small limited wedding, but still want to invite some people

Brianna121791

what would be the proper way to let people know that our wedding is small and unfortunately not everyone will be invited... fh has a huge family and i've got some as well, so we arent inviting all the kids and extended family members but still want to invite select people.. is this wrong?  from the get go, we were having a small thing but i want some members of the family to be there... is this going to cause a lot of bs?

sending out invites soon, and not everyone will get an invite due to space limitations.. what if someone tries to rsvp for people not on the list or if they show up eeehhhh stressed outttt. thanks ladies

baystateapple

Put the names of the people who are to be invited on the invitation.  Do not write "The John Smith Family" write, Mr. and Mrs. John Smith, etc.

If someone tries to RSVP with more guests, call them up and tell them that unfortunately due to space, the only guests invited were the ones specifically named on the invitation.

Brianna121791

Thank you! I guess just being straight up will be the only way since its so limited!!

C&MMartel

I agree with the above and i had the same problem as you.

My father has 10 siblings, his oldest brother has kids his age so it was very difficult finding a cut off. In the end we decided immediate family, and Aunts and uncles only for family. Then we choose close friends to come. He doesnt have a lot of his friends around here anymore so we substitued his friends for his really close cousins.  We will sent out 61 invites and expect around 120 ot be there give or take. But in comparison to 250 if we invited all my family... its a huge cut off lol.

Im waiting on backlash due to the size of my family, but theres always going to be someone annoyed or upset with you. You just have to be upfront and honest and tell them you are sorry but you are just not able to invite everyone you would like to and hope they understand.  Good luck to you and theres always the boards when you need to vent

Laurahan1127

I agree that it is rude to announce who is not invited, but we did compromise on this a little bit. FI is in a graduate program that is relatively small, but still WAY too big for us to invite everyone who could potentially assume they are invited. I wasn't totally sold on this idea, but FI sent an email to the people we did invitefrom the program and said something along the lines of "Just wanted to give you a heads u that because we have very limited space for the wedding and reception, we were unfortunately not able to invite everyone in the program. We would love for you and (spouse) to join us, but please be discreet in discussing the wedding around the department. Just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the situtation!"

This is probably not an ideal solution, but it doesn't seem to have come across as condescendingly reminding people of basic etiquitte, and FI figured that since the purpose of etiquette is to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome, this was the lesser of two evils to creating those awkward situations. It definitely depends on the people involved and how they will react though!