Wedding Blog
I admit, when this whole wedding shebang began, I was very naive. I have been obsessed with everything weddings for quite sometime, but even despite that, I never understood all the drama when it came to the issue of the guest list. I just figured we would invite who we wanted and no one we didn’t. Easy peasy, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong, SO VERY WRONG!
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I kid! I kid!
Our list venture began innocently enough; we asked both sets of parents to come up with a rough list of the people they would like to invite while we came up with ours, as well. The only problem was, when it all came together, we had over 450 people! Now, we weren’t planning on having an intimate affair, but this was no Platinum Wedding either!
So, we took a good long look and got real about who we should and should not be including.
Mr. Cloud and I both started to realize very quickly that this was not going to be easy, and we needed to set some clear guidelines for all sides to abide by. Little did we know, even clear rules would cause a small uproar.
Rule #1 – If we had never met the person or did not recognize the name after simple recognition, they were off. Yeah, we are cutthroat like that. The hardest part of this rule is the fact that we are super lucky, and my parents are paying for this wedding. How could I tell my dad that he couldn’t invite his long lost army buddy who I met briefly at the age of two? Despite some protests, we eventually weaned some folks off, mostly people we think won’t miss the invite, anyway. And dad got on board as he started to see dollar signs and realized what kind of budget we would be looking at with a huge guest list.
Rule #2 – People with the “& Guest” option would be severely limited. I hate to say it, but Mr. Cloud’s groomsmen have been known to bring some interesting ladies around. And most of them don’t stick around long. So we kept the date and guest option very limited.
Rule #3 (and the biggest conflict to date) – We will be having an adults-only affair. Don’t get me wrong, we both love kids; in fact, we have both a flower girl and ring bearer in our party. Unfortunately, I have a huge family, and we know a lot of people with young kids, and our venue’s head count is the same price no matter the age, be it 8 or 48. While the biggest reason is the budget and the head count, we also made this decision based on some recent weddings we have been to. I want our friends to be able to enjoy themselves and not be worried about what their kids are doing and how they are behaving. We braced ourselves to have to explain this decision, but surprisingly most parents that we have told have been really excited about it. In fact, one friend was all-out ecstatic and is considering the whole weekend as a vacation! Some people have been unhappy, saying they won’t come if their kids can’t. But, It is our decision, and we are just going to have to take it as one of the ways we won’t be able to please everyone, no matter what decision we make. We will be offering a babysitter for our bridal party’s little ones, and also will offer that service to anyone else who would like to take advantage. We figured that was a good compromise to give people options, without having to sacrifice our adult guests.
These three rules brought our number to just over 200 people – a HUGE difference!
How did you trim your list? Did your decisions ruffle any feathers?
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We used the same rule about not recognizing names. Mr. K also wanted to invite some of his old high school friends, but in 4 years of dating he hadn’t seen or talked to any of them! They didn’t make the cut.
Our parents are helping with the wedding, but so are we at almost equal parts, so it has been surprisingly easy. Our parents flat out told us we invite who we want and don’t invite the ones we want. That means we did invite some family friends, but not everyone. We. Are. Lucky. I guess FFIL got a tad upset he couldn’t invite his dear friend whom FI and I have never met, but FMIL reminded FFIL that this is our wedding and we could have them over for a BBQ or be at the pre-wedding BBQ or something. He understood and that was the end of it. ::whew::
We used the same rule about not recognizing the names our parents gave us. We are paying for the wedding so we had a bit more leverage.
We tried to make it adults only, because alot of my FFIL’s friends have a lot of kids. We love kids but couldn’t see inviting kids we had never even met. However, my FMIL’s family was very very upset about this, so we ended up deciding out of town children only. I wasn’t very happy with the double standard, but my FI’s parents are explaining it to everyone, so hopefully it works out ok.
Oh, Miss Cloud, I hear you!
Since all of us (both families and the Stars) are chipping in for the wedding together, we had a little more leeway, but it was still really hard. We wanted to keep it under 100, which made our rules a lot stricter.
We agreed that if we hadn’t both met the person, they were out, then gave each side five exceptions to that rule to allow for close family friends who had been absent from our lives for a few years.
We also instituted a 21 and up rule that is only excepted by our siblings, some of whom aren’t that old. We’ll see how this one holds up.
Wish us luck!
we are also doing adults only but we know that hav ing a wedding on halloween kind of works in our favor that way. it wouldnt be fair to have kids come to the reception and not be trick or treating. so we sent save the dates with adult reception to follow on them and hope that lets parents know i they want to come, have either 1 someone else take them, or 2 plan on not being at the wedding. end of story. but i feel your pain on not being able to please everyone. just gotta do what you can afford and want to do.
just went to a wedding this weekend where the ringbearer was the ONLY kid at the reception and he was screaming for the first dance. not ok. i would not want that. i know kids are kids, but i dont want that happening there.
Since we are paying for the wedding, our rules were: #1 immediate and closest family, #2 immediate and closest friends, #3 family that should be invited, #4 friends that should be invited if we have room, and #5 really important people that our parents feel they want to invite (my mom’s best friend and his mom’s two guests).
Luckily, our venue caps off our guest list at 120 (yes!), so will be very strict about “and Guests.” As far as children, it’s optional for our guests. There are children in my family and I just can’t (it would be rude from my part) to tell my family that their children can’t attend. It’s pretty much optional. It will be their decision whether they want to worry about their children all night. We pay less for teenagers and even less for children. Some friends with children have already told us they won’t be bringing their kids.
How are you handling the sitter situation?
I’m at a total loss here, we’ve decided on no-kids too (not even a ring-bearer or flower girl), but I’m not sure where i can “station” the sitter.
Miss Cloud, we did the same thing regarding the no kids rule and it created the first and only fight my FMIL and I have had yet! Her sister has three boys, ranging in ages 11 to 15. She said they don’t count as kids because they were teenagers. I wanted to know how I invited the 3 boys but then had to tell, say, my cousins they couldn’t bring their 4 year olds? It was a fiasco that I just ended up giving into… luckily, my cousins are more than excited to leave their kids home and are making a weekend out of it much like your guests!
We are at stage number one right now, just a few week a go i panic over FI first estimated list, this is a really helpful post to me, so we can figure ways to cut it down 
I hear ya on not being able to please everyone! My fiance’s grandmother sent over a list of about 15 couples, none of which he had ever met that she wanted us to send invites to! We had to explain to her that if we were inviting 30 more people, it should be people that WE know that didn’t quite make the cut, not people we had never met!
We decided on no small children and made the cut off 14 years of age or older (with the exception of kids in the bridal party). We’ve already received stink about this from my FSIL who is worried about a family friend who wouldn’t make the cut off.
My parents are graciously paying for our wedding (they told me it’s “a privilege” to pay for it, and we certainly aren’t turning that down!) but that means the guest list includes a bunch of people I don’t know (like my mom’s cousin across the country). She’s guessing a lot of people won’t come, but says they will appreciate being invited… I hope this is the case. As for kids, our flower girls and my little cousin will be at the party. We are hoping that everyone else will treat this as a chance to get a night out away from the kids. A few out of town friends have little ones, but they can put them to sleep early at the hotel the reception is at, and come back to party. Good luck to everyone as they battle through their guest list woes!
I am actually paying for the entire wedding myself so I’ve always felt that I had the final say in all things. We decided to solve the problem of families/kids by adding an additional line to the Response cards:
____ seats will be reserved in your honor
Our venue charges less for people under 21 and even less for kids so we have no preference on age. For families who had children we invited 2 and left it up to the parents to decide who will attend. Some parents are leaving their kids at home, some aren’t coming, some are coming as a single plus a kid. This way people know how many can come and can decide what is easiest for them!
We were in a similar situation. If we did not recognize the name, they weren’t on the list. It only seemed right, and my parents pretty much agreed. We are having an adults-only affair, as well, mostly because I don’t think kids really belong at a wedding reception and secondly, we have a TON of kids in my family. Plus, we limited our “& guest” as well. We took the point of view that if we didn’t know who you were dating, it did not seem right to give you the option to bring some rando to the wedding. I know some people feel differently about this, but we have some friends that would bring some not-so-welcome people as their dates.
I hear ya! We had the same rules exactly! I put on our wedding website a little blurb explaining our decision about no kids and + 1 guests so they knew why we were doing it. We haven’t had any complaints so far!
Ya, its hard… cutting down. #3 was a hard one for us too… but we ended up having kids at our wedding. (15 kids - not sooo much but still)
We’re inviting only “immediate” extended family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.) and VERY close friends (two family friends, and a couple friends of my fiance and I). We’re unsure as to whether or not we’re going to allow kids. Our guest list is 80 with them…but we’d prefer to have it lower. =/ Unfortunately, it would most likely alienate some of his aunts, BIG TIME, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Thankfully, we have plenty of time to decide! =)
Whatever your rules are, its YOUR day and the guest list just has to be trimmed down. Not everyone will be happy so what matters is that you and the ones you love most are
Our solution to cut down the guest list: A destination wedding VERY far away. It was all we could do to limit what would be 350 person wedding in our hometown. It just isn’t possible!! Now we will likely have 50 guests in attendance, which is plenty!
This is the one part I am still worried about…cutting our list. Ours is like 500 people, but my reception hall that we can afford only fits 250 with a dance floor! I can’t cut out kids, they are a huge and special part of our family, but the part I’m dealing with is, like you said, talking your parents out of inviting their friends whom I hardly know. I know I am going to hurt some feelings. Some will expect an invite just because they go to my church, etc., but if I haven’t talked to them closely in the last year, I guess that’s the way I’m going to make cuts.
As soon as my fiance’s family realizes that we’re REALLY NOT inviting their kids, feathers will indeed be ruffled.
Right now, though, I’m just chilling back and enjoying the drama-free pre-show. =)
haha. We were very confident with our decision to do adults only, until I started to get phone calls. Oh well, we used the venue as our scapegoat, and told everyone they didn’t have space for everyone and their children! oops!
The FI and I are completely in charge of who gets an invite and who doesn’t. I’m paying for the wedding myself so what I (and the FI) say goes. While paying for the entire wedding is a huge burden, I’m thankful we are avoiding fights when it comes to the guest list.
We had it pretty easy. We wanted ~150, so gave each set of parents 50 to work with, and kept 50 for ourselves. We ended up inviting 180, all people we knew or recognized, and had a total of 120. Originally a tiny bit smaller than I thought, but we really didn’t miss having the extra people.
We used roughly the same rules you did though, and it make our lives easier.
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Mrs. Cloud, Richmond
Age and Occupation: 25, Sales Rep
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Customer Service Manager/DJ
Engagement Date: February 14, 2008
Wedding Date: November 2009
Venue: Cathedral of the Sacred Heart & The Jefferson Hotel
About Me: Mr. Cloud and I are Yankees planning a Southern wedding to show our families from Boston and New York our fabulous city. We are complete opposites, resulting in a wedding to include bridesmaids in pearls and groomsmen in Adidas shell toes. I’m a sorority girl at heart with strong addictions to my blackberry, cherry Chapstick, Coach purses, the Boston Red Sox and our fur baby, Bella. I can’t wait to the throw the party of our lives and of course, marry my best friend!
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