What’s a wedding without guests, right? And if you don’t have guests, well, you may as well elope.
Figuring out our guest list had Kyle and I seriously consider eloping. It was a PAIN. Since we are absorbing the majority of the cost to have our wedding, keeping a tight grasp on the guest list was important, but at the same time, deciding who we wanted to come was a HUGE battle.
It was all a matter of where to draw the line. Stop after immediate family and their spouses? Invite cousins? What about distant relatives such as great aunts and uncles? The mailman? Okay, you get my point.
We really wanted to keep our guest list under 100 people and to do that we HAD to cut people out. Not everyone was so keen on the cuts we made, but it was all about cost, sadly.
The harding thing was going to be telling my family that they couldn’t bring their kids. I have a lot of younger cousins on my mom’s side of the family, and not all young kids are gung-ho when it comes to sitting through a wedding reception and behaving. Plus, I still have to pay the $20/head for their meals, and they would probably only eat 1/3 of what an adult would eat. Not so cool on my bank account. Our solution? Adult-only reception. Brilliant! One of my cousins is old enough to babysit, so after the ceremony my mom is turning her house into a child care center and all the kiddos will hang out there. Woo!
Another hard decision was inviting the “hard to deal with” relatives. There’s a lot of conflict between family members on either side of Kyle and I’s family, so deciding who to invite and who not to invite was again, hard. In the end, we decided to invite everyone who deserved an invitation. After all, it was OUR wedding, and if people can’t get along for one day then they don’t have to come. It should be interesting to see how this all plays out, but the “rules” have been made clear to all conflicting parties.
Figuring out who to invite was by far the most difficult part of the wedding planning process. I hate letting people down and leaving people out, but sometimes, you have to draw a line. It was hard to initially draw it, but really, I don’t think any feelings were hurt.
Where would you draw the line if you were paying for your own wedding?
Oh yeah – And if you didn’t notice- I went and made a snazzy button! I guess being sick hasn’t hindered all my creativity.
She Writes Words 
We had a hard time with the guest list too – Nathan’s parents have a lot of friends and they wanted us to invite … well, it seemed like they wanted us to invite everyone they had ever met! We said no to kids at the reception (though some parents brought them anyway!) and no to relatives we had never met – there were a few ruffled feathers (and a few people who showed up uninvited) but all in all, it worked well :D
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Yeah, I think a wedding isn’t a wedding without a few ruffled feathers, lol! I couldn’t imagine someone showing up uninvited to our wedding. I don’t know what I would do if that happened!
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OMG THE GUEST LIST.
ARGH ARGH ARGH.
Here’s the thing. I am super, duper close with my mom’s side of the family. My dad’s side? Not so much. I don’t want a bunch of people there who I’m not even close to and don’t really “care” about.
Our solution is NO extended family (when I say that I mean like second cousins, great-aunts etc.) I am super close with my mom’s siblings so it’s important they are there. And we are going to be having a big BBQ/2nd-reception type thing up in FSJ in the fall and invite all the extended family to that.
Our venue caps at 109 guests anyways, but I really want to have like 70ish. Already our draft guest list is at 96! Jeesh! Eric’s side of the family is so easy. He has 29 people, that’s it, that’s all. The rest are all MY family and friends.
I am going to do a big password-protected post about our guest list soon because there is more to the story but I’m too nervous to leave it in a comment. Hehe
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You best be handing over that password! ;)
By the way – I love your idea of a weekday “destination” wedding. It’ll help keep costs back definitely!
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Other than the family-in-law drama, the guest list was by far the most stressful thing! Looking back, I totally would’ve had a destination wedding – that way we wouldn’t have had to worry about all those people you “should” invite because they’re family, but in reality you only see them once every ten years. We paid for about 70% of our wedding, and his parents paid for the food at the reception (since it was 90% his family attending, lol) and half the drinks. I barely knew anyone there, but we had to invite all his extended family because it was right before Christmas, and every Christmas his mum has a big family get together and didn’t want to leave anyone out…
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UM. We will def be paying for the wedding (his side are dirt poor and I have been financially independent since 17. Even if they offer, I won’t accept as I want full control).
We both have large families (we both have one parent with 10 siblings) and so large extended families. The thing is, all of mine are in other countries and we’re not close. So I probably won’t feel bad about not inviting them. I guess the shit will fly when we do start planning and sit down with our parents to talk about the guest list! I really want it small and intimate not just for my sanity and wallet but because I know a big thing will stress me out and I’d rather spend time with people I love…which is maybe 20 friends, my immediate family and my aunt’s family who are our only kin in NZ.
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