Having a destination wedding to keep the guest list small

Re: Having a destination wedding to keep the guest list small

• pbi9994 member

  

  June 2013

  Yikes. Same problem here. 22 cousins on my side, and that's not counting their offspring!
  
  I don't know if this will work for you, but this is what I've done so far.
  
  Divide people up in order of importance to you and your fiance, and then start to make circles of other people who would be offended if they weren't invited, but someone else was. If I invite my cousin Patrick, which I want to, I have to invite his 3 siblings and their wives. So then I have to decide, how much I really want to invite Patrick. Does that help at all?
  
  Or throw caution to the wind, and just do what you want. If you have a cousin that is your best friend, but haven't talked to their older sister since the 90's, chances are that no one will be offended when you don't invite her. But check with your parents first, to be safe.
  

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• jadedupin

  

  July 2013

  This is tough. We are just starting to plan our destination wedding and can't have a big guest list either. Is the wedding close? If they have to fly, do you think that the extended family would fly out? We got a little money from my parents but are paying most of it ourselves. I was thinking of inviting some of our extended family and counting on most not coming. It's risky though! You could also not give a lot of details about the wedding to extended family until invites go out and they may not have the time to prepare. But you would want to make sure that the other family members have adequate time to prepare. This could be tricky.

  

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• mmm4763 member

  

  July 2013

  We are also paying for everything ourselves and have faced the same issue (I really only want to invite Aunt A who is like a second mother to me but if I don't invite Aunt B I will effectively ruin the relationship for the forseeable future--even though I'm not super close to her I don't want to sever the relationship either) In the end this kind of rationale ended up adding maybe 4 people to our list (of 20...now 24) and I figure the expense of the 4 additional people was worth the peace.

  
  

  That being said I somewhat worry about his family "crashing" the wedding b/c apparently just showing up to people's wedding uninvited  is commonplace with them. "Oh since X got an invitation I just assumed that meant we were also invited" "Oh well I needed to drive Z here b/c she can't drive and so I assume that means I can come" In this case the venue is limited to 25 people total so I shudder to think what might happen if "crashing" occurs--that really cannot happen.

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• Latillo member

  

  July 2013

  Dealing with a similar issue as well! We just got engaged 2 weeks ago and are already being harrassed about why we are having a small destination wedding. I'm sorry, does someone else want to pay for my wedding?? Stay strong! It's your wedding and your money, you have to do what you feel comfortable with.

  My fiance only wants his parents, siblings and close friends however I am very close with my aunts and uncles so I feel bad leaving them out but I know if I invite aunts/uncles and he doesn't there will be hell to pay. Who knew it would be this tough?? Good luck!!

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