Too many guests

How many people do you want to attend your wedding reception? And it also depends on how many people can fit at your Venue and what your budget is. If it was up to me and I had to split them up I would invite all my close family to my wedding and then maybe have a cocktail party for all my close friends after I was married. That is a tough call, my fiance and I invited over 250 people.

Guests are expensive, depending on the budget you are working with you're better off to cut the guest list to something you can afford from the get go.

We started with immediate family and friends we thought absolutely had to be there, we set a number we wanted to hit, and then we went from there until we hit that number. Sometimes its not feasible to invite everyone you know and love so we also used these three rules of thumb...1.) If you haven't talked on the phone or seen them in person in the last 6 months, they don't need to be invited. 2.) if you weren't invited to their wedding, they don't need to be invited to yours. 3.) If you aren't upset over the thought of them missing your wedding, they don't need to be invited in the first place.

Its easy to let your guest list get away from you but remember this is a day to be with nearest and dearest to celebrate.

That would be a tiered reception, and it's considered pretty rude. Worse than not inviting in the first place. Just explain that you have to keep it small, and while you would have loved to invite everyone, it just wasn't in the cards. Don't look at it as "cutting" your list. Start at 0 and build from there. Immediate family first. Then your closest friends. Still have room? Aunts, uncles, cousins...Add in circles, and while there will still be some hurt feelings, you can't make that your problem. You don't have to invite kids, and while you MUST invite couples in a relationship together, you don't have to give +1's to singles.

We had a similar situation and decided to do family-only besides a couple groomsmen/bridesmaids. The only kids invited are immediate cousins. We have about 50 people as of now.

We are inviting family of coarse, then when it came to friends if “we” have never done anything with that couple outside of running into them at places we didn’t invite them. We each have a couple really good friends from when we were little that are invited.

We have 210 people invited. We would love to invite so many more so we are given them invites to come to the dancing part of the reception so that we can still have everyone their.

I would just start making a list. Include people that absolutely have to come and then go from there. We invited over 300 people and planned for most of them to come, but only a little over half have RSVP'ed yes so far so it's working out in our favor (and our budget) and we are estimating to have about 220 max at the moment

We came up with a maximum number of people who we could afford to invite. Then we each made a list of family, and checked with our parents to make sure we included everyone important. We had room after inviting all family, so we started adding friends until we got to our max number. People will understand you can’t afford to invite everyone you know to the wedding. Maybe a few weeks later you could have a get together with friends who you couldn’t invite.

Could you have your ceremony and reception at a friend's house to save money? Or cater something cheaper, like BBQ? I would invite everyone you can to the wedding, the second venue just seems like a B list guesting event.

Definitely do not do the second reception - it basically will let people know they weren't important enough to be invited to the "real" wedding.

Just figure out your budget and how many people you can afford an invite from there - those who aren't invited will hopefully understand that you can't afford to host 300 people. Weddings are expensive - everybody knows that. Hopefully you have friends and family that get it an just want you guys to be happy.