, so with their plus ones, it would be about 10.

View Quoted Comment Omg how ADORABLE is your dad?! 💕

View Quoted Comment This is a very good point. If parents are paying for the wedding, or contributing significantly, then I think the couple should certainly be more accommodating with the guest list. It definitely seems rude to allow parents to pay for an entire wedding, then deny them inviting guests that are important to them (within reason, of course)

We had full control of our list. While our parents did make requests, the people they requested were people we were happy to have with us.

My favorite request was from MIL. When we first got engaged, she asked us if we had put a family friend on the list. Considering this family friend is essentially a Bonus Grandma to DH, SIL, AND me, my response was, "She's under family, already!'

Then, when it became clear my mother and her family weren't coming, my dad asked for his frat brother and his wife. He had wanted to invite them before, but my mother doesn't mix well with them.

I was ecstatic to invite people I consider my aunt and uncle, because they've been in my life since before I was born!

We did it our way completely for our minimony and we are doing the same for our upcoming big wedding in March. We are paying for it ourselves so literally no one else has a say and honestly no one has tried to force us into inviting others.

It would be a large difference haha! Our count is 190 and that's our final guest list count. We aren't adding anyone else in since we've already ordered STDs.

If it was up to our parents, then we'd have upwards 300....both of our mother's gave us their lists when we began planning, and they had numerous people on their that neither of us had heard of or remembered lol. It was mostly people that knew us when we were really little, but we haven't spoken to them since. Others were just friends of our parents only.

FH and I are paying and so we’re in 100% control of all the planning. But no one has tried to impose either. We currently have a max of 70 guests invited who are truly close to us and we communicate with/see on a regular. But if my parents were able to invite guests, the count would certainly increase and my joy about the wedding would decrease Lol! FH and I refuse to have any “just because” guests at our special event (ex: Parents’ friends or even family members who haven’t seen/spoken us in months/years... old college friends who we rarely communicate with... the entire office when we’re not close to all of our coworkers).

We're pretty much in total control of the guest list but some of my FH's family are only included because his mother wants them included. No one has tried to impose other than people requesting to be invited. While our families are excited for us and would love to be there, they all understand how much goes into planning a wedding and wouldn't be offended if they weren't invited. A lot of the married couples in my family eloped or had small weddings so its not a big deal for us.

My guest list would have been SO different. in my culture though it's customary for your parents to invite their friends. so if i hadn't allowed that, my guest list would have gone from 250 to something like 160.