I want a small wedding!

Can there be a compromise? Maybe invite mutual friends but not the football team.

This is a discussion you should be having with FH. Tell him how you feel. Your entire marriage will depend on communication and compromise. Its time to start...

Mutual friends and immediate family. No teams. No people from work.

Yeah, you need to talk with him and compromise. Starting a marriage with forcing him to do it your way is bad juju.

There is space between- you have to talk to him and figure out how many and how far his circle of friends he wants to invite is.

It's his day too.

This seems like a pretty simple solution. You host what you can afford and compromise on the guest list.

I think it's important to tie the money aspect into the discussion as well seeing as you mentioned it as one of the reasons you want a small wedding. Perhaps FH is willing to work extra, wait longer to be married, give up certain expenses to be able to afford hosting extra people and you should discuss that. There's a chance he doesn't actually realize what a bigger wedding costs so I would definitely price out two scenarios and you may find that you aren't that far apart in what you want.

I am all for the idea of compromise but to be fair we keep quite a tight circle so even if we invited all our mutual friends we would be pushing 35/40 guest tops, his argument for his team mates is he is going to invite them on the stag party therefore they should be invited to the wedding! I'm pretty sure the guys would be happy to go on a stag weekend and miss the wedding. We have spoken about it but have yet to come to an agreement, I feel like I'm already compromising because I would happily elope but neither family would forgive the exclusion so it's not an option, we have been together 9 years and have 2 children we are married in everything but name so I don't feel like we need a big day, I'd rather have a small wedding and a big European camping adventure with the girls as our honeymoon. Thanks for the advice ladies, I knew planning a wedding would be stressful but I feel like I'm falling at first hurdle!

I feel ya. Our family alone is 30 peeps and FH keeps inviting more and more people. We are sending invites to the U.K and Belgium. Not like these people will come but he wants to invite them. We are at close to 90. I am letting him have fun with it because I'm flattered that he wants all his dear friends to be present for our I do's.

I am hoping they RSVP no but still going forward with him inviting them.

Is it a guarantee that all these friends he is inviting will actually come?

I feel like it should be an equal decision and compromise.

If they are going to the bachlor party- they should technically be invited to the wedding- unless they host a separate party themselves. in which case- there really isn't anything to be done about it. (my friends did this for me- I felt awful- b/c they were the people I ACTUALLY wanted at the wedding- but it was super sweet of them to do it).

I'd raise the point that they might feel awkward at a family only affair.

That's a very good point, I'm not sure if they would come! But it would be very awkward if only a few friends came and were out numbered by the family!

As for the money situation so far FH has been surprised at how much a wedding costs so I was under the impression that he would want to keep numbers low, we can afford a very nice wedding but the money would be better spent on home improvements!