Who to invite?

sweetpea0911 · February 2010

Is it customary to ask the parents of bride and groom for a "wish list" of people? I wanted a VERY small wedding, compared to my FH, who wanted a very LARGE wedding. We are compromising at 150 people, which still feels like a lot to me, but I'll be happy with it. However, we have been told that we should ask our parents for a list of who they want to inviite...and I'm not sure that I want to do that.

We want to keep it as closely related to "us" as possible - which means immediate family and friends of the both of us. There are very few people who we would like to invite who are only friends with one of us, and that's the way I like it. I'm afraid that by asking for "wish lists", we're going to start an extended family debate, on all 4 sides.

Any suggestions?

psichick · February 2010

if you don't want either sets of parents inviting anyone that's certainly your choice, but it is not customary at all. typically the parents of the bride and the groom get a certain portion of the guest list to invite their "must haves" and the bride and groom get the rest. if you're having 150 people, it's typically divided 50/50/50 or close to it.

of course if you're paying for everything yourselves then you can do whatever you want really...........

evabee · February 2010

Oh, this is so difficult. I am having the same struggle, but mine is that my family is just enormous (my side alone, no children is more than 150 people). My mom has friends and second cousins and co-workers that she would like to share this day with, but I am trying to keep the guest list down and make it as intimate as possible! Add insult to injury, my FI's guest list consists almost exclusively of many close family friends as his family is very small. It's really hard to choose what to do in this kind of situation.

1. If parents are paying for the wedding in ANY way then they truly need to be given the opportunity to invite their friends.

I would give FI's parents and your parents your current guest list and then give them a piece of paper that says "top three guests" and "top five guests". Allow each COUPLE to pick the top three people on their own wish list and then five additional people they would like to have but are not their top three. Make sure to have them put in how they know that person or why they'd like to invite them (in case you don't know).

This way you know WHO is most important and you and FI can choose from the remaining 5 if there are any people you would like to have.

Your parents will appreciate that their wishes have been considered, and you won't necessarily open the floodgate of additional guests.

sweetpea0911 · February 2010

Thank you so much for your advice.

We are mostly paying for this wedding ourselves. I'm going to have a talk with my FH and see what he wants to do, but we'll probably go with something like what you suggested evabee.

My parents are divorced and remarried, and his are heading for a divorce, so that makes this even more difficult =[

janedoe1113a · February 2010

We paid for our own wedding and picked our entire guest list. My mom put a couple people on the list, but that was about it. We didn't want strangers are our wedding, so we didn't ask them for a guest list from them.

Pirata13 · February 2010

My parents are paying for most, we're paying for the rest, and basically what we did was make a rough draft off the top of our heads of relatives and friends. Showed it to our parents and asked if we missed anyone. We hadn't missed anyone on his side, I'd missed one couple who are friends of my parents and 3 extended family members on my mom's side. They were fine with everyone else.

trix1223 · February 2010

Determine how many people you can afford and many your venue holds. Then tell each set of parents how many they can invite. Your parents may want 50 each, and you get 50. But you can make it any ratio you want. They each get 40 and you get 70.

But yes, it will help avoiding hard feelings a lot if you give them a number from the get-go. Hopefully, no one will spring any surprises on you that way.

SarahPLiz · February 2010

We are paying so we put people we know and love on the guest list (at 94 now). My dad asked me to add 2 people that I didn't think of. My step-dad asked me (through my mom) to invite all of his 11 living siblings and their spouses. I haven't even met most of them, so that was a big "No". No one else added, because no one else is paying.

You should come up with a list first, and if you have extra spots, you can run it by your respective parents to see if there is anyone they want to add.

CA2MT4EveR · February 2010

Have a talk with your parents and ask if there is anyone special to them they would like you to invite. For me, if I know the people, I will probably invite them. If I do not know who they are, I will skip them. My parents have a few close friends and I would like them to have them there to celebrate with them

megk8oz · February 2010

We paid for the wedding ourselves, and we picked about 90% of the guest list ... which was pretty much a "no-brainer" list. We made sure to include both families out to first cousins, some friends of the family, and then friends of our own (Which, our friends made up only a small portion of our list). When we were done, we ran the list past all the parents just to make sure we didn't "miss" anybody. We were under our venue minimum at that point, but we did carefully consider any of the add-ons that were suggested before adding them.

Like, we never met his dad's neighbors and DH isn't that close with his dad anyway, so that was a "hell no", but my grandmother's (Who I am close with) close friend who usually is included in our big family events was added.

sweetpea0911 · February 2010

Most of our list is a no-brainer list, and FH and I talked about it and decided that when the time comes (because right now, even our list is WAY prelim!) we'll give our parents the list and let them know that we are keep it to immediate family only, but that if they feel we left anyone off the list that they would like there, they can give us a list of five couples and we will add them to the list as we are able.

It took a lot of compromising to even bring the number for the wedding down to 150, and since we're going to be paying for this 90% ourselves, we thought this was the best way possible to accomdate everyone. Thank you so much for your suggestions!

SweetPea

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · February 2010

We are paying ourselves and picked out own guest list, though I took my parents' suggestions into consideration and ended up inviting my dad's aunts and uncles and my mom's great aunt.

Come up with a list of people you two want there. See how many seats are left. Divide that number between your parents. Tell them, "You can invite x people - whoever you want." Tell them who you are already inviting from their side. Maybe you'll get lucky and they won't want to invite anyone else.

Who to invite?

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