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Maggie
Champion October 2025

How much input did your parents have on the guest list?

Maggie, on March 6, 2019 at 11:05 AM Posted in Planning 0 34

How much say did you give your parents on who made the guest list? Did they demand equal say in the guest list decisions, or did you allot them a certain number of invites? How many guests did they end up add to your list?


How much input did your parents have on the guest list? 1

Photo by Harmony Haft Photography in San Diego, California


Keep sharing your parental plans in these discussions: Are you ditching parent dances?, Was asking your parents for their blessing before the proposal important to you?, and True or False: I’ve argued with my parents or in-laws about the wedding

34 Comments

Latest activity by Michelle, on January 18, 2021 at 12:05 AM
  • Danielle
    Master June 2019
    Danielle ·
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    I asked my mom and FH's mom to provide a full list of family members / family friends on each side. Me and FH provided our friends. I put them all together and we started decreasing the list from there.

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  • Alexandra
    VIP June 2019
    Alexandra ·
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    This is exactly what we did! We ultimately had to cut the list by 50+ people to make the numbers work with our budget.

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  • Chandra
    Master May 2019
    Chandra ·
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    They had lots of confusing input.
    Invite this person!....*one week later* no don't invite them. I dont want it to seem like a gift grab.
    Fast forward to sending out save the dates, I asked who to send them to, and got told conflicting things again! Lol
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  • Bluey8616f
    Devoted August 2018
    Bluey8616f ·
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    They had no say because we paid for everything. But I did check with them to make sure I didn't miss anyone I considered essential. If I didn't remember them to put them on the list then I wasn't inviting them. There were a few of my mom's cousins she wanted but I only met them a few times so I was firm on not adding them.

    My husband's mother just made suggestions but pretty much stayed out of it. If family members called her to ask about the wedding she said our list was smaller compared to my SIL's wedding so not everyone will be invited to ours.

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  • Maggie
    Champion October 2025
    Maggie ·
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    Yeah, I feel like my dad would tell me one thing and then my mom would tell me another and I'd just sit there for a week confused before I came back and asked again. (And probably got the same answer from different parents. Smiley laugh )

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  • Jazmin
    Super April 2019
    Jazmin ·
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    None. My husband and I made our guest list and invited the people we wanted.

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  • S
    Devoted May 2019
    Sarah ·
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    None. Neither of our parents have say in the guest list. My parents wouldn't want to invite anyone. But his parents tried to invite a group of people at their Christmas party the night we got engaged! We had to shut it down and we haven't allowed any invites given to anyone that we haven't personally invited
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  • Summer987
    Super May 2018
    Summer987 ·
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    None. My husband and I made the guest list and invited who we wanted.
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  • Alicia
    VIP August 2019
    Alicia ·
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    Thankfully, both sets of parents are were the same page as we were concerning the guest list. Other than having them double-check to make sure we hadn't forgotten anyway, they didn't give much additional input at all.

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  • Victoria
    Super May 2019
    Victoria ·
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    We asked for a list of family members and friends they might want to invite, and then invited who we wanted to invite. Smiley smile
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  • Tamera
    Expert May 2020
    Tamera ·
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    I made a main list and included all famil members (uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.) and our friends. And then I asked my parents and my FH’s parents to provide lists. Many were people I had already accounted for. So together they maybe added 20-30 more invitations that I needed to send. And I kinda told them that if we didn’t know them/hadn’t met them/don’t speak regularly they weren’t going to be invited.
    My FH’s mom did have a bunch that were non-negotiable since they would apparently be offended if not invited, but I have never met them and my FH hasn’t seen them in forever/doesn’t know them well at all, so that’s fun.
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  • Maggie
    Champion October 2025
    Maggie ·
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    Oh, I bet they were just really excited, Sarah! Did you end up inviting any of them to your wedding?

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  • Maggie
    Champion October 2025
    Maggie ·
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    Well, that's going to be interesting come wedding day. Smiley atonished

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  • K
    Dedicated August 2019
    Katy ·
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    I’m letting my dad invite some of his friends as they have all known me basically my entire life. Also wanted to give him some say as he’s paying for a lot of the wedding.
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  • Rachel
    Super May 2019
    Rachel ·
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    They had zero say in our guest list. We are paying for this 100% ourselves and part of that reasoning is because we didn't want out input from anyone else. We want this to be our day and what we want and we didn't want a bunch of people we barely know but who are close with our parents there. Our wedding will be small and it will just be immediate family and close friends. Our parents understood. They would have liked to have a bigger wedding and to have more of their friends there to "show off" a little, but they understood what was important to us and they are completely on board with it.

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  • J
    Master October 2019
    Jolie ·
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    Not much say at all. We didn't ask. We already listed my mom's side of the family aka my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma. It was only til my mom saw my dad's sister wasn't on the bridal shower list that I had to invite her and her family even though we haven't spoken in years due to sibling and family issues. I'm just hoping they decline. Otherwise my parents don't have friends really, so I didn't have to invite any or their coworkers.

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  • Stacy
    Savvy April 2019
    Stacy ·
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    We’re paying for our own wedding so my parents really didn’t have any input. My mom asked me to invite a cousin I had only met once, at my grandmothers funeral. I flat out said no.
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  • Kristin
    Super November 2019
    Kristin ·
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    My parents are paying for most of the wedding. We asked them for a preliminary number right from the start so we were prepared when looking at venues. It ended up hitting right where I thought we would be which was nice. FH and I have about 100 people we are inviting, mom and dad have about 70 and his parents have about 30. There are a number of people from both sets of parents who are getting "courtesy invites" a.k.a. we have to send one but know they wont come and with that we are right where we wanted to be. I think if we would have been over I would have taken people off my list since it was the bigger of the 2 between FH and I and I didn't want to tell my parents no since they are paying for so much of it.

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  • Maggie
    Champion October 2025
    Maggie ·
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    That sounds a lot like what the guest list would be for me. Parents' friends that I grew up around coming as wedding guests. Make sense to me in a lot of ways. Smiley smile

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  • Maggie
    Champion October 2025
    Maggie ·
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    Way to stick to your guns, Stacy!! A one time meeting does not mean you can come to the wedding!

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