Guest lists suck

I would pick those you are closest too and you do not want to miss your day. You can have a close aunts and still not invite them to the day, but invite them to the evening instead. Im sure they will not mind and whilst I am sure they will be sad to miss the day, I am sure they will understand its a space issue or financial.

If it were me, i start with my MUST list, get OH to write a must list too and compare. You will have to be really strict to wittle it down.

My Mum is one of four so not as many but we still only invited one Aunt. I am not close to the others and they hadn't met my H2B so they didn't get an invite. My Husband wouldn't have had a clue who they were for a start.

OH couldn't decide on his family so I rang his mum and she said as long as his grandma is there and his uncle to bring her don't worry about anyone else, great! Then just gave up on the phone to my mum, she's all "oh but great aunty x was expecting an invite, and don't forget you was a bridesmaid for second cousin f when you was 8!" We just had words and I've said I'll ring her back.y parents are contributing a bit, but that means we can have a dinner but still can't invite the world!

Easier said than done, but just invite who you want there on the day. We've both got large families, and having 100 for the day, but still struggled to get the list down. We decided not to invite children (apart from my flower girl and page boy) to reduce numbers, and everyone was fine wtih this.

I've got 11 GREAT aunts and uncles on one side of the family, I've invited the three that I'm closest to. However another great aunt, who lives in Canada and I rarely see or speak to, has kicked up a huge fuss that she isn't invited. Not sure what she was expecting, that we would suddenly change our mind and send her a invite!!

As for friends, close friends invited for the day, everyone else is invited to the evening. We are lucky that our venue doesn't change extra for evening guests.

Never an easy decision to make!!

This

Only invite those that are special to you..not on the word of a family member.

I'm lucky as our families have been quite sensible and understand its our decision who we invite. They also don't expect us to invite people we don't see. I've even suggested that I'd like to invite more and my mum's told me that I'm mad! It's more to do with me wanting to get to know people who we've drifted apart from but my wedding probably isn't the place to do that when it's so expensive!

I think you have to be strict. We started making a list of immediate family, then extended family we are close to, then close friends, then the other not so close people. You. An then cut back from there.

I'm not sure if you can only afford 50 people for the whole thing, or if that's just the main wedding breakfast - but can't you invite the important people to the whole day, then the others for the evening?

We're doing this where future MIL wants her cousins (and their children) invited... so we've invited the cousins to all day but the kids are evening only.