For Jesse and I, the guest list wasn't a huge nightmare - but it wasn't easy either. Collecting Jesse's side of the guest list was simple as his family won't be able to make it for the wedding (and I write this with an incredibly heavy heart as I wish we could fly them all over) so it was just his Best Man, Wesley.
My side of the guest list? A totally different story. Let me give you a little background on my family.
One of five siblings - each of whom have children - who also have children of their own. The average number of children for each of her sisters and brother is three - most of them then have children themselves.
Unfortunately my Grandpop is no longer with us, but he was one of ten (correct me if I'm wrong Mum?). They have children, who had children - and some of those have had children themselves.
My Nanna is still with us and will be attending our wedding - and she has no brothers or sisters to add to the mix so it's pretty simple.
Mum's family is spread all over the place - Canberra, Brisbane, Country NSW, Country QLD - here there and everywhere.
Dad's side of the family was somewhat easier - he has just two brothers and both of them have kids.
We decided we didn't want to have too many kids at our wedding due to where the reception will be (totally weird for this ex-nanny who adores children) so we had to think about whether we invite my cousins or not. We decided on yes. They're old enough to not get into trouble and if we didn't invite them, we'd have had problems.
My Pa is unfortunately not with us, however, but his twin brother is - so he was certainly on the invite list. That's Dad's Family.
The Family Friends and Extended Family
The rest of our guest list was made up of close family friends and close extended family. The ones who we spend the most time with, the ones who are always there for us, the ones who took the time to fill out papers and do everything they could to get Jesse here - the ones who are real forever friends.
Jesse and I don't have many of our friends here in Australia, however, there are a special few who are making the trip to Sydney to be there with us on our big day. One of my best friends actually lives in Melbourne and I'll be meeting her for the first time when she comes up for our wedding! (Odd that we've never met? Possibly - but that's blog friends for you!)
The Total Number
Our wedding will be quite a small and intimate one, with us expecting between 70-100 guests. A heck of a lot different from weddings where there are 300+ people invited but just enough for us.
We actually first considered a very very small wedding of about 50 people - but later changed our minds as we didn't want to leave out anyone we loved. I was surprised at how much effort it took to bring our list down to under the 100 mark as I didn't think we knew that many people.
There were many people who jumped on and off the guest list as we decided - but unfortunately we couldn't invite everyone. Firstly for budget reasons and secondly for the logistics of it all! I also wanted to make sure Jesse knew all of the people attending our wedding - and the only ones he won't know are a couple of my Aunties who live in different states.
Family and friends are so important to us so we didn't want to leave anyone out, however, there were some people who unfortunately didn't make the list. I wish we could invite everyone - but we all know that's not possible. More importantly - I wish Jesse's family were coming too.
I've heard of many other brides and brides to be who have been emotional wrecks over their guests lists - and I totally understand the stress. There's an awful lot of politics when it comes to wedding guest lists - you can't invite so-and-so without inviting this person, you can't invite this person because they don't get along with that person, if you don't invite this person, you can't invite that person because they'll get offended - and so on and so forth.
What about you?
Was putting together your wedding guest list a stressful process?
If you're not married, or about to be..
Do you think you'll have a small or a large wedding?
Or perhaps you'll forget a wedding altogether and elope!
We've talked about eloping since that's what my parents did, and there are so many great benefits. But my oldest brother just had his wedding and after helping so much with his I would definitely feel a little sad if I didn't celebrate my own marriage. So I think we'll be doing something very tiny... like 40 people maximum! But seeing as we still have 13 months to go I'm sure might change.
ReplyDeleteI love reading all your posts about your wedding and how you and Jesse met- it's such a great story!!
-Laura
www.laurahigbee.blogspot.com
Oh Laura you are so sweet!
DeleteWe have definitely considered eloping with all of our wedding planning haha! A church wedding is incredibly important to me though - so that's all I was worried about - once that was sorted, nothing else mattered too much!
An intimate wedding sounds absolutely perfect!