To invite or not to invite?
When it came down to it, picking the venue and the dress were both easy decisions for me. I already had ideas of what I wanted beforehand, so choosing these things was just a matter of paying for them.
But the guest list is a whole different animal.
My family is huge. Both of my parents are one of five children. My sister and I are the youngest grandkids, which means all of our adult cousins are already married and have families. My fiance, on the other hand, has a small family. He has two aunts, one on each side, and a total of four cousins. That's it. And because he's the oldest grandkid, no one is married or has kids. Even his step-family is small. Just his step-mom's parents, her brother, his wife and the baby they're expecting. So that's just five more people.
So determining who gets invited and who doesn't is hard. I know a lot of brides who want small-ish weddings (like me) just draw the line and say aunts and uncles only, no cousins. Well what about Chris's younger cousins? I really doubt his aunt will leave her two little ones in Georgia. So...cousins we see on a regular basis? Again, that leaves most of my cousins out. Most of them live out of state or are too busy with their own lives to come around much. I understand that. But my cousin, his wife and their two boys came up for Memorial Day and we had a ton of fun. They're great. So do I invite those four but not my cousin's sister, who I haven't seen in like seven years?
See where my headache is coming from?
i have to make the same decisions regarding our church family too. Chris and I are both pretty involved in church. The membership is small, so we're on a first-name basis with all of the congregation. So do we invite the whole church? We can't! So who do we invite? Who do we not invite? We narrowed it down to the few couples we talk to the most. They're the ones who matter the most to us (although we love our entire church family) and the ones we want there on our big day.
Unfortunately, a lot of people get up in arms when they're not invited to weddings. I've read things on The Knot where a family friend will invite her grown daughter's godson's girlfriend. No lie. And then get offended when the bride says no.
Anyone who knows me knows that I try my best to like people and I'm generally a nice person. I don't like to offend anyone, and I don't want to cause drama by not inviting half my family or 99 percent of the church to our wedding. But we simply don't have the room (reception site holds 150, but that's pushing it) or the money.
I've reworked the guest list four times, always including the same core people and trying to figure out how many guests each set of parents can invite. Right now I have about 92 people on the list, including the wedding party and each set of parents can invite about 12 of their friends/coworkers/whoever.
Thankfully, I have more than a year to decide who exactly will be invited to our wedding. That probably means I'll come up with 54687087 versions of the guest list =)
But the guest list is a whole different animal.
My family is huge. Both of my parents are one of five children. My sister and I are the youngest grandkids, which means all of our adult cousins are already married and have families. My fiance, on the other hand, has a small family. He has two aunts, one on each side, and a total of four cousins. That's it. And because he's the oldest grandkid, no one is married or has kids. Even his step-family is small. Just his step-mom's parents, her brother, his wife and the baby they're expecting. So that's just five more people.
So determining who gets invited and who doesn't is hard. I know a lot of brides who want small-ish weddings (like me) just draw the line and say aunts and uncles only, no cousins. Well what about Chris's younger cousins? I really doubt his aunt will leave her two little ones in Georgia. So...cousins we see on a regular basis? Again, that leaves most of my cousins out. Most of them live out of state or are too busy with their own lives to come around much. I understand that. But my cousin, his wife and their two boys came up for Memorial Day and we had a ton of fun. They're great. So do I invite those four but not my cousin's sister, who I haven't seen in like seven years?
See where my headache is coming from?
i have to make the same decisions regarding our church family too. Chris and I are both pretty involved in church. The membership is small, so we're on a first-name basis with all of the congregation. So do we invite the whole church? We can't! So who do we invite? Who do we not invite? We narrowed it down to the few couples we talk to the most. They're the ones who matter the most to us (although we love our entire church family) and the ones we want there on our big day.
Unfortunately, a lot of people get up in arms when they're not invited to weddings. I've read things on The Knot where a family friend will invite her grown daughter's godson's girlfriend. No lie. And then get offended when the bride says no.
Anyone who knows me knows that I try my best to like people and I'm generally a nice person. I don't like to offend anyone, and I don't want to cause drama by not inviting half my family or 99 percent of the church to our wedding. But we simply don't have the room (reception site holds 150, but that's pushing it) or the money.
I've reworked the guest list four times, always including the same core people and trying to figure out how many guests each set of parents can invite. Right now I have about 92 people on the list, including the wedding party and each set of parents can invite about 12 of their friends/coworkers/whoever.
Thankfully, I have more than a year to decide who exactly will be invited to our wedding. That probably means I'll come up with 54687087 versions of the guest list =)
