Making the Cut

Making the Cut

January 3rd, 2011 @ 11:18 am by Ms. Sloth
Share

Mr. S and I decided right off the bat that we wanted a fairly small, intimate wedding. Our reasons were twofold. First of all, the smaller the guest list, the smaller the budget. And secondly, we wanted to make sure that every single person on the guest list was someone that was really important to us.

We sat down and made a list of everyone who could possibly be invited, and then we had to cut it way down. I personally felt like a bouncer, standing in front of the velvet ropes at a club, deciding who could get an invite.

Making the Cut : wedding guest list philadelphia Bouncer bouncer

Source

It was tough and emotional, deciding which guests made the cut and which didn’t, but we figured it out by creating some ground rules:

Family - We obviously will invite parents, siblings, grandparents, step-families, aunts, uncles and first cousins. Basically, it’s every relative who we see on a fairly regular basis. Some distant second cousins who haven’t seen in about ten years or so will not be invited.
Friends - This was tougher to figure out. Obviously, all of our closest friends will be invited, but it was difficult determining which of our less-close friends would make the guest list. We finally decided that if the friend was local and we hadn’t seen them in a year, they were out. If they were from out of town and we didn’t talk or email on a regular basis, they were out as well.
Coworkers - We would have loved to invite all of the people we work with, but that would’ve practically doubled our guest list. Eventually, we decided that we’d only invite coworkers that we hang out with outside of work, and there are only a handful for each of us. We won’t be able to invite those who are merely cubicle-mates or lunch buddies, unfortunately.
Plus-Ones - I’ve gone over this before, but to reiterate, anyone who is married, engaged, or in a long-term relationship can bring a date. Single friends cannot, with the exception of one or two friends who are coming from far away and won’t know anyone else at the wedding.
Children - I’ve discussed this before as well, but we won’t be inviting small children to our wedding. The youngest guest will be my pre-teen cousin.

And that’s it. We had to draw the line somewhere, and so we did! It was fairly painful, and I shed some tears about cutting some guests, but it had to be done, and I’m glad it’s finalized.

Are you having a small wedding? How did you decide which guests made the cut?

Tags: guest-list, philadelphia |

Share |

Latest Gallery Pics

Hot Pink and White with Zebra 36" Lighted Spandex Ostrich Feather Centerpiece

18 Responses to “Making the Cut”

Member

mrsjarrett (message) 19 posts, Newbee

I feel like I could have written this exact post! We followed the same rules each of your five categories. Hopefully we aren’t hurting too many feeling along the way, but I feel great about our final list and I’m sure you do too

1/3/11 @ 11:27 am (reply)

Guest

Danielle

My fiance and I have also decided to go the no kid and no +1 route. My trouble is communicating that to the guests. How are you doing it?

1/3/11 @ 11:48 am (reply)

Member

SandraMarie_1986 (message) 1,363 posts, Bumble bee

This is how we plan to invite people to our wedding as well. Great post Sloth!

1/3/11 @ 11:50 am (reply)

Guest

Jake

We had a friend who was adement that he had to bring a date. Trouble was is that he was single and also a groomsman. The girl had some friends who were going to be there, so she never hung out with my friend anyway. Needless to say, my wife was not thrilled. I feel you on number 4.

1/3/11 @ 11:51 am (reply)

Member

smallwonder (message) 64 posts, Worker bee

We did immediate family, aunts/uncles and first cousins. Family only get “dates” if they are married, thus the “dates are family too. We picked 7 to 10 friends each and they all get dates since most have steady bf/gfs and they’ll be greatly outnumbered by our family. Very few of our family have small children and those that do are from out of town so we’re leaving children up to the guests. Our wedding is in the afternoon so I’m not as worried about tired and cranky kids.

1/3/11 @ 11:54 am (reply)

Member

mightywombat (message) 3,311 posts, Sugar bee

We’re also having a small, home wedding. Our aim was to invite 60 or so people. We ended up inviting (yipes) 78. I hope it doesn’t rain.

We did it by making a rule that no one made the list unless they’re close to at least one of us. That ultimately meant his entire extended family was not invited. He has around 25 aunts/uncles, plus their kids. If we invited them, that would be half our guest list. But he’s not close to any of them and NEVER talks to them, so it just didn’t make sense to us to invite them. His mom was a little sad, but she seems to understand.

1/3/11 @ 12:00 pm (reply)

Guest

Jill

We invited 4 children - Dan’s nephews. We told our friends and cousins who have children that we wanted our wedding to be intimate and small. It was - 75 people. Two cousins didn’t come because they couldn’t bring their kids. Their sister (another cousin) came by herself and left her husband at home with the kids.

You will get all types of reactions to who you invite to the wedding but in the end, just know that you’re doing it for YOU, not for THEM and if they have a problem with that, they need to deal with it on their own and hopefully one day understand the day is about you, not about them.

Good for you for laying down the law!

1/3/11 @ 12:00 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Pug (message) 3,753 posts, Honey bee

mr. pug and i are pretty antisocial, so it was easy to keep our guest list small! we had about 50 people, which was mostly comprised of our friends. my parents already had the big wedding with my sister where all the relatives and family friends were invited, so we got off easy.

1/3/11 @ 12:03 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Ostrich (message) 1,948 posts, Buzzing bee

Way to go, sloth! I think having a small wedding made me tougher, after going thru our guest list edits. We followed the same guidelines except for #1 - family. Our fam, on both sides, is so huge that we had to limit it to immediate and grandparents only! But that’s what our 2nd reception is for - our wonderfully big asian families

1/3/11 @ 12:23 pm (reply)

10.

Member

Kinsey123 (message) 69 posts, Worker bee

We had a hard time deciding on some people, but those were mostly his parents friends. I guess they never expected him to have a ’small’ wedding, so the list of musts that his mom gave me originally included around 60 of her friends. We are having a 60 person, family-only wedding with a 180 person reception, so this was obviously waaaay too many people. We followed almost all of your rules, except that there will probably be around 10 kids at our wedding. I’m glad the guest list is finally made!

1/3/11 @ 1:23 pm (reply)

11.

Bee

Mrs. Trail Mix (message) 6,328 posts, Bee Keeper

I think no matter the number you’re aiming for, the guest list is always a challenge…We were aiming for 150 but by the time we finished up our lists, the total invited was almost 250! And it still was so hard to cut people!

1/3/11 @ 2:32 pm (reply)

12.

Member

jademoua (message) 3 posts, Wannabee

we’re planning to invite people who knows the both of us… not just one or the other… so that way we know everyone there… instead of “is that your friend?” lol… but i think we’ll be having kids a couple of kids…

1/3/11 @ 3:37 pm (reply)

13.

Member

Sunlavender (message) 553 posts, Busy bee

This was one of the most difficult parts of the wedding. FI and I were on the same page, but both our parents had different ideas! We all had to sit down and discuss our expectations. I totally agree with your list. Awesome.

1/3/11 @ 4:35 pm (reply)

14.

Member

Lexsy (message) 537 posts, Busy bee

For us family is a tough one! There are some younger members of my FI family that I have seen once or twice in the entire period we’ve been together, and maybe exchanged two words with. Others we both are more close to. So we ended up inviting only the closest ones, but seems like not everyone was happy with that! Not sure yet what we’ll do about is as last thing we want is to make a big deal out of this…

1/3/11 @ 6:46 pm (reply)

15.

Bee

Miss Tartlet (message) 3,207 posts, Sugar bee

Kudos for staying strong, Sloth! Like Ostrich, whittling down the guest list really toughened me up. Great guidelines!

1/3/11 @ 8:34 pm (reply)

16.

Bee

Mrs. Glasses (message) 2,741 posts, Sugar bee

Very understandable lines, we did this ourselves! I think we might’ve offended a few people but not enough to cause any major drama.

1/3/11 @ 11:52 pm (reply)

17.

Member

marieta (message) 339 posts, Helper bee

Love this post.

We’re capping the list at 50, so… yeah, there will be some cuts. Pretty much along the lines you mentioned, though since I don’t see or talk to any of my first cousins, they’re out as well.

1/4/11 @ 5:09 pm (reply)

18.

Member

gso_bride (message) 101 posts, Blushing bee

Ditto on your first paragraph.

The immediate family plus close cousins and such were easy. Surprisingly, even the friends were easy to list. We quickly cut out plus-ones except for the few of those who weren’t close to the other guests.

Luckily, there aren’t many young children and many of those who will be there are in the wedding party (as far as I know!).

I wish I could have invited more of my former co-workers but other than that, as an individual, I didn’t have too many issues.

The issues came up with my family. Mine specifically. They had a whole other world of expectations for my wedding and I pretty much made that world crumble. We’ve compromised in some areas but for the ceremony/reception on or first (yes, first) day of the wedding weekend, I just can’t imagine inviting all of those “people who are so happy you are getting married” and those that “knew you when you were a baby”. I’m sorry but I can’t fathom or invite every person you and/or I have come in contact with (or have NOT come in contact with, too!). Oh, plus their 12 kids and grandkids. Who don’t understand the concept of RSVP cards. And who may bring plus-ones and plus-fives.

Oh, I am getting all worked up again. Agh!

That’s in the past. For the most part. I am still having guest issues with my family from snide comments to innocent comments that drive me crazy to information being casually told to me that makes a huge difference in the plans we’ve already laid.

Who said planning a wedding isn’t easy!

1/6/11 @ 10:33 am (reply)