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We are having an nontraditional Filipino wedding. Nontraditional in the sense that we are not having a huge 500 person wedding!! We are not inviting all the aunties and uncles (that are somehow related but I’m not quite sure how). I read some where that the tradition of a huge wedding is due to the legacy of the entire village celebrating the bride and groom’s union. This is a wonderful thing but in this economic recession—not feasible!
My fiance, who is the Filipino one, never wanted a large wedding.
He didn’t really want it to be a huge ordeal, instead just a natural evolution of our relationship. I didn’t even imagine this or think it was something to be considered because my family is so small. I think the largest party my family has ever thrown had about 40 people in attendance! My uncles and aunts are not married, and I have no cousins. I have never attended a marriage in my own family!
Mr P and I decided that 100 people would be our absolute max. Anything more we would be uncomfortable. Really, we hope that the turn out would be more like 75. But 100 would be our cap. This was how we initially decided on our wedding size.
But the closer and closer the wedding gets the more I have to explain why Auntie X or Uncle Z isn’t invited. I say, “We are only inviting immediate family.” Or I try to divert the blame, “It’s not up to me, Mr. P is in charge of his guests. If he thinks we should invite them then I will add them to the guest list.” But I hate this. I don’t want to burn any bridges, I don’t know the ties of all his family’s relationships. I wish I wouldn’t have to be faced with this.
I wish we could have just had that 500 person event in a huge hall so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I am a softie! I love people. But in reality our venue only fits 120 (and this would be with no dance floor). So, the reality is we WILL have a small wedding. Well, a small one for his family and a LARGE one for mine!
How did you decide on your wedding guest list size? Economics? Family size? Comfort level?
I feel the pain of family and obligation all the time. I ended up compromising because we’re kind of having a wedding weekend, so the reception with the ginormous guestlist is a mere couple hours of it. It’s such a tough economic time and weddings or notoriously rough.
We had to leave out a LOT of my family that I would have loved to include, but my family is just so huge we couldn’t afford to have them all! We would have ended up with close to 300 guests if we would have invited everyone we wanted to!
I completely understand what you’re saying about big families, and the problems that could arise should you decide on a smaller wedding.
My fiancé is half Korean, so half of his family is in Korea, whereas the other half is scattered around the country. My family, however, is divided between the Philippines and California. Sounds good, right? Well… you probably know how it is. When I asked for a tentative list of who my parents wanted to invite, I got a list of 100+ in two days. Whaaaaaaaaaaat?
Our church fits about 120 comfortable, 145 pushing it.
I wish you luck in deflecting snarky comments from those who were taken off the list!
Family size was our first consideration. We both have large families (though not 500 people large!) and felt that we needed to at least invite all our aunts and uncles and most of the 1st cousins. 2nd cousins were out, which was kind of sad because there are some that I grew up with, but I wanted to play it fair. A tiny wedding was just never in the cards for us, because it’s so important for us to celebrate with the people that raised us, that we grew up with us, that have played influential roles in our lives.
I’m in the same boat! My fiance is also Filipino, so we decided to have a destination wedding across the country to avoid the problems that would result if we had it close to home. We haven’t felt the heat yet…..and I’m a bit scared! But honestly, we just want a small event with close friends and family, so if that means hurting a few feelings down the road, so be it!
we just said “ehh….200? Sounds good.” Just sounded like a nice round number.
I come from a Filipino background and my hubby comes from a Filipino/Chinese background. We also did away with traditions and had a 100 person guest list. I know how you feel about obligation, so my hubby and I basically told those that were not invited that we wanted to keep it really simple, intimate with those that were constant in our lives. My advice is this is your wedding, you don’t have to please anyone and everyone, this is your personal stamp that YOU and your hubby to be will remember for the rest of your lives. And if they don’t understand then that’s really on them and eventually it will blow over.
Oh good, I’m not the only Filipino who’s not having a ginormous wedding! Our numbers are exactly like yours: 120 max, less than 100 ideal. Our venue can hold no more than 120 so we have to cap it at that. Family is not the problem per se, but between FI and I we do know an awful lot of people, and we really didn’t want to restrict anyone’s +1, and we’re letting kids come too.
The guest list was definitely one of the toughest parts of planning!
the boyfriend and i are from large ethnic (caribbean) families….we’ve talked about our want of a small (200 or less) wedding.
but realistically. 400 would be a good number.
my parents are both one of 8 siblings. i couldn’t imagine not inviting all my cousins and aunts and uncles. and there is some extended family- my mom’s second cousin- who seems more like “immediate” family to me than distant…
so 400 or less would be awesome. 300 would be super-duper awesome.
<200 would mean something like some terrible natural disaster kept my family away…or you know- we got married on christmas day…(and even then, we’re hindu- everyone would STILL show up)
You’re so sweet, Pashmina! Mr. Parfait and I both have large families, so we ended up with a 200-person, family-only wedding.
It was a mix, economics, comfort level, etc. It’s such a hard thing!
I can totally relate. I am of Indian descent and have a large circle of family friends that we consider our extended family in the US (FI’s family does not) so in the end we decided on a small wedding and then my parents are hosting a more casual party for this group to welcome us back from our honeymoon. Venue capacity was a part of it, but also it came down to having enough time to connect with our guests and not feeling like I was spending the bulk of the day introducing FI to people. This way the wedding/reception and this later party both have manageable numbers for us to socialize with.
Hehe. I’m Filipino, and the guest list was a constant struggle between me and my mom. We capped our guest list out to the venues max of 125. It was hard, my dad is the youngest of 10 and I’m pretty close to my extended family along with my church family. Luckily, everyone understood, or at least that’s what they tell me to my face. lol. Good luck!
Guest lists are so hard to limit, but I think your situation with the venue constraint is the best one to be in! It seems easiest to tell people they can’t come because there isn’t room, vs budget.
This is a HUGE ordeal between FI and I. We are both Filipino, and while I come from a big family, he has a ton of family friends (you know, the ones that get together for weekly mahjong parties). We really want to have a 150-person wedding. We capped the invites to 190, and we’ll see how it goes. Some extended family did not get any invites, so hopefully they’ll understand. We invited those that were close to us, and since my parents are paying for the reception, they invited a few of their friends. Good luck!
a combination of comfort level and venue size and budget. the mister doesn’t want a large wedding and has a pretty small proposed guest list. most of the guests would be of my doing so our wedding will probably be under 200 invited and hopefully 150ish actually attending
Thankfully, we can chalk our restrictions up to the venue size. The real reason I booked such a small place is because I didn’t want a circus sized wedding, which we could easily do because we have so many family/friends/etc.
the way i decided was….realistically we both have about 40 people that we have immediate family that we would want to invite and the rest would be up to how many friends we wanted to have. we ended up inviting 120 but only 107 ended up being able to attend. yes most of the people were my friends because my wedding was in NY but it was wonderful none the less
My fiance and I are both filipino and we had the same problem. When we originally drafted our invitation list, considering family (we both have large families), family friends, and our friends our number got up to 250. We thought that to invite that many people was ridiculous especially since he’s still in grad school and will have to pay his student loan off soon. We did the if we haven’t talked to them in a year or so, we weren’t going to invite them rule. No matter how close they were to my/his relatives (not my mother or his parents mind you). Our list of invitees came up to about 195 and some of these people were from the Philippines that couldn’t make it. We got our final count a couple weeks ago and the 20% (it was actually more because we have 150 people coming) decline rule held up for us. Which I’m happy about. I thought I wanted more people to come, but I want the people there that we know and are close to us.
I also think that, we’re just really lucky our parents are not imposing that we invite Auntie or Uncle so-and-so. They’re letting us do our thing which is a huge help. If we don’t invite certain people or they talk to someone about the wedding that’s not invited, somehow they’ll sneak a side comment into the convo that my fiance and I are planning everything ourselves and paying for it, so they’re leaving the details up to us. There’s still some drama that occurs, but for the most part it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it was going to be. I have a week left until the big day, so I may be biting my tongue to soon.
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Mrs. Pashmina, NYC/Catalina Island, CA Age and Occupation: 28, Arts Education Fiance's Age and Occupation: 34, IT Administrator Engagement Date: April 26th, 2009 Wedding Date: July 2010 Venue: Catalina Country Club, Catalina Island, California About Me: I'm a laid-back Cali girl who moved to NYC for school, and ended up staying for love. My fiance is a quick-witted Jersey boy, a self-proclaimed Foodie and the funniest man I've ever met. Together we love exploring the city streets embarking on our next misadventure---and yes, this often involves eating off food carts and trying "the next big thing". I'm the girl in the sundress, snapping photos and collecting trinkets of memorabilia along the way. As a girly girl at heart, I am excited about our romantic natural island wedding incorporating our American & Filipino traditions.
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