Too Many Cousins to Count!

LeMaster2011

I am currently in the middle of trying to narrow down  my guest list to one that is actually affordable and within my budget! I have been married before, but this is my fiancee's first wedding.  I have 5 cousins, but between them all, they have about 10 children (and that's just on my mom's side!).  We are having a wedding/lunch instead of the traditional evening wedding and party.  I guess what I need help with is if it would be rude for me to NOT invite my any of my cousins, just aunts and uncles, while my fiancee invites his aunts, uncles, AND cousins...we're paying ourselves, and just don't have the space or the money to accommodate everyone! HELP!!!!

SP29

As long as you are inviting the SOs of those guests you do invite, and not splitting up families (i.e. inviting older but not the younger children in one family), you are free to invite whoever and not invite whoever you want.

There is no obligation to invite anyone to your wedding (the exception being SOs).

This means you can choose to not invite ANY of your cousins, invite your cousins but not their children, or invite some of your cousins but not others.

Likewise, family sides do not have to be equal. Just because you invite your DH's cousins doesn't mean you need to invite yours.

P.S. Regarding not inviting people- It's OK to not invite people, and please don't feel like you need to explain yourself if anyone asks. Also, if someone does ask, please don't try to give reasons to make excuses for why someone isn't invited, as that leaves you open to others trying to find "solutions".

AddieCake

You don't need to invite your cousins just because your fiancé invites his.

hellohkb

FH and I have this problem except reversed. I have 4 cousins total and they're all kids themselves. FH on the otherhand has roughly 16 cousins total, a lot of them with children of their own. He's only inviting a few of his cousins, maybe 5.

Invite who you are closest with and don't worry about inviting their kids. As PPs mentioned, as long as you don't split up families, you are in the clear.

MesmrEwe

As a family-member guest -in a word, yes - I'd be a bit steamed and side-eyeing the couple to see kids from your FI's side running around while I had to get a sitter for mine regardless of the justifying circumstances.  You're racking your brain over a potential difference of 10-20 guests it sounds OP.  And, depending on your date, not everyone will be able to attend anyway.  A lunch also takes the cost down and depending on your meal choice can make/break the budget by itself.  Even if every one of the added individuals was $100/per plate, that'd still only be $2000 difference, but I can't imagine a luncheon being that much per guest no matter how wonderful the food and drinks.  The budget weddings section can provide great ideas to still have the wedding you want while keeping it to your budget.  Unless there's a major clash in personalities issue, keep the lines consistent and avoid blurring them!  Even though this is your second, it's still treated as a new marriage!

photokitty

MesmrEwe said:

As a family-member guest -in a word, yes - I'd be a bit steamed and side-eyeing the couple to see kids from your FI's side running around while I had to get a sitter for mine regardless of the justifying circumstances.  You're racking your brain over a potential difference of 10-20 guests it sounds OP.  And, depending on your date, not everyone will be able to attend anyway.  A lunch also takes the cost down and depending on your meal choice can make/break the budget by itself.  Even if every one of the added individuals was $100/per plate, that'd still only be $2000 difference, but I can't imagine a luncheon being that much per guest no matter how wonderful the food and drinks.  The budget weddings section can provide great ideas to still have the wedding you want while keeping it to your budget.  Unless there's a major clash in personalities issue, keep the lines consistent and avoid blurring them!  Even though this is your second, it's still treated as a new marriage!

No. This Is not correct etiquette wise. Inviting in circles is a good plan. You can invite the circle if Your aunts and uncles, but not include your cousins. You can invite the circle of your fi's aunts uncles and cousins. You can also choose to invite the children of friends that you are close to those kids and not the kids off others. You don't have to justify why you invited since kids and not others. If you invite the kids of one of your cousins and not the kids of her sister ( the circle suggestion) it is still ok ettiquette wise, but may result is hurt feelings.

hellohkb

photokitty said:

As a family-member guest -in a word, yes - I'd be a bit steamed and side-eyeing the couple to see kids from your FI's side running around while I had to get a sitter for mine regardless of the justifying circumstances.  You're racking your brain over a potential difference of 10-20 guests it sounds OP.  And, depending on your date, not everyone will be able to attend anyway.  A lunch also takes the cost down and depending on your meal choice can make/break the budget by itself.  Even if every one of the added individuals was $100/per plate, that'd still only be $2000 difference, but I can't imagine a luncheon being that much per guest no matter how wonderful the food and drinks.  The budget weddings section can provide great ideas to still have the wedding you want while keeping it to your budget.  Unless there's a major clash in personalities issue, keep the lines consistent and avoid blurring them!  Even though this is your second, it's still treated as a new marriage!

No. This Is not correct etiquette wise. Inviting in circles is a good plan. You can invite the circle if Your aunts and uncles, but not include your cousins. You can invite the circle of your fi's aunts uncles and cousins. You can also choose to invite the children of friends that you are close to those kids and not the kids off others. You don't have to justify why you invited since kids and not others. If you invite the kids of one of your cousins and not the kids of her sister ( the circle suggestion) it is still ok ettiquette wise, but may result is hurt feelings.

And not only that, I would advise against assuming people won't attend unless they've explicitly told you they won't ahead of time or they never attend weddings and whatnot. It's better to overbudget than underbudget, which is why so many users here say budget for 100% attendance just in case.

LeMaster2011

MesmrEwe, the problem with the kids issue that you mention (seeing some running around while you had to find a babysitter) is that all of my first cousins (who I am thinking about not inviting) are all grown and have children of their own.  Our space will only accommodate 70 people comfortably, and just by cutting out my cousins, I can eliminate more than 30 people by the time my cousins bring their kids.  That's about $1000 that we could save off of our budget, and we have a pretty low budget, since we're trying to pay for the wedding ourselves!  We want to be able to afford everyone we invite, so that we have a place for everyone.  And I don't feel comfortable inviting some of my cousins but not others, because there's always that one aunt or uncle who gets hurt feelings because their kids weren't invited but someone else's was.  I hope that clarifies my situation..

huskypuppy14

LeMaster2011 said:

MesmrEwe, the problem with the kids issue that you mention (seeing some running around while you had to find a babysitter) is that all of my first cousins (who I am thinking about not inviting) are all grown and have children of their own.  Our space will only accommodate 70 people comfortably, and just by cutting out my cousins, I can eliminate more than 30 people by the time my cousins bring their kids.  That's about $1000 that we could save off of our budget, and we have a pretty low budget, since we're trying to pay for the wedding ourselves!  We want to be able to afford everyone we invite, so that we have a place for everyone.  And I don't feel comfortable inviting some of my cousins but not others, because there's always that one aunt or uncle who gets hurt feelings because their kids weren't invited but someone else's was.  I hope that clarifies my situation..

You can invite some cousins and not others. You can invite your cousins and not their children. Are you close with your cousins? My husband invited all of his cousins. I invited all of my cousins on my mom's side, but only one cousin on my Dad's side. My sister invited only one cousin on our side and her husband invited all of his cousins. You invite who you want to invite and if other guests are mad that their kids ( adult or children) were not invited, that is their problem. As long as you invite everyone's SO and don't invite one minor sibling and not the others, you are good etiquette wise. ETA: I had paragraphs...

loveislouder

H and I split our guest list down the middle - we each could put 75 people on the list. His Dad has 9 siblings, his Mom has 2. My Dad has one, my Mom has one.  It just so happens that I got to invite my aunts, uncles, cousins and their SO and a couple second cousins I'm very close with, while he could only invite. I offered him some of "my" spaces, but he refused. 

[Deleted User]

I've done a preliminary guest list just to see what it looks like.  I have lots of aunts/uncles/cousins/cousin's kids I'm really close to.  FH will likely invite only aunts and uncles and zero cousins.  But he has a lot more close friends than I do.  I 'know' lots of people, but I'm not super close to many of them.  Turns out our guest list is pretty equal per "side" but the distribution of friends and family is unequal.

lovemesomemonster

You don't have to invite your cousins if you don't want to, and if you are considering not inviting them I would assume you aren't that close with them anyways? We accommodated the number of people with the venue we chose (cost and space wise) to make sure we could invite everyone we wanted to be there and we love, if it doesn't matter to you if they are there or not then don't invite them!

@loveislouder my family is way bigger than FI's family and I can't imagine doing the split thing! I'm glad it worked out for you, but I would have been devastated if FI could invite his entire extended family and I had to cut some of my family out. I'm just curious why you decided to do it this way instead of just comparing lists with each other and cutting from there off both sides? 

loveislouder

lovemesomemonster said:

You don't have to invite your cousins if you don't want to, and if you are considering not inviting them I would assume you aren't that close with them anyways? We accommodated the number of people with the venue we chose (cost and space wise) to make sure we could invite everyone we wanted to be there and we love, if it doesn't matter to you if they are there or not then don't invite them!

@loveislouder my family is way bigger than FI's family and I can't imagine doing the split thing! I'm glad it worked out for you, but I would have been devastated if FI could invite his entire extended family and I had to cut some of my family out. I'm just curious why you decided to do it this way instead of just comparing lists with each other and cutting from there off both sides? 

Honestly it was his idea. He was of the mindset that because I'm close with my family, I should have my family there. His Dad is the black sheep of his family and the majority hadn't spoken to him in years anyway so he didn't think they'd show up.  We ended up filling in the rest of "his" spots with his friends, which I dont have many of, so it worked out. 

lovemesomemonster

loveislouder said:

lovemesomemonster said:

You don't have to invite your cousins if you don't want to, and if you are considering not inviting them I would assume you aren't that close with them anyways? We accommodated the number of people with the venue we chose (cost and space wise) to make sure we could invite everyone we wanted to be there and we love, if it doesn't matter to you if they are there or not then don't invite them!

@loveislouder my family is way bigger than FI's family and I can't imagine doing the split thing! I'm glad it worked out for you, but I would have been devastated if FI could invite his entire extended family and I had to cut some of my family out. I'm just curious why you decided to do it this way instead of just comparing lists with each other and cutting from there off both sides? 

Honestly it was his idea. He was of the mindset that because I'm close with my family, I should have my family there. His Dad is the black sheep of his family and the majority hadn't spoken to him in years anyway so he didn't think they'd show up.  We ended up filling in the rest of "his" spots with his friends, which I dont have many of, so it worked out. 

Awesome, sounds like it worked out well I was just curious because we are super off number wise on each side and I would have hated to add "fillers" on one side and leave out family on the other.

aurianna

LeMaster2011 said:

MesmrEwe, the problem with the kids issue that you mention (seeing some running around while you had to find a babysitter) is that all of my first cousins (who I am thinking about not inviting) are all grown and have children of their own.  Our space will only accommodate 70 people comfortably, and just by cutting out my cousins, I can eliminate more than 30 people by the time my cousins bring their kids.  That's about $1000 that we could save off of our budget, and we have a pretty low budget, since we're trying to pay for the wedding ourselves!  We want to be able to afford everyone we invite, so that we have a place for everyone.  And I don't feel comfortable inviting some of my cousins but not others, because there's always that one aunt or uncle who gets hurt feelings because their kids weren't invited but someone else's was.  I hope that clarifies my situation..

You could set the line at "first cousins." So you invite your first cousins, but not their kids. You said you only have 5. So assuming they all have partners, that still drops you from 30 to 10.

If some of his first cousins are kids, then they can come. If anyone on your side is rude enough to complain that there are kids at the wedding, you are free to tell them that they are your then-husband's first cousins.

[Deleted User]

I wish we only had that many!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FIL has 12 siblings..... they all have a ton of kids.. I think we ended up inviting something like 55 cousins just on hubby's dad's side alone...  We did invite them all but it kind of weeded itself out if we talk to them they came if we don't talk to them they didn't  

japrincess24

Wow, reading the title I thought you had a large family. Only 5 cousins and 10 kids between them? My mother is one of 10; I have over 80 cousins. They are all the children/grandchildren/great grandchildren of my mother's brothers and sisters. I wish you luck, but it's not as Herculean a challenge as you think. Invite in circles if you wish, but be consistent with the application and open, so no one is offended. 

MesmrEwe

aurianna said:

LeMaster2011 said:

MesmrEwe, the problem with the kids issue that you mention (seeing some running around while you had to find a babysitter) is that all of my first cousins (who I am thinking about not inviting) are all grown and have children of their own.  Our space will only accommodate 70 people comfortably, and just by cutting out my cousins, I can eliminate more than 30 people by the time my cousins bring their kids.  That's about $1000 that we could save off of our budget, and we have a pretty low budget, since we're trying to pay for the wedding ourselves!  We want to be able to afford everyone we invite, so that we have a place for everyone.  And I don't feel comfortable inviting some of my cousins but not others, because there's always that one aunt or uncle who gets hurt feelings because their kids weren't invited but someone else's was.  I hope that clarifies my situation..

You could set the line at "first cousins." So you invite your first cousins, but not their kids. You said you only have 5. So assuming they all have partners, that still drops you from 30 to 10.

If some of his first cousins are kids, then they can come. If anyone on your side is rude enough to complain that there are kids at the wedding, you are free to tell them that they are your then-husband's first cousins.

Etiquette wise - this is a FAR better compromise idea for where to cap the line without it being in the gray area or opening it up for hurt feelings.  We had that for my Great Aunt & Uncle's 50th Anniversary "First Cousins only" and everyone shrugged NBD (our family is incredibly close to third/fourth cousins so this is a "thing")... But, as others have mentioned, it'll naturally weed some people out because of not being able to bring their kids or other life commitments.

@RachelLee83...  There are 17 siblings between my parents - not including their SO's, then in the early 60's for first cousins without counting their SO's...