Guest list

The guest list was HANDS DOWN the most difficult part of the entire wedding planning process! I have a huge family and cutting down the list was basically impossible for me. So we ended up having a destination wedding with only parents, siblings and wedding party, so I wouldn't have to pick and choose.

It’s a challenge! I found it was easiest to just draw a line based on relationship and keep it firm. For example, we invited aunts, uncles, and first cousins. That meant no cousin’s kids or wider family. We could communicate that easily (mostly through my mom) and didn’t get much blowback.

View Quoted Comment That was a reasonable way to do it. Did you guys invite friends?

View Quoted Comment I wish I could do a destination wedding. That sounded very peaceful

I've been working on my list since last summer and its been a lot of updating, adding, and removing. Stick to people you spend time with, not just people who are related to you. I have a huge family on my side alone and lots of cousins so I said no plus ones and only added partners I already knew/met/or long-standing couples.

View Quoted Comment I LOVE how you said “stick to the people you spend time with”… Best reply ever!!!! I changed my list 4x and I really had to ask myself do you really want or need people there that don’t even know your soon to be partner, also who I don’t be with rather if it’s family or friends. And my list went from 100+ to 60. Thank you for this amazing advice

View Quoted Comment I’m so glad it helped! It’s going to be a much better experience surrounded by close loved ones 🥰

Yes, it's been such a struggle! We initially wanted to keep it really small and intimate with like 30 people. We had a guest list we were happy with. But then FMIL got really excited and told her whole family so now we're at about 50 or so for our list. We're planning a super casual event with something like bbq or woodfired pizza and yard games after our ceremony. Everyone has to drive 14 hours or take a plane so I'm hoping most of the extras decide to not come because I feel like they'll be super underwhelmed with our event 🫠

View Quoted Comment Oh wow! If our list was at 30, heck even 50 I’ll probably be at ease. We were thinking no more than 150, then once we did our list it was around 130; but now we decided to go with the smaller so our cap is 120. She only have 60, but I’m at like 77 so I have to cut some more people 😩.

I just started with mine. I don't have a big family since they are all in another country, but my fiancé does. We invited uncles, aunts, and first cousins because we wanted to have room for friends. The friends I'm inviting are the friends that I hang out and see the most one of two that have been my friends my whole life. Those with whom I have not had any contact within a few months and who don't see each other are out of the list.

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Can you both adjust the numbers to give you a few more guests? If you a greater number of people to start with, maybe you should get some more guests on your side. Hope it all works out well.

View Quoted Comment Absolutely! We thought about who we wanted most to celebrate with. Plus my husband has almost no family, so a lot of “his side” was filled in by our friends.

View Quoted Comment It's possible that not everyone will attend, so I wouldn't worry too too much

Trying to balance everyone's expectations and keep the peace can feel impossible.