I'm asking this question on behalf of my friend who is also getting married next year. She hasn't gotten too involved in the boards yet, but I thought you ladies might have some good advice regarding her predicament because i'm stumped!
My friend would like her wedding to be medium sized. She assumed it would be around 200 people--100 each side.
Well her FI is well known in a small town. They're family is big and their group of friends and family friends is even bigger. Her FI's list of people he wants to invite is upward of 300 people!
His parents have offered to help pay for the wedding considering how many people it might be.
The problem is that she would still like the wedding to be a little more intimate and versus a huge event where she doesn't know half of the people there.
What do you guys think? Is there a way for them to compromise?
Re: Opinion Question: Groom's family 3 times as big as Bride's
I think FI needs to go through every person and rate them 1-10. 1 being least and 10 being most. And rate each person 1-10. Knock off the 1-6 and only keep 7-10.
If he refuses to do that, then I would get estimates for the caterer, typically on the cheap side, it's $25 pp plus at least 18% gratuity. So, assuming the list is 400, that's already $10,000 in food alone. Not including the tips.
Paper products, invites, STD's, etc, will be in the $1000's too. Not to mention postage will be awful.
Can he afford that? Can FI's parents afford that? Also, get a set-in-stone amount parents are willing to donate. If you are really uncomfortable with it, just let the overall shock of getting married wear off for a while.
When is the date for your day?
Offer a counter-offer to him.Tell him if he gets 300+ you want a certain thing, like him to pay for the designer wedding dress. Or, that you only want to invite your closest friends and family but that wedding announcements can be sent to everyone and their brothers.
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Cost is definitely also a factor. Peach mentioned that her estimate above is on the lower side of the cost range and doesn't factor in alcohol. I don't know what your friend is planning but our bar package is $20 pp. A four hundred person wedding could easily cost upwards of $30K.
I told her the key was compromise. She said they've discussed and he certainly understands where she's coming from and how she feels. From his perspective he feels that he will upset family or friends if he doesn't include all of them.
I personally can't even fathom the cost for that many people. i get mild anxiety when I think about just 200 people.
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If not, rating system sounds great.
But here it seems like the roles are reversed. Your friend's FH should meet her halfway and take what she wants into account too--not simply what he (or his mom) have always envisioned. The ranking thing is a good idea or she could give him an overall number that is not too crazy (200 people?) and tell him to fill it up however he chooses.
Also, this is just a little thing, but I would be sad if I looked out at the ceremony and my side looked empty whereas FH's side was packed. I did a quick search and found a cute solution though...you could have a sign that read, "Today two familys become one so no need to pick a side, simply pick a seat." Although I am sure that is the least of her worries...
jnkreager: Love the idea about the two family's joining into one. I think that i'll use that at my wedding! : ) My FI is a firefighter--works in one department and then volunteers at another so he'll def have more people "on his side" with needing to invite the other FF's. We agreed early on that we wouldn't make people pick a side because of the lop-sidedness.
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I asked for a list from each of the parents telling them we would do our best to accommodate. DH parents never made a list they told us about 80. ::insert eye roll here:: my parents gave me a list of 60 very few friends, mainly family. We were aiming on inviting 175 so that gave us (DH and I) 35 people to plan on inviting...ok. Well.......THEN the list came from his parent. 161 people. I wanted to KILL someone.
Mind you they already had told MOST of these people and we had already booked a hall based on the size of the wedding we THOUGHT we were going to get. So yeah his family had more than half the guest list and while my wedding was ah-mazing, leading up there was a lot of hurt feelings. (I should add we split the cost 3 ways) And I felt like I was always giving in to things because ::duh:: HIS parents had the majority and they wanted the wedding they felt their guests would want - not what DH and I wanted.
So think about that too....everything ended up working well but in my case DH and I had to cut friends out that we REALLY wanted there and it turned up that we had about half the people NOT come, but you have to plan on them attending (ILs said NO to announcements it HAD to be an invite) so yeah fun times.
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Invite all your A's first...and then invite some B's after the A'd decline....and then after B's start declining, you invite your C's. This seemed a little intense for me, but for someone like your friend, it might work! Good luck!