The Blob…aka: Our Guest List

Ah yes, the wonderful guest list! Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying, I love my family (at least some of the time) and I’m grateful to have such an extra-large extended family who would enjoy the free food and drinks I’m offering in exchange for coming to my wedding. But, for pete’s sakes there’s just TOO MANY OF THEM! Over 80 of them to be exact, and that’s just my grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids. And when you’re trying to have a small-ish wedding with only 150 people there it’s a little difficult to do when my side of the family alone takes up over half the guest list and FI Fishie’s family is pretty close to consuming the other half. And these 150 plus people are quickly turning into the Blob and consuming everything in its path, especially our itsy bitsy budget.

So what’s the simple answer to our problem? Cut the guest list-that’s what every planning book/magazine/blog/website has told us, if you want to reduce your budget cut the guest list. But how pray tell are we going to do that? We initially set the bar at a few criteria 1) we had to have actually seen this person within the last year, or if we hadn’t we had to have at least seen them on more than just holidays before that 2) if they had children, we had to have actually seen the kid since it was born and be able to name it. Yeah, this was a great plan…until the parents started getting involved. We quickly learned that our cut off criteria wouldn’t work. There was concerns that if so-and-so didn’t get invited that there’d be hurt feelings and then people wouldn’t be speaking to us and blah blah blah.

At which point I was ready to pull my hair out, and scream “But, it’s MY wedding, and I’ll invite whoever I want!”, make sure when you’re reading this you put the whiny little teenage bratty voice to that last statement to get the full effect kthanks (I admit, I have a bratty side when I want).

 So, what’s a poor fishie to do? Do I invite everyone and their brother for the sake of family harmony? Or do I go with my gut, stand my ground and say “Listen, this is MY wedding and I don’t want to look out at the guests and not be able to recognize anyone”. Did you have guest list problems or was your guest list all sunshine and rainbows? If it was, we can’t be friends anymore cuz I’m too jealous…just kidding, we can still be friends right? Kthanks!