Guest List - 50/50?

Can't offer you much advice i'm afraid but OH has only 9 members of his family living who will be coming whereas I have 40 plus, but that's just the way it is and we can't do anything about it really. we have some friends coming as well, they're probably evenly split.

Doesn't matter too much to us who belongs to which side, we have invited everyone we want to come, regardless!

We discussed this first. We listed our joint friends and then split the remainder in half, but of course it is not set in stone, it's fairly flexible. It has worked out about even and we've tried to keep it that way. Neither of us wants to get married in front of a load of people we've never met before so have tried to minimise that.

It's a difficult one though - the guest list has caused us more grief than anything else!

Sorry, can't help, as my OH is only inviting 2 people, and those are his children.

He has nothing to do with his family, but if he did, we'd split it 50/50. I wouldn't see it as fair for one person to invite more than the other, when both sets of family and friends are just as important.

I have a very large family. I'm 1 of 9 kids, my mum is 1 of 7, my dad is 1 of 6, and my step dad is 1 of 6, where as OHs whole family consists of about 10 people, yet i'd give up some of my numbers, so he could invite who he wanted, and I know if it was the other way around, he'd do the same.

It's your day aswell!!!!!

Me! I had this problem and got quite upset as I'd been ruthless to keep nos down and OH was inviting his mum's hairdresser and things like that! In the end we sat down with a bottle of wine and had a heart to heart. It was the best thing we could have done as now we're re-working the guest list and I'm feeling much happier. As we're getting married in his patch he felt obligated to invite some people but we're just going to be stricter on nos and keep the guest list as fair as poss. I say talk it out asap! x

I think that if it so happens that one side outweighs the other, then that's fair enough. If (for example) the bride has 50 aunties, uncles and cousins but the groom only has 5, then that's just the way the cookie crumbles, nothing can be done!

I don't think it's fair, however, if one side is inviting aunties and uncles but the other isn't (i.e. one side is going further along the family tree). That's just my personal take on it, others will disagree.

(On the other hand, my dad is inviting his obscure relatives to the evening, but he is paying for them and H2B's family don't want to invite their obscure relatives... if they did, then they could, again so long as they paid for them haha! But we have invited all the aunties, uncles and cousins so no-one can complain really.)

I think if you are not inviting aunties/uncles/cousins to the ceremony, then he shouldn't either.

We have about 50 people coming. only about 15 of those are OH's friends and family and the rest are mine. At first he was really miffed but then he realised that my family are more family to him than his actual family and that actually, our guests are pretty even.

We agreed to invite 50 guests and split the guest list 50/50. Turns out that there are 25 people in my family. How did it get to that number? Luckily we changed our minds about waiting til 2012 to get married as several members of my family are now trying for babies

OH only has 4 people in his family so he has kindly let me spill over onto his side of the guest list with my godparents, my bridesmaid and her +1. And all our shared friends are on his guest list. All my other friends and people from work are evening-only guests.

I'm inviting my cousins, aunts and uncles, etc but my OH isn't. OH's bro is gay and his extended family haven't been told this because they are homophobic and MIL2B is worried about how they will react if they find out. Plus his uncle has 2 families and it was way to awkward trying to decide which family to invite. OH barely speaks to any of them anyway.

On the other hand, I am very, very close to my whole family. We were invited to all of their weddings, I was a bridesmaid for a couple of them and they have all offered to do something to help with the wedding - so there was never any question of not inviting them really.

I suppose its different for everyone though.

Oh yes... this would clearly be an exception to my rule

Thanks for the advice, all. We are going to sit down over the weekend and go through who is coming to the day, and who will only be invited to the evening. I'm hoping we can get it as near to 50/50 as possible!

One way to make life easier is to invite the "extras" - work colleagues you don't really like but can't not invite, distant friends and relatives, and mothers hairdresser (!!!) etc - to just the evening reception, and to keep the wedding breakfast to your closest friends and family.

It doesn't necessarily matter if your numbers are unmatched, even if you are constrained by budget or venue capacity, as long as you both agree.

As it happens, our guest list at the moment (although there are still a number of outstanding responses) curiously stands at 51 people each! That wasn't engineered, it just seems to have happened.

We've only got space for 30 people in our registry office (including bride and groom!)

H2B has invited his mum, brother (who has 2 kids but is currently single) and his sister and her +1 so his total is 6 or 8 if you include his best man and his +1

The rest is my family, parents, 4 siblings and their +1s, grandad, and uncles - and my mum's cousin cos mum insisted (she as close as a sister apparently)

So my guests outnumber his during the day 2:1, but it's a totally different story for night. He works 2 jobs and wants to invite people from both plus he's a member of the local rugby club and wants to invite most of the players! I work in a hotel so half my workmates will be working on the night and I'm not exactly the social animal he is, his evening guests probably outnumber mine 3:1!!

My OH has more people coming to the day but thats cos his family is 1) Bigger and 2) Closer, than mine. For example, I am inviting 4 sets of uncles / aunties. He's inviting 2, but has grown up cousins whih make up 5 families. Because my cousins dont have their own children, theyre part the aunt/unle family group...

does this make sense? the thing is, i see OH's family as my own anyway, so it doesnt bother me too much. However, hes invited one of his cousins cos he thinks he should - we dont like her too much, but have invited her mum and sister so felt it would be rude to not invite her too. But sometimes you gotta do it.

we're way over our guest list anyway - we only have 65 chairs....we have 65 adults...and 20kids! oops!