Guest List

Oh my gosh, I totally feel you on this! Just my family alone is 120+ people… that’s not counting FH‘s family or any of our friends! The guest list has been one of the hardest parts of wedding planning.

The wedding list truly is the hardest part. We would have had a guest list between 150 and 200 if we had done a more traditional wedding. Our only way around it was to invite immediately family and our absolute closest friends for a 40ish person wedding.

We wanted a total of 75 guest, but we ended up doing 100 guest instead. Which actually worked out because 12 were kids. It was hard at first but we definitely made it work. So I understand.

It was really hard! We ended up with 50 guests who attended our wedding out of our original guest list of 80. I was sad some of those who RSVP'd "no" couldn't come but it meant our wedding was the size we originally planned for before our guest list ballooned.



We limited the family invites to just parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles. Half of my family couldn't travel anyways due to covid restrictions, which reduced those numbers even further. It was so hard to tell people they didn't make the list but being able to share the livestream link actually helped me feel a little less guilty.

We livestreamed our ceremony so anyone who either didn't make the guest list (such as all the cousins) or couldn't attend (like my grandmother) still got to witness our marriage. It was super easy and I highly recommend it if you are anticipating any of your VIP guests not being able to be there in person!

Dear Lord it is driving me up a wall. Originally I wanted a 100 people wedding…. His family is 92 people…. So now we are having a 150 people wedding. Thankfully we can afford it, but oi I am going to be so peopled out by the end of the night.

We cut out second cousins, etc. We capped it at parents, siblings, grandparents, first cousins, aunts, uncles, and very close friends. Unless they were married or in a significant long term relationship, we didn’t give plus ones. We invited 100 and are expecting about 90 with half our guests traveling from out of town. It’s super hard to narrow down in general though. We were hoping for 70 max because we just didn’t want a larger group. We are thankful though for all our friends and family who are coming

Omg thank you for posting this. My husband and I were wondering the same thing! And it wasn’t just about the # of guests but the extra miscellaneous things. The rental fees, the Bartenders fees, the extra cost for soda, second dress, cake cutlery etc. It was so ridiculous to see that most of the money went to vendor fees vs the experience.

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Being an older bride, AND doing it again for the third time (LOLOL) I was able to block out a LOT of the pressure from media and other sources that promote the second dress, special cake cutting cutlery, favors, etc. MOST of our money is concentrated on super good food and a fabulous guest experience via DJ, photo booth and caricature artist. We discounted several venues because it involved a separate caterer and all their miscellaneous fees (linens, cutlery, wait staff and bartenders, etc) I think if you go in to wedding planning with ... well, with BLINDERS on, it is much easier. Like, stop listening to what all the hype is pushing, because 75% of it is unnecessary.