Guest List question

OH invited his cousins because he is really close to them. I didn't invite mine as I never see them and we are not close. We didn't worry about equal number at all, just invited the people who were most important to us.

We haven't worried about being equal. We also haven't invited all of a particular 'group' - for example, not all my cousins are invited, nor his. Some are, but only the ones we're close to.

Our friends have worked out really equal (about 30 each) but family is more weighted on my side (about 30 for him and 50 for me).

My Oh has 72 first cousins ( good Irish family) so inviting them all wasn't an option. I have 4!

If you invite one cousin do you need to invite them all from one side? If not, I would invite all cousins from your side and perhaps the ones he is close to from him side.

Have a similar sort of thing, cousins are in invited, but I'm very close to even half cousins so have them down on the list. Where as my other half has a large family its not as many as my 65, his is more around the 40.

But we are just leaving it like that, cause by the meal we are all just one big family so he is looking at it that is all our family.

I really wouldnt worry about it

I think it's more down to who you want to invite than a 'numbers balancing exercise'. You shouldn't have to invite 20 people you hardly know just so you have 'half and half' on the guest list.

You'll probably find that you actually have five groups - your family, his family, your friends/work colleagues, his friends/work colleagues, and mutual friends, and I honestly don't think anyone will really be counting who is from whose side.

The only difference might be in the ceremony as people traditionally sit on "bride or groom" side - if you don't mind mixing up who sits where apart from the family front row or so, then nobody will notice. We had 8 rows of chairs one side and 6 rows the other side due to where the room entrance was, and nobody asked if my side had loads more guests than hers - people generally aren't worried.

We decided that we would have a maximum of 30 people each, because we worked out our guest list based on how many we could afford to cater for. However, mine comes slightly under the 30 (about 26) so I've said he can invite extra.

Had money not been an issue, the split definitely would have been about 50/200.

For our wedding abroad, probably 90/10 to him and for our party at home still probably 75/25!

He has a massive family, whereas mine is small. I have a couple of groups of close friends, he is involved in lots of different sports teams/other organisations and he has a lot of less close friends from those.

Over the years, most of his friends have become my friends, so it really doesn't bother me, although I've made him promise that we don't have to have "bride" and "groom" sides of the church!

I have 25 (soon to be 26!) people in my family and we are all very close, while H has a very small family and doesn't get on with any of them apart from his parents and brother; so our guest list was a bit one-sided. In the church some of my friends and family sat on H's side so it worked out pretty evenly and H didn't mind as he loves my extended family more than his own ?

I think you should just invite whoever you want. Don't feel like you have to invite cousins etc if you aren't that close to them and definietely don't worry about things being even or people getting offended.

I am not so worried about the numbers as such, but more if I invite my cousins should OH invite his?

We are having a relatively small ceremony in my H2B's home town - I'm inviting my immediate family only and close friends however there will inevitably be more going from his side to the actual wedding as it is on their doorsteps. I'm not fussed at all.

When we have the wedding party/evening bash a day later where we live - it will be probably more weighted to my guests.

Edit: Eg his cousins will be at the wedding ceremony, as they live next to the abbey we are getting married at, whereas mine will be coming to the big party at night...so there isn't really a cut off as such.

Most of my friends and family are overseas and to top that I have a small family. OH on the other hand has a MASSIVE family and 99% of his friends are here.

Of the 74 guests 24 are my friends and family and 50 are his friends and family. We are not having bride side and groom side for the ceremony or my side will be very empty!

Ohhhh when we did the original guest list my family came to 12 and his came to 56....that was family only!!! we spent ages trying to even it out before we realised we couldnt!

We are doing this too!

Just invite the people that you are close to but I think that it does have to be far too. My OH spent ages trying to bump some of my family off the list so that he could get more of his rugby mates on saying that I don't see them often. I may not do but as a small family they are important to me and I want them there. I made the point that this was the wedding not the stag do! Now we are at about 40/20 in his favour although like previous posters his friends wives etc have become my friends now. I think the guest list is the most difficult part!

Ours is so uneven I have 2 extra tables for my family but I have step parents and extras. My OH doesn't mind but I have made sure he got all his friends that he wanted.

We're having roughly even numbers but my cousins are invited to the whole day and his are invited to the evening. This is because I'm one of the oldest of my generation of my family and so most of my cousins are under 16 so will have to come with my aunts and uncles. Whereas he is one of the youngest of his generation and a lof of his cousins have partners and children so inviting all of them would have been too much. Plus he wanted to invite more friends and he wasn't that bothered about his cousins. At first his mum did have a bit of a moan about the fact that his cousins weren't invited but mine were but I think she's ok with it now. Although she doesn't yet know that one of my dad's cousins and his wife and kids are invited, I don't know how this will go down. But I'm closer to them than I am to some of my other cousins so I want them there.

We are not really bothered which of us has more people but as it turns out its me because I have a larger family.

We were just going to invite aunts and uncles and his grandparents and my grandad and a couple of friends but we are now inviting our cousins, we are having the partners of the ones who live together but not ones who are just seeing each other as its already 96 people.

Overall its more or less 50/50 give or take a few people.

We just agreed who we wanted there.

I know what you mean to be honest, its caused a few grrr'sssss in my house. LOL!

OH has a hige family and and a lot of friends, mother in law thinks we should cut it to aunties & uncles and 1st cousins on his side but i dont think its the point of what relationship they are to you, its who you see on a regular basis etc, im not inviting most of my dads side because i dont see them. Your always going to offend someone.

Our idea was no more than 75 in the day, were currently at 98 adults and 7 kids, some people need to go so we will be going through the list AGAIN!

We are inviting all the cousins from OH's mums side as he is very close to them and they are only about a dozen or so and Cousins from my side are only invited if under 16 years of age other wise all rest are only invited to night do.

We have a max number of 110 people for the ceremony. We agreed to split this between us equally. We have 12 mutual friends so eachnof us are taking 6 from our 55.

thereafter it's upto both of us to pick our guests - I will only choose those who are immediate and close family but if OH wants to invite family members who he is not as close to I don't have a problem. There will be only a small number of my family at the ceremony as they all live abroad and we're having an Asian wedding too where the ratio of my family to his will be off balance as my entire family tree is coming!

I havent even thought if my guest list that way, i asked who he wanted and i out down who i wanted and thats that

we can only have 50 adlts there during day due to budget so that counted out cousins etc as we both have a big family, as long as we both have who we want there thats all that matters

We ended up with broadly balanced family, although it wasn't a massive consideration for us. Most of our friends are 'our' friends rather than 'his' or 'mine' so that wasn't really an issue. We did have to limit our guest list quite heavily though as our venue could only seat 60, so that made it quite hard to choose!