My family is huge, his is...not.

Ready2BMrsWade

So I am starting working on a guest list and seem to be facing an interesting issue. I grew up with a large, and very close, extended family. My FI on the other hand just has one brother and only speaks to one side of his family which includes a grand total of about 10 people. I have many cousins and such that I am close to including my sister's in-laws who I would LOVE to share my special day with. So I don't know what to do. We plan on a small-medium wedding size (less than about 100 people) but in all likelihood about 70% of the guests are from my family. We luckily have mostly mutual non-related friends but I still am not sure what to do about my giant family. Is it bad to invite so many from just one side? Even if its limited to JUST direct family mine still outnumber his 2 to 1. So I am at a loss of what to do.

squirrly

Invite the people you want to invite.  Maybe your FI will want to invite more friends than you will, or co-workers, but guest lists don't have to be 50/50. 

marisah83

Sides don't have to be equal.  We're only having 55 guests at the wedding, and 9 of them are on my side.  FI has a much bigger family than I do. 

AmoroAgain

Oh! and one thing that made it less "obvious" on the sides thing, is we had people sit wherever, and not bride side, groom side

osumegs

I agree with AmoroAgain. Our initial guest lists have me pushing 150 and his side around 40. Granted, my side has all of our mutual friends included, but looking at just families, our situtation is similar to yours. My close family is around 70 people and his is around 10 as well. We are eliminating the groom side/bride side seating, and our ushers will know to escort them wherever.

rbtrumpet

we didn't really have much of a restriction when it came to inviting guests.  I invited about 40 people from my family - he invited 1.  We talked about the huge difference, and he said he didn't care, so that's how it went.

Since most of my family is older (85+) and live in MI, we knew a lot couldn't make it - I ended up having 10 people from my family, and he had...1!

We did a family table at the reception instead of a "brides family" and "grooms family" - which worked well

nhelene

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_family-huge-his-isnot?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:2de5880a-f78c-4edb-a9ea-247893d32a76Post:58e8cdbc-045c-416e-b62b-9a9b04679511">Re: My family is huge, his is...not.</a>:
[QUOTE]Oh! and one thing that made it less "obvious" on the sides thing, is we had people sit wherever, and not bride side, groom side
Posted by AmoroAgain[/QUOTE]

This is a really good idea.  Just have your ushers fill up the rows from the front as guests come in.

ohwhynot

We both have large families, but H's guest list was much, much larger than mine.  He wanted to invite his friends from high school & college - they almost all came and they all had a wonderful time.  I had 2 couples there who were only "my" friends and we had about 5 other couples who were mutual friends and about mutual 30 coworkers/their spouses.  The rest of the guests were both of our immediate families, his aunts and uncles, and his friends. 

We also didn't have "his side/her side" seating - our ceremony was at our reception site, and everyone sat at their dining tables for the ceremony. 

twilight.rose

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_family-huge-his-isnot?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:2de5880a-f78c-4edb-a9ea-247893d32a76Post:58e8cdbc-045c-416e-b62b-9a9b04679511">Re: My family is huge, his is...not.</a>:
[QUOTE]Oh! and one thing that made it less "obvious" on the sides thing, is we had people sit wherever, and not bride side, groom side
Posted by AmoroAgain[/QUOTE]

This. We did this also, and it wasn't at all obvious that my family was much smaller than H's since neither side of the church looked sparse.

PharmacyBride

Invite who you want and have ushers direct people to both sides to fill up the church/hall (for the ceremony) so it isn't too obvious.

[Deleted User]

Like all others said... just don't do a brides side grooms side.

My family is very small and I have fewer friends I want to invite than FI does.  His "side" would be bigger- we're getting married at an outside venue though and will have a little more than just the right number of chairs.  Guests will end up sitting where there are seats and not by who's side is who's.  You won't even notice.

tenofcups4me

My side was bigger than my ex's the first time I got married. I had 6 cousins (and spouses) and he had one. I had several cousins of my parents (the norm in my family) and he had none. We never really discussed it -- that was just the size of my family and the size of his family.

mica178

My FI's family is much bigger than mine.  However, he's also from a different state, so his family all has to travel to attend the wedding.  There'll be more of FI's family at the wedding, but since my parents are local, more of their friends will be able to make it.  It all evens out.

If it's really really lopsided when the RSVPs start showing up, you can either scrap the whole "bride's side, groom's side" seating during the ceremony or have all of your common friends sit on the groom's side to even things more.

Meg1979

My FI has a really small family, too.  It's just him and his parents.  He has one aunt and a few cousins, but the likelihood of them attending is pretty small.  So, we've just done our best.  It can be a mix.

JenO24

My family is doube the size of FIs because he doesn't really know his Mom's side of the family since she split when he was 7.  So he's only working w/ his Dads side of the family where as I have both my Moms and Dads side of the family to invite.  FI maybe invited 10 family members and only 6 are coming where I invited around about 100 family members and only about 50 are coming, destination wedding.  FI invited some friends where as I didn't becase I knew I monopolized the guest list w/ family (who are the only ones i'd want there over friends).  We're doing open seating besides the front 2 rows, they're reserved for immediate family.  FI knows our lists is lopsided and so what!  He's met a lot of my family and they all ador him so they're not just there to see "me" get married, but to see "us" get married!