Guest List

lcroster

Did anyone else have a hard time getting your FI to understand who to invite and who not to invite?  My FI is not saying we should invite everyone but he also says we have to make cuts?!?  I keep saying when are you going to make the cut after they send you the RSVP card back and say hey i've booked my flight.  We are having a destination wedding and only want about 50 people to come. I really think it's going to be that many people (if we watch the guest list) however my FI is saying oh we have to invite this couple b/c we used to hang out with them. However I'd rather make sure all our family member are invited b/c 1)  they are more likely to come and 2) they are family!  Also I'd like to make the cuts now prior to paying for a STD, Invitation and Stamp (cause hey if not that's wasting money)!  I know that some people maybe upset b/c they don't make the guest list and I'm ok with saying well we are having a small ceremony with family and close friends!  I just don't know why my FI doesn't get it.  Sorry if I sound like i'm rambling I've been thinking about this since Wednesday and our conversation about it aren't changing and now I'm starting to feel like am I crazy!

Carla1019

I understand your frustration. Making the guest list has been a challenge for us too. The best suggestion I could give you that worked for my FI when he wanted to invite every person he ever met was to break it down to numbers. We are spending over $100 per plate. So I asked him would he feel comfortable putting a $100 bill in so-and-so's hand. If the answer is no then they must not be close to us and we don't need to invite them.

He got the message.

M1ssJ

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_african-american-weddings_guest-list-4?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:400Discussion:88ab7a77-5e8e-4fa8-98f6-ce012cc7e8f4Post:c867371e-06f2-4bc3-bc4f-d22d05d9d3cf">Re: Guest List</a>:
[QUOTE]I understand your frustration. Making the guest list has been a challenge for us too. T<strong>he best suggestion I could give you that worked for my FI when he wanted to invite every person he ever met was to break it down to numbers</strong>. We are spending over $100 per plate. So I asked him would he feel comfortable putting a $100 bill in so-and-so's hand. If the answer is no then they must not be close to us and we don't need to invite them. He got the message.
Posted by Carla1019[/QUOTE]
This times a million!!!!!!! So many men don't understand the guest list and numbers game so I made an excel sheet that multiplied each person times their cost and kept a runnin tab of their total needless to say when the bottom line hit he wasn;t so close the to every frat brother he ever kicked it with

ThunderKitten2011

I agree with PP. Break down the numbers. That's what I had to do! Men just don't get it for some reason. Our invites went out a couple weeks ago and I STILL have to hush his mouth when we run into folks. He still wanna tell all these folks they can come. Me, I have no problem with the letter "n" or "o" LOL

Fabbiegirl

Girl, men so don't get it.  Because of lack of invitations, I let my FI do some bad etiquette.  He didn't invite certain important people because he knew they would not be able to make it.  Men don't realize that invites say "we want you there". 

Give him a scenario if you do invite all these people, and they decide to show up, what are you going to do? 

However, I am guilty of doing something similar.  I over invited for our DW because I know most are going to say no.  My fear is that too many guests are going to over book the B&B.  Our location holds 10 people, and right now about 12 are commiting to come which I am not ready for.  lol 

chescam

The guest list has been the toughest thing to tackle so far. We started out with our dream list and that was nearly 300 people. We set a budget and cut the list down so that we could stay in budget. FI knows way too many people and it doesn't help that we have huge familys. Our final list conists of people we're closest to and can't imagine not having them there to celebrate with us. 

If your destinatioin wedding is out of the country that may be in your favor. Most people may express a desire to come to your wedding but when they find out it's not in town, they'll understand and maybe not feel so bad about not being invited. 

You should do what you're most comfortable doing. You won't be able to please everyone. Of those we've invited, we estimate that 20 won't be able to make it because of distance but it was important to me to inivte regardless because I really wanted them there.

lcroster

Thanks ladies!  I love the idea of calculating the amount!