Guest list issues!

jpickering8

Okay so now that it's wedding season I've actually started thinking about planning my wedding again.  When the FI and I got engaged a couple of months ago we threw together a quick guest list so I could have an estimated # of people when looking for venues.  He isn't close with his family and didn't really know half of their names! This is soo backwards to me because I see every aunt & cousin several times a year!

Anyways, I sat down with his Mom & sisters to find out what their names actually are and who should/needs to be invited.  SOMEHOW he forgot like 20 members of his family.  So now my 230 person guest list is now at 250! AHHHHH!!!! And I would love to say it's as easy as cutting here and there but this is only aunts, uncles & first cousins, family & friends that have been there for us throughout our entire lives! Okay so there was the rant.. now here's some of the many problems:

1.  He has cousins that are not even going to be teenagers when we get married! And I really wanted to have only our 5 neices & nephews & the flower girl! I can't cut some siblings, I know this but alkjdf;asj I'm at a loss

2.  Some of his cousins have kids that he is much closer to than his actual first cousins, but I'm not getting into the game of inviting some cousins kids and not others because that's like another 2039483 people!

I'm trying reallllly hard to please everyone but I can't and I don't know who to cut! This is not the fun part of this whole thing..

brownb

Don't invite any kids if you're that worried. I'm doing the same thing you're thinking of...my niece and nephew are the flower girl and ring bearer and we are asking 1 of my cousins to bring her kids and 1 of our friends to bring their kids (if they want to) so that they have some kids to play with for the evening. Other than that, our reception cards are going to say "adult only reception". I know that some people think that is rude and I was actually debating doing it or not but then I read a post by someone on this board (maybe MinMin) about if she could change one thing she would have put "adult only reception" on the invitation.

Also, when we started our guest list, our rule was, if someone hasn't been involved in our lives in the past year then we weren't inviting them unless they lived out of state and it was hard to see them atleast once a year. FI's mom was trying to invite people that we knew from highschool but hadn't talked to in 6 years so we had to squash that really quick!

Lastly, our guest list was supposed to be around 150 and it's now at 194 and I've gone over it what seems like a million times and cannot find anyone to cut. Each and every person has shared parts of our lives with us and there is no way we can leave any of them out. That being said, if you truly have 250 people that YOU want at your wedding then figure out a way to make it work. Cut back somewhere else so you can have all of the people close to you with you on your special day

lashley1024

If you can't cut the guest list and are worried about expenses, one thing you might consider is re-thinking the format of the reception. I've seen lots of "brunch" weddings or weddings that serve only hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. You just need to be sure you time it correctly so that people can plan their day accordingly.

MiniMin20

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_maine_guest-list-issues?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:98Discussion:ce4d1238-d04d-4d94-9659-8d48aa8a4e81Post:6cd1e7a3-47e5-482f-a419-40a022a73760">Re: Guest list issues!</a>:
[QUOTE]Other than that, our reception cards are going to say "adult only reception". I know that some people think that is rude and I was actually debating doing it or not but then I read a post by someone on this board (maybe MinMin) about if she could change one thing she would have put "adult only reception" on the invitation.
Posted by brownb[/QUOTE]

Yep, that was me! The no kids thing was a huge headache, and I really wish we had been more direct with it instead of assuming people understood wedding etiquette.

I think it's okay to not include first cousins who are young -- we did this and kept the cousins to 16 and up. DH's mom thought it was bad form not to include every first cousin, but I think most of these are made-up rules and become sticky in this day and age, as more people remarry and have more kids or wait until they're older to have kids (i.e. you might have a first cousin who's a toddler and second cousins who are the same age...it seems weird to say one toddler is invited because it's a first cousin but not the others...).

We also didn't include aunts/uncles/cousins we aren't close to. It was a hard decision, but mostly we felt like inviting people only because we felt obligated was just not necessary. If you have any family members you never see, I don't think you need to feel like you have to invite them. You just might have to resist pressure from other family members about this!

The guest list is no fun. Good luck.