Wedding Blog
Finalizing your guest list is one of those wedding related tasks that is filled with drama for most couples. How many people for the bride’s parents, the groom’s parents, the bride and groom? Does the person paying for the bulk of the wedding affect who gets invited? What if there is a big conflict over family members?
I had a pretty straightforward rule while narrowing down our guest list — I didn’t want to say “Thank you for coming,” while thinking “who is that?!” Because we kept it small (invited 70, ended up with 45 in attendance), Mr. Onion and I were really able to share our celebration with our closest family and friends. This is not to say all the decisions were easy.
There were two people we didn’t invite — my sisters. I know — I can hear the gasps now! Well, actually, they are my half sisters (my father’s girls from his first marriage). Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say, they would take the focus away from the happy couple. It was my father’s decision not to invite them and he was the one to tell them they wouldn’t be coming.
So, I want to support those of you who are struggling with their guest list and whether or not to invite that questionable relative. I will say, once all the excitement calms down — it will be OK not to have them there. It’s a choice I’m proud of my father for making.
Have any of your gone through something similar? Please share you stories and how you handled the situation — I’m sure it will be a great comfort to other bees and readers to know they aren’t alone.
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We both are envisioning a small, intimate affair without alot of fuss. Not to mention, our budget will only allow us to invite those closest to us. We had considered eloping, just the 2 of us for quite some time, but opted to have a small ceremony celebration instead.
Bob and I are hosting a VERY SMALL surprise wedding and the guest list is definitely a hot topic around our house these days. We simply had to draw the line at immediate family members and to be fair, each of us is inviting one friend along with their significant other. I’m sure after the big day has come and gone, we are going to get the “well how come I/we weren’t invited” question, but we’ll tackle that hurdle when the time comes, hopefully without any hurt feelings.
First let me say how much I admire you for having a guest list of only 70 people! i really wanted a smaller wedding but there were just too many people.
Honestly, there will be people at our wedding that I have never met before, but many of them will Mr R’s family whom I have never met because they are out of state, and I think that will be fun.
We also had a small wedding - invited just over 70, ended up with 65 or so folks. Even with that few, it still felt like a bit of a whirlwind!
My DH has a large extended family he barely knows, and if we invited a few of them, it would have ballooned to about 40 out of “fairness”. We (and his parents) decided to only invite the elders from this branch. It worked out ok, I think, but it’s a little awkward seeing each of these peeps for the first time afterwards.
We’re shooting for somewhere around 150 guests and right now we are 10 shy of that with invitations alone. My major challenge seems to be finding more people to send invitations to in order to meet our goal of 150 people! A major challenge for me is this list of people who I’m not to invite per request of my parents. Surprisingly enough my side of the family is going to be represented by only half as many people as my FH’s. For a myriad of reasons there has been lots of family drama on my side and because of this there’s a major divide in the family. It’s sad and honestly there is only one person (out of the list of 20-something) I am adamant about not inviting.
*shrug* What can you do?
Mrs. Onion,
I totally understand your situation. Both my and sister and my fiance’s brother are the types that would “take the focus away from the happy couple” to say the least. We decided we wanted to have a day where we’re surrounded by those who love us and who we love in return, so we’re not inviting either of our siblings. My mother in particular is not happy with my decision to not invite my sister, but it was the only way I could look forward to the day. As for how I dealt with my mom….after she gave me a hard time about it, crying every time she saw me, I told her I couldn’t deal with it anymore, and that I needed her to accept it and move on. Luckily, I was completely supported by my father in this. Props to your father for the decision he made and for supporting you so fully!
Here’s to a great wedding day surrounded by the people who really matter!
Thanks for this great post! You read all this advice and etiquette stuff that says cut friends first, never family. Frankly, we all have friends that fit the definition of what family should be more completely than actual family!
Thanks!
thanks for the post. i will be cutting out the cousins…seems harsh but we’re not close enough to where i would feel like i missed not having them there. plus, if i invited the cousins [even without their kids] i wouldn’t be able to invite ANY friends, even the ones i really couldn’t imagine not being there.
thankfully my parents are fine with this and think it’s a good idea [it'll be my dad's side that i will be cutting out].
My husband’s sister didn’t even tell their dad she was getting married! I think to this day he still thinks they had a destination wedding of some type at the beach - which is what they told him to spare some of his feelings.
We did invite him to the wedding - but only the wedding. Not all of the other activities we had planned for three days with all of our other family.
Our wedding was small and mainly family too. I think we had 52 in attendance, including us. Some of my friends were sad to miss it - but understood I wanted it to be intimate.
I’m a numbers person - so I think it’s fun to look at the numbers - the breakdown.
2 - Bride & Groom
14 - My Family
25 - His Family
6 - My best friends plus 2 SO’s
5 - Close friends who also happened to be preacher + wife and photographer + wife & child
Of the 52, 10 were kids ranging from 2 mos - 12 years! 4 adults - 1 kid, not many weddings have that ratio! It was all the people we wanted to share this special day with!
we kept our wedding small too, invited 75, got 75. but with my family being so large, we kept it to the people we were the closest to and that was that, grandparents,1 set of aunt / uncle.
and my dad took to telling the rest of the family about it, (it was his side anyway.)
he just explained that as we were paying for most of it ourselves, and we have 1 in school and a 16 month old baby, it was cost efficiant to do it this way and they could have as many pictures as they wanted.
i have a huge family & i think the hardest part is coming across as “fair” / “unfair” regarding family members who you may see more often & be closer to, who happen to have the same “title” as others you don’t feel as close to. for example, i have 30+ cousins & i see all of them but 4 (all from 1 family) at least 2-3 times a year at family events. but my mom wants me to invite those 4 cousins even though i haven’t seen them in 8+ yrs because it could be a great time to “heal” family issues that occured then (however i dont really feel like footing the bill for family healing session). Then there are my cousins kids, some of which i see quite often and want there, and others that i would be fine not inviting. i always read the “if you invite one you must invite them all” advice on ettiquette sites… i think you should invite who you want!
I understand… I’m not inviting my father… or his family. There are some that I wanted to invite but decided to go the all or nothing route. I didn’t want my day to focus on the fact that he wasn’t there.
Ugh - the guest list has been a total nightmare. We picked a venue that only holds 120 and are having a destination wedding and I am still afraid that we will end up over! I really didn’t want anyone there who FI or I don’t know, but my parents’ are being kind of a PITA about the whole thing. I wanted my wedding to be in front of people who love us and support us in our relationship, which means they ought to KNOW us. But there are certain people we’ve never met whom my parents are insisting on inviting. It annoys me, but I hate fighting so now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that these people won’t show up! 
Wanted 65, invited 70, got 65 (including us!)
I wasn’t sure what to expect with our guest list since I’d never invited people to a big party before. I knew that I didn’t want any strangers, and got my wish for the most part.
There was a flap over inviting my guy’s grandmother’s boyfriend though. Seven months before the wedding he made a completely inappropriate comment to me after I had bent down to pick something up. We were adamant that he was not coming. That side of the family had the good enough sense not to ask since we made it clear we didn’t like him.
However another family member decided to throw daggers our way on our wedding day for this (and for stressing his grandmother out about us not liking said boyfriend). As my guy came down the aisle, she glared at him and was completely icy the rest of the reception. It kind of had us wondering why the heck she even came if she felt that way about us. But there were pleny of other people there who were really happy for us, so it was easy to just ignore them.
Kami…just send out the invitations late. 
Thank you for posting this! We are now finalizing the guest list and have issues with who I *don’t* want to invite and my mom thinks I need to.
I have an aunt who divorced out of the family (was my uncle’s wife, who is blood related) and she changed her name back after the divorce. She wants nothing to do with our family. The divorce was years ago and we never see her. Why should I invite her? Also, her kids, which yes, are my cousins, but 1 is a bitch (can I say that here?) and treated us like crap at her wedding 2 years ago. We took a 4-day weekend to travel and attend her event and when we arrived were suddenly dis-invited from the rehearsal dinner, no excuse given, and at the reception were seated at the last table in the back with other “I had to invite them but didn’t want to” guests. This was no doubt her mom’s doing (previously mentioned aunt). And the horrible treatment goes on and on, continues to this day, too much to mention.
So I am of the mindset that I do not need to invite them and my mom thinks otherwise . . . did I mention our guest list cannot exceed 43 because 45 is the max capacity at our small reception venue? I feel like I will be wasting 3 - 6 invitations on people who don’t even care about us.
All FI and I want is a small intimate event with our loved ones.
I say we all take a vow to not give our children hell when it comes to wedding invitations. This is such a headache.
Mrs. Onion, I’m always amazed that things brides might think are “out there” so often actually apply to other brides as well! In my case, the big question is over my step-sisters…. We were fairly close growing up, but my mother and step-father had an ugly divorce about 5 years ago, and I haven’t seen them since. (My closest sister did NOT invite me to her wedding.)
When the question of what to do about the sisters came up, my mother suggested I invite them in order to “be the bigger person” and “extend the olive branch” and whatnot. I like that idea in theory, but just don’t know that I have the energy to deal with the drama at such a stressful (though wonderful!) time.
Your will power (and parental support) is admirable! I totally wasn’t paying attention to my own guest list, and what started out as an intimate 35 ballooned into 68! We tried to be all-inclusive, but when it comes down to it, a lot of them are traveling a long way and would have understood had they not gotten an invite.
I’m going through a bit of an issue with this myself. We are not inviting ANY of my father’s family (the only one that will be there will be one of his step-brothers because he is our photographer - I suppose I could have chosen another, but he is one of the best in our city). From my mom’s family we are inviting only her brother, sister, their spouses and their children (my cousins). From my fiance’s it gets more complicated. His father’s sister, her husband and their 3 kids are invited. His brother and his brother’s wife are not invited, as well as ONE of his sons. The other son IS invited (awkward!). My fiance’s mother has 3 brothers. NONE of them are invited. Out of 150 invites (including the guests of our guests) we have only FIFTEEN family members! Drama, drama, drama (My FMIL’s brothers don’t even know whe are engaged yet!)
Rather than using the “fairness” excuse to invite more people, whenever someone (coughMILcough) brought it up, we’d say “Hey, thanks for pointing that out! In order to really make it fair, we should NOT invite this other group.”
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Miss Onion, NYC/Burlington, VT
Age and Occupation: 27, PR & Marketing and Jazz Singer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Data Analyst
Engagement Date: April 2, 2006
Wedding Date: September 2007
Blogging Since: July 11, 2007
Venue: Restaurant in Burlington
About Me: I didn't think I'd be "that girl," but I am having so much fun planning our wedding (mostly by myself). I'm a PR and Marketing Director for a major jazz festival and camp by day, and by night, a romantic jazz singer and bride-to-be! I hope all my research can help other brides in their planning.
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