need to vent a little.....

Mary Susan and Chris

I have been going over and over the invite list and trying to delete people from the list because our venue will only hold 160 people maximum. I delete a few and my mom adds more for every few I delete. I am getting worried, we thought that most of my family from TN was not going to come but now theyare all planning on being here. I don't want to change my venue because it has been my dream to have it at the location. There are 17 kids on the list and we are plannin gon having a room for them, but I didn't expect that many and the parents may not want the kids away from them, and then that creates a problem. HELP!!!!!!! What do I do???????

iamsteph

You're just going to have to be firm with your Mom, and you're going to have to make some difficult decisions when it comes to who you invite, and who you don't.
Start off with immediate family and close friends, and then add to the list. Your mothers' aunts' 3rd cousins by marriage probably don't need to be invited.

Mary Susan and Chris

Thanks...the problem is the family being invited is all close family....all first cousins. I don't want to not invite family, but Ialso don't want to not invite coworkers.

Tygress_Luv111908

Is there any chance you can do an age limit to the kids? Maybe do like 12 and up or something like that? Maybe even a little older?

Mary Susan and Chris

I would if I could. but family traveling from Tennessee with small young children can't be told to leave theri children at home. At last count we had 17 children, so that is 17 adults that I would like to invite that can't be invited due to children. We are going to try and have a childrens room, but not sure how that will work. I am a child development teacher and have hired 3 students to sit in the room with the children, so hopefully the parents will allow theri kids to go intop that room.

lisaandcorey

1. You don't have to extend +1 invitations to single guests other than single members of your wedding party.  Only married, engaged, or people in long term relationships have to get +1 invitations.  Make sure you are not paying for people to bring their latest piece.  Wtih that piece of information, we were able to trim our list significantly.

2. Give your mother a firm number of people (including +1s) that you will allow her to add to the guest list.

3.  You do not have to kids if that is not your desire.

Points 2 & 3 are contingent upon who is financing your wedding.  If your mother is paying she does have a say.  There is no such thing as free money - there are always going to be strings attached. 

If you are your FI are footing the bill for everything, you are going to have to flat out tell your mother no.  FI and I had to have the "this is not YOUR family reunion" talk with a few family members and it was surprisingly easy.

Good luck putting that list on a diet!

HeatherMek

I know the feeling our venue can hold 130 comfortably - or 140 if we're okay with them moving one of the tables out of the room after dinner.  We had to make really tough decisions.  In the end, we had to boot our friends off the list.  It sucks, but it was the only thing we could do.  Not that it makes it okay, but a lot of people I know that are married pretty much agree that they are no longer friends with a bunch of people that were at their wedding.  Family is family.  They always will be.  The people we are friends with now, might not be in a few years.  Tough times call for tough decisions.  Plus, real friends will understand that your venue can only hold so many people... just try not to talk about the wedding to them

Good luck.