Small wedding but big family

This may be something you two will need to compromise on. We made a rule that if either of us hadn't met the person, they weren't invited. The only exception was a long distance close friend who just doesn't get out our way very frequently. But we applied the rule for family, too.

Maybe cut it to immediate family only? parents, siblings, and grand parents?

I'm in the same dilemma I have a huge family and my FH family is divorced so theres 3 families to accommodate. I suggest looking at your budget and how many people you can afford without breaking the bank and if you haven't talked to these relatives in years . Don't invite them.

Start looking at numbers and figuring out what you can afford. You'll be surprised how much you realize you can cut down once you see how expensive it is and one thing that really helped my FH and I realize we have to make limits with our family is seeing the prices go up and up and up and up.

My rule was if I haven't talked to you or I have seen you in a year; you weren't invited. We are inviting only 65 people!

I had this same problem. I wanted to invite 100 people max and we ended up with a guest list of 300. Luckily, a lot of people were out of state and we only ended up with 140 people in attendance. Ultimately, we could afford the 300 so I gave in and let him invite over 100 people that I had never met before. It was one of the few things that actually seemed important to him.