Those of you trying to have a 'small wedding'....

Right now we have 76,
Only 1st cousins
Only parents of 2nd cousins
No co-workers
Only people over 18 bring dates
Our parents only invite some of their friends, the ones we know personally

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Posted by marymoon

It's hard to make those rules. If I said 'first cousins only' I'd be cutting our my 2nd and 3rd cousins who are closer and my list would actually be longer, because I have about 2 dozen first cousins, not counting spouses. But then I don't want rto invite my 1st cousins but I ahve 2nd and 3rd that I just have to invite but I don't want Fh inviting all his 2nd and 3rd cosuins who he never ever sees. I'm also really going to be strong on this rule 'If I haven;t met them, theya re NOT invited'. FH and I have been together for more than 6 years....if I haven't met someone, they're obviously not important enough to be invited. Why is it that I'm the one with the big family and FH's family is the one that is hard to cut>?

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i hear you on that one!!! if i put FH friends on my whole list (my friends, family and parents good friends) FMIL's list is still more than half the list!!! And they are all too 'important' to cut... i like the rule of never met up not invited! He doesnt even know a lot of them! our list is 320 and growing!!! we both agreed on 150-175 TOPS! i will feel like i am at someone elses wedding not knowing half the guests!

I wanted to say no kids at all, but he is really close to nephews so we can't do that. I am being selective with the no kids rule. Under the age of 15 no invite, over the age of 15 Mr. & Mrs. John Doe & Family. This cuts down the number of kids by 20.

I have been at my job for 6 years, 7 1/2 by the time of the wedding, so I can't really exclude co-workers (unless the list gets out of hand). For the moment they are being invited without spouses (and I've already discussed it with the 3 married people that are most important to me, & they are all okay with that, I'll figure out the rest of the married people later).

Single people, single invite unless they are in a long standing relationship & I have already met SO. Last year one cousin showed up at my sister's wedding with a pro. Needless to say he is not getting 'and guest' on his invite.

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Posted by palebride

also keep in mind that not everyone who you invite will be able to attend, so just because you invite 100 people, it doesn't mean that you are going to actually have 100 people there

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That;s a good point. We're just trying to cut from inviting about 200-230, expecting 180-200 to inviting 150 tops...expecting no more than 125. i think that woudl help a lot., of course we;d ahve to change dates or halls b/c of minimums. I just wish money weren't such a huge issue.. Plus we screwed ourselves in a way because we decided we were definitely postponing so we made purchases we would definitely not have made had we not been postponing. FH needed a car anyway, but we would definitely have gone for a cheaper one, etc. But now I just realized how much we both just want tog et married and I'm thiniking there's got to be some way to make it happen

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Posted by marymoon

I'd rather cut the list too. If I stay at my hall moving to the afternoon only saves $10 pp, but the minimum drops by 30. It's not that good a deal. I'd rather cut the list way way down, that saves on flowers, favors, invites, the whole 9. I'd rather put the money toward a ncier wedding rather than more people. Maybe that's wrong..but I'm one of those people who feels liek if you have one true friend inlife, you're lucky and I don't care that much about who I offend.

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I completely agree-I am the same way...when we did our list FH kept putting people on that I had never even heard their names uttered, so they got the boot QUICK!
150 was our minimum but we had NO problem with that number...
Good luck

I wanted only about 75 but when we did the list, it's about 100. Our rules:
no kids ( No one under our age basiclly)
no & guest unless serious relationship
no parents coworkers
no one we haven't talked to in the past year or so
Plus, we don't talk to a lot of people on my Dad's side, and FFIL's side so that cut some people. Also, we don't talk to any of our cousins so that cut out a lot too!!!

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Posted by Jan05Bride

Immediate Family
Aunts & Uncles
1st Cousins
Extremely close friends

no children
no co-workers
no one you haven't seen in over a year
no acquaintances
no one under 15

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Word.
I had to invite my cousins who have small kids, that was the only exception. our guest list has shrunk from 150 to 140. I'd like to get it down to 130.

1. No Kids
2. Limit Parents friends to 6 each.
3. If we haven't talked since we've been engaged then you didn't get an invite.
4. And we made it very clear and were very honest that this is a small wedding due to the budget and that not everyone will be invited.
5. If either of us haven't met these people in person, they are not invited. We figured if they are that important, we would have introduced them to each other already or take the time to do so once we got engaged.

All these things are keeping us in our numbers. Strict but much needed!