Who comes to the bridal shower?

Obviously only women who are invited to your wedding should be invited to your shower. But not all of them. I invited my female relatives (grandmas, aunts, cousins), some of my close friends, and some of the other women invited to the wedding who I would love to have with me at my shower. And who I know would really want to be there. I think keeping the count under 50 is a good idea, but that depends more on where the shower is being held.

I think I ended up with a total guest count of 47. It was 46, until FH’s grandmother’s sister invited herself. Sigh.

Only women who are invited to the wedding, typically close female relatives and friends. Talk with your bridesmaids about if they have a maximum for a guest list - if it's going to be hosted in someone's home, which is common, they might not want more than a certain amount of people. Usually the bride just provides a guest list and addresses within that number and then the hosts will plan the actual shower.

Usually it's only women but some people are choosing to have co-ed showers these days. Either way you should your closet friends and family out of the people coming to the wedding. For me, it was literally every female wedding guest except one. The reason being that we only had 35 people at our wedding and so if you looked at just the women that was the list of who I would have invited to the shower even if we'd had a 300 people wedding. The one woman was left out because she was the only person at the wedding I had never met before. She was the wife of a friend of my fathers.

To me, the best place to start is asking whoever is hosting the shower how many people she can handle. This is usually considered the polite thing to do. If I were throwing a shower it would likely be about 20. Then come up with a list that is at or under that number.

You can invite any female invited to the wedding but a lot of people like to keep it a little more close knit. I did only related girls (aunts, sisters) and my bridesmaids. My shower was out of town for most of my friends so I didn't want to ask them to travel. It was also hosted by family so it made sense to keep it family orientated.

Agree with PP.

But first I think you need to ask your bridesmaids how many people they would be comfortable hosting and go from there.

I am inviting all the girls/women that were invited to my wedding. Even those who can't attend. They were special enough to be invited and I would want them at the shower too.

Like PPs have said, it is only people who are invited to the wedding and it should be a smaller more close-knit group. I'm inviting 235 people to my wedding, and about 20-30 people to the bridal shower (immediate female family of my and FH's family, bridesmaids, some other super close friends).

Definitely agree with @E&M's suggestion to see how many people your bridesmaids are comfortable hosting!!

Also, my main argument against giant bridal showers is: do you have any clue how long it takes to open gifts? A loong time and much longer the more guests there

I am inviting 30 people to my shower -- the women in my family, my friends in the area, and fh's close female family (mother, grandmothers, fsil, sister).

They will ask you who want there because they have to get the addresses from someone. I think it should be people you're really close with. I'm doing both of our family (mothers, grandmothers, his aunt and cousin), friends and close friends of our family that we've been close to for many years.

The right number of people will be different for everyone. To determine what's right for you 1. Ask the host(s) how many people they can accommodate 2. Decide who is close enough with you to invite. For me, that was female relatives from my side, 3 female relatives from FH's side, my friends, and a few of FH's female friends/friends' wives who I've grown closer with. That is about 35 people.

I have about 45 ladies invite,d but I know that most of my bridesmaids (all out of state) won't make, it ditto my grandmother. My aunt is due to give birth the week before, as is one of my sisters, and another from out of state won't make it. Which drops the list down to 38. Of that probably another 5-10 won't come, but they were close family friends that needed to be invited regardless of whether they'd be in town or not.