Guest List

thefuturemrsx

FI and I are working on our guest list. The plan is to get married and have the reception at an all-inclusive venue about an hour away from where we live that charges $100/pp. However, I have a huge family (his is relatively small) and we want a small wedding. I know I can have a private ceremony with immediate family only, but I can't imagine a few of my aunts, uncles, and cousins not being there. (Also, even though my immediate family encompasses seventeen people, along with FI's immediate family, we won't make the forty guest minimum). Does anyone have any recommendations on how to cut down our guest list while still including the important people? I feel like no matter what I do, people will be offended.

OliveOilsMom

You can invite in circles.  So you could invite all aunt/unlces and first cousins, but no second cousins.  Just do a clear cutoff where ever you decide to make your cutoff. 

For my dad's family, we invited all first cousins and some 2nd cousins that I see on a regular basis.  So even though I didn't follow the circles rule strictly, the extra people I invited were people I see regularly and made sense for them to be invited.

Habs2Hart

I honestly don't think you have to invite ALL the cousins and aunts and uncles if you don't want to.  We only invited ours that we were close to.  Some of my cousins are just people I know, not close in any way.  So they didn't really care about being invited.  It was a good way to keep it down, since I have 20+ cousins and then adding their SO's on top of that would have been 1/3 of our guest list.  You know your family dynamics best. 

MNturnsVA

I have the same issues, how do I invite my cousin, but not her mom, my aunt? Or if I invite one cousin, do I I have to invite them all? Don't want to not invite people, but then I don't want to not invite them either ....