We picked our venue based upon an agreed 100 person guest list. Our venue can accommodate about 200 but we agreed on not having a large wedding, nor can we afford it. My fiance and my FMIL worked on their side of the guest list and he came home and told me they had it to 64 people (Down from the 120 it was before) I thought this was reasonable as I grew up 22 hours away and my family and many old friends still live there so I was able to get my side for family and friends down to 39 people. When speaking with my FMIL it was 64 groups of people as in anywhere from 2-4 people per the 64 that I was told. Which will put us at anywhere from 167 to 231 people
My parents are paying for our reception and my future in laws is paying for the honeymoon and rehearsal. I am frustrated because the response when I tell them the list needs to be cut is that it's a "destination wedding" so most of these people won't attend because you only get 50% attendance for destination wedding. It's only 2 1/2 hours away from where the majority of the people they want to invite so not truly a destination wedding. I'm not upset that there are more people invited from his side so please don't think that is the case, but I'm frustrated at the potential of inviting more people than our whole guest list is supposed to be on that side. I don't want to invite more than we can afford because with the budget I have from my parents it is completely unfeasible to invite that many people. The 100 person list is more about the budget than space and we had agreed to that previously and everyone is aware of it. Does anyone have any suggestions? My thoughts were talking with my fiance about it or just giving them a set amount of invitations for a maximum of 2 people per invitations to make the decisions about who to invite. Any suggestions would be extremely helpful!