Our venue is quite small and with the way we've worked to design the layout, etc we've figured that we can invite about 60-70 people max. My guy has a huge family... and when i say huge i mean HUGE!! He has 12 aunts and uncles on one side... PLUS their spouses and children (adult aged). And that's just one side of the family! He couldn't narrow down to just a select few of the aunts/uncles because the he was sure that there would be feuding, complaigning, etc etc about who got invited and who didn't. Most importantly, I just don't have the budget to accommodate such a large wedding!! So, finally I drew the line and said that we were having immediate family only. Of course, we'll be having our close friends as they are more prevalent in our lives than most of our family.
My problem is, I want to make an exception to the "immediate family" rule. We've agreed that it would be Parents, Grandparents, and Siblings ... but I have one Aunt (and her husband) that has been like a best friend to me for parts of my life and she's been more prevalent than some of siblings!!! When writing our lists out I almost wrote her name under Friends section because that's what I consider her! I don't think it will be a problem in my family to only invite her outside of the immediate because I am not close to either of my Uncles. But I'm worried about the fairness to my guy. His family size is just something that we can't afford to pay for as far as inviting all of them, and my guy has made it clear that we can't pick and choose...
What does everyone think? Fair to invite my Aunt or is my guy getting the short end of the stick? He's usually pretty agreeable, but I'm worried about hurting his feelings by not including his aunts and uncles if we are including one of mine. But then again, it's only 1 and her spouse. Not 12 plus spouse plus the other side of the family!!!