My first, his third.

knottiefa8d345f9d5b46a1

We're getting married this summer in my home town- though we both live in another state, and all our friends live in other states. It's his third wedding, and my first. I have a super large family, and he does not communicate with his family. I have many friends from different times in my life, and he has only a couple close friends. We've been together for 4 years so we have lots of friends in common, and my family loves him. I'm just starting to feel guilty that it's so heavily weighted towards my family, and friends that started out mine. It's not going to be an expensive wedding, and we're not having bridal parties, or people standing with us, and will have open seating for both the wedding and reception. Any thoughts or advice? 

Casadena

I think as long as he was involved with the guest list and planning (i.e. had the opportunity to extend invites to the people he wanted) then I think you should try not to feel guilty.  You have lots of mutual friends that will be there and if your family is supportive and they get along with your FI I think he will have a wonderful day as well. 

maine7mob

This stuff happens, especially if one person is more extraverted than the other. It's no big deal as long as you are both okay having one side more heavily represented than the other. And now for my two controversial points. You say that your fiance has been married twice before and isn't close to his family. There could be many reasons for this, but I hope that you have taken the time to know him really well before diving in.

My second point is regarding the open seating at your reception. You will get pushback from folks here about this. I happen to think it's fine in certain situations. My daughter had this at her wedding. At first, I was concerned, but once I understood their reasons for it, I embraced the idea. (We were paying for every last thing, so I fully expected my say!)
 
The most important thing is to have plenty of extra  seating (and I mean lots and lots!)so that if there are 4 close friends plopped down at a table for 8, other folks will have other options and won't feel awkward. This worked really well at my daughter's wedding and encouraged mingling among people who might not have mingled otherwise. When people weren't eating, they were actively table hopping, just as my daughter had hoped.

The other issue with open seating is that it really works best with a buffet style reception, and I don't know if these are possible during Covid. Have you figured out how this will work? You can't really do a pre-set sit-down meal without table assignments, unless there are no special diets and everyone gets the same thing.

This is more than you asked for, I realize, but I just thought I'd throw this out there in case you hadn't fully worked it out yet. Good luck!

short+sassy

It was eerie reading your post, OP, because that was my wedding 8 years ago, lol.  Right down to it being my first and my H's third.

And in my hometown which was 1500 miles away from where we lived.  So the guests were substantially more "mine" as opposed to "mutual friends" and "his".  None of his family was there.  He isn't close to any of them and his parents had passed away.

I handled it by talking to him about it and making sure he was comfortable with it, before we started solidifying any plans.  Including that we could have an even smaller wedding with just my immediate family and a couple friends and then going out to a nice restaurant for the reception.  But he wasn't bothered by the fact that the majority of guests would be people he didn't know or only knew through me.  He even looked forward to meeting some of the family and family friends that I'd mentioned before, but he'd never met.

But different people have different personalities, so talk to your FI about if he has any concerns or anxiety about the guest list that falls more heavily on your side.

knottiecf99bc83d269408d

i feel your post very nice