Problems with Guest List

My fiance and I actually chose a venue where we'd be limited to 120 people! We did this so that we couldn't be forced to include more and have our guest list multiply over time. Personally, I don't think it's wrong to not invite your whole family. I think only those who you are close to should be invited. Especially if you have a large family, it's tough (and expensive) to include everyone. If you're including everyone except one or two cousins, I would recommend inviting everyone, but if you're only inviting a select few relatives, I don't think it's an issue. I would choose the venue that you and your fiance want, and only invite those who you cannot imagine your day without. It's crazy how expensive it can be to add just a few people to your guest list.

If you do not regularly seek each other out, off the list. You are ot cutting them from the family. You will see each other at relatives, and can start a more direct friendship any time you want. Have a family reunion, even just of your generation, a year after you are married. This is a time you can talk for hours, discover that as you have grown up, some of your cousins are worth seeing again. Or, as in a recent venture of mine, not. But if you have not visited each other's homes, or called before traveling to their area, to make sure you get together, there is no need to invite them to your wedding.

I totally agree with Lisa. This is a wedding, not a family reunion. If your mom wants a family reunion, she can plan and pay for one after the wedding. LOL

Seriously though, don't back down on your vision of a smaller, more intimate experience for your wedding day. Anyone who is not in your life at present, except that they share a family name/blood, you can skip the invitations without guilt. You and your fiance stick together and plan the wedding you want, with your favorite people! That's what it's all about! Happy Planning!!

Even if you had an unlimited amount of guests allowed, I would still not invite anyone who you didn't care to have with you on one of the biggest days of your life. One thing I've learned from my time being engaged is that you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. There is no wedding police enforcing wedding laws.

If you don't see or speak to those friends or family members, cut them! You would be reserving a seat for and paying a wild price for this person to eat and drink, and it doesn't even matter to you that they're even there. If you look at your guest list with that mindset, you will narrow it down to exactly who should to be there. Good luck!

We had to institute a ‘closeness rule’ when looking at the list, which basically boiled down to- have we or would we do 1:1 time? Do we know 10 things about them? Who will we lose time with if we say hi to them? Are they worth it?

We cut our 200 person list in half. Our mothers weren’t happy at first, but this isn’t a family reunion. They finally understood after talking together about our wanting to talk with people and the money it saves to be selective. We figure with covid and the fact that some people don’t come anyways we’re at 70 or so. That’s much more palatable. They’ll actually get time with us. The cut people will understand more than we give them credit for.

Both my husband and I have small families and are not particularly close with those outside our immediate family, so its always so strange to me when people have 50+ family members at their wedding.

I feel like you should invite people who you are close to and who mean something to you. Sharing DNA with someone has nothing to do with what your relationship with them is like. I'd be more likely to invite my neighbors, whom I say hello to a few times a week when we see each other while out and about, than my aunt, whom I never talk to, don't care for, and share nothing in common with.

The only time I feel like a couple should consider the wants and wishes of their families when it comes to wedding planning is if the families are helping pay for the wedding. In our case, my mom and my husbands parents both gave us more than enough money to cover the cost of the individuals in their families they wanted us to invite, they only made a few requests, and we also had no problem with the people on their list. For me it is just my mom, my cousin, his wife, and their son (all of whom had met my husband previously); and I did not invite an aunt and other cousin whom I never speak with. For my husband it is his parents, his sister, and aunts (sisters of his parents) and their long-term partners (most of whom I had met), but no cousins. If their expectations had interfered with our vision for the wedding (for example, inviting a relative we didn't want there or inviting a lot of people when we wanted a small intimate event) they would have absolutely respected our wishes.

I have a pretty large family, his side not so much. He’s a firefighter so we have a fire family as well. If we invited all our family & friends, the guest list would have been 250+ which is something we didn’t want. I’m not going to invite cousins or family members that I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. We also wanted a no children ceremony. That cut the list down considerably. Even then we still had to make cuts as we wanted to keep the #s down to 100. We’re a little older & my siblings have 5 kids each (most out of the house). I had to tell them that their kids weren’t invited. We just couldn’t afford it. Thankfully they understood.

Honestly we're just inviting people we really want there. It's nothing personal but weddings are expensive, if we haven't spoken recently or if we can't go out to dinner with them . . they're not invited lol. It's your wedding, it's your day, it's your money . . do what you want (respectfully lol)

Invite only those you cannot imagine the day without. I have a huge extended family too..many cousins. I'm actually alot closer to them than my own parents and grandparents, even if we only chat on social media a handful of times per year.

In general, it depends on your family dynamic. And I do mean YOURS, not your mother's!

I have only seen my first cousins - both sides - one day in my entire life. No, they absolutely were not invited to my wedding.

My best friend, however, was an only child and her (very large) family was treated as just one big unit. Her cousins were on par with siblings. It would have been like not inviting her brothers and sisters if they weren't invited.

Now, these are the extremes. If you're somewhere in the middle, you have a choice.

I personally would not invite people whose phone numbers I don't have. That, to me, is a sign that they don't really belong at a life-changing event like your wedding. The whole "invite everyone you know and their pet cat" attitude toward weddings is going out of style.

When you look at your guest list, you should feel like every single person contributes to your lives and love in some way, in my opinion. If they don't, then they don't belong.