I just realized while writing this, that almost all of (if not literally every single one) Project Wedding post is on a Thursday. Honestly, this is a huge coincidence!! haha. Apparently I just get in the zone this time of week?
Recently, Zack and I started the daunting task of putting together a rough draft of our guest list… OH MY GOSH! I didn’t realize how incredibly hard this would be. Of course, with recent events I’ve truly learned how many people in my life care about my well being. Which makes the fact that we want a relatively small wedding — EVEN MORE difficult.
Our reception site holds up to about 170 people comfortably with everyone sitting at the same time, though they say they have successfully held weddings of 200+… However, we both want our wedding to be a more intimate gathering. Small, simple, and fun. All those details that don’t matter 10 years from now, be damned… We want it to represent ourselves, not some glamorous fake version of ourselves.. Our goal, is to have a guest list of 100-150 people (I personally, am leaning much closer to the 100 side of that scale.)
Between Z’s family and my own – if we invited the entire families this would take up the entire guest list. We both have a TON of insanely close friends back home as well, that I think we truly would be disappointed in the years to come if they weren’t there. Plus then there is the whole issue, do we let guests bring a date? If so that means we have to plan for almost half the amount of guests we can invite, which makes this job LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE. But – I feel like it’s almost rude to not allow guests to bring a date. I can think of a hand full of friends off the bat who are in relationships with someone, who I’m not close enough with to actually invite to my wedding, but I’m sure would much more enjoy an intimate, romantic occasion with said significant other.
The Knot gave us a good idea… To only allow friends who have been in a relationship with their S/O for at least a year or live together… Still, I’m not sure…… Uffff.
I’m at a complete loss. I understand that its our day, and that people in theory should understand — all that jazz. I get that, but I’m talking family. (YES our close friends ((and we have a LOT of close friends)) are family too!) It is one thing to exclude and potentially offend friends who have drifted or aren’t truly rocks in our life, but the ones who are — who have been there our whole lives, through thick and thin – the ones who have cheered for us to be happy since day ONE… Have had nothing but love for us.. Those are the cuts that are going to break my heart.
We do know, that other than Kanisha, My sister, and Beth’s daughter – and Zack’s brother we won’t be inviting children to the reception. It’s going to be — well — a party. So I don’t feel bad cutting kids. It won’t be their scene, and our reception will be going until 11pm anyway.
It’s rough. We really want this to be about the celebration and joining of two families (again — friends are family! I keep repeating this because when I talk to people about this – they tend to say “well invite your family first, friends will understand”) but an easy going intimate occasion at the same time..
What helped you narrow down your guest list?
