Guest List Drama

Still 9 months out from the wedding, but trying to settle the guest list b/c we are sending out digital STD's through email. My dad is from Sicily and most of my mom's family lives in Florida, so I have over 70 people on my 'A' list that are out-of-country/state!

FH and I have 246 on our A list so far - we want to send out 220 invites, hoping for no more than 175 at the wedding due to budget and venue size. My concern is that we can't send out invites to other people on our 'B' list (that are friends that we'd really like to come) because we already have so many relatives that we are unsure about on the A list.

I spoke to my dad about the relatives from Italy and he gets annoyed every time I bring it up. I basically want him to get a verbal in advance from the Italian relatives that are planning on coming. I'd like to send my invites out at least 3 months before the wedding so that I'll have time to send to B-listers. He thinks it's ridiculous that the Italian relatives would make that decision 3 months before (don't you generally plan international flights at least 3 months before?!)

And I think we've already annoying FH's mom by drastically cutting her list so accommodate all of my Italian relatives (he's down to 89 A-listers while I have 157).

My other issue is that my parents seem to want to invite more out of state family/friends anticipating that they won't come but hoping for a gift (I think it's the Italian mentality). I just feel this is wrong...what do you think?

Guest List Drama

OMG! I am first generation Italian so I 100% understand! My fiancé and I wanted 150 at our wedding but with family size our minimum is now 225. The best part is is that the 225 person guest list is half my mom's and half his mom's and that doesn't even include any of our friends. Our mothers see it as that these people HAVE to get invited. It's like, what about us?!

I wish I had advice for you but I don't because I am in the same exact boat. Plus it's even harder to get either side to cut back on their list when they're paying for a lot of this wedding. Ugh

Guest List Drama

Both my FH and I are Italian so I definitely understand what you are going through. We want a smaller wedding (atleast for two Italian families) of around 110 people. My FH and I fought (still kinda fighting) the crazy additions of who we 'have' to invite. We are meeting enough people at our wedding (I don't know all of his friends and vice versa) and didn't want to add people who one of us might have only met once to the list. Since we don't even live in NY anymore, over half of our invite list is out of town (ugh...the joys of hotel blocking). We decided that we will send out the invites out earlier than normal (3-4 months?) and the 'have' to invite list will become the B list.

Guest List Drama

Haha we aren't even looking into hotel blocks because my dad is like we wouldn't dare make our relatives stay in a hotel! So whoever comes from Italy is going to stay in our house before the wedding... As if that week won't be stressful enough lol

Guest List Drama

We kinda went through the same thing so we reached an agreement. I wanted a small wedding and that was not happening as FH has a big family. I just felt bad that FH was going to have to cut his list because FMIL was inviting a lot of family (I think more so to accommodate for the lack of mine) So we agreed 50, 50, 50 She gets full reign of 50 family members she wishes to invite and FH and myself get 50 each. It was the only way to truly be fair. Now here we are waiting for the RSVP'S and of the family is not coming or have not RSVP'ed/ Uggghhhhhh!