Anyone else have a big imbalance in the guest list?

bratz81

I'm in the same position as your groom - h2b has a HUGE family and I don't and a lot of our friends are joint now at this point.
His side has around 50 of the 77 we're inviting and the rest are my family, my friends and then our joint friends.

We're also have no bride and groom 'sides' just mixing everyone up and it's not something I'm really that bothered about.

White_Sapphire

My H2B has a massive extended family. His sister's husband has no siblings, no aunts and uncles, and no cousins. I don't think anyone even noticed at their wedding, as a lot of 'our side' sat on 'his side' at the ceremony.

At our wedding, the families will be nearer equal, as my family is only a little smaller than his. However, I have very few friends as, like your H2B daisiegg, I have moved around a lot in terms of work and studying etc. My 'friends guest list' consists of my best friend and her husband and daughter! H2B, on the other hand, is still close to most of his mates from school. If anyone judges people based on whether they have lots of friends then they don't deserve to be at the wedding, yours or mine daisiegg!

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daisiegg

White_Sapphire wrote: »

My H2B has a massive extended family. His sister's husband has no siblings, no aunts and uncles, and no cousins. I don't think anyone even noticed at their wedding, as a lot of 'our side' sat on 'his side' at the ceremony.

At our wedding, the families will be nearer equal, as my family is only a little smaller than his. However, I have very few friends as, like your H2B daisiegg, I have moved around a lot in terms of work and studying etc. My 'friends guest list' consists of my best friend and her husband and daughter! H2B, on the other hand, is still close to most of his mates from school. If anyone judges people based on whether they have lots of friends then they don't deserve to be at the wedding, yours or mine daisiegg!

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Thank you

And thanks to everyone who has replied, it's making me feel better!

Idiophreak

daisiegg wrote: »

(where did the groomsmen thing come from anyway? and the need to 'balance' the wedding party?

We had one groomsman at our wedding, as well as 2 ushers and 2 best men. We used the title "groomsman", basically, because we wanted something that wasn't either of the other two. We wanted the wife's brother to be involved in the wedding party, get a suit, stand at the front etc - but we didn't want him to have any of the responsibilities of the other roles. Groomsman seemed to fit.

We didn't worry at all about balancing things, though. I had the 5 guys with me, wifey only had 3 bridesmaids.

White_Sapphire

Idiophreak wrote: »

We had one groomsman at our wedding, as well as 2 ushers and 2 best men. We used the title "groomsman", basically, because we wanted something that wasn't either of the other two. We wanted the wife's brother to be involved in the wedding party, get a suit, stand at the front etc - but we didn't want him to have any of the responsibilities of the other roles. Groomsman seemed to fit.

We didn't worry at all about balancing things, though. I had the 5 guys with me, wifey only had 3 bridesmaids.

Me either; I have one bridesmaid, and H2B has a Best Man, and probably 3 or 4 ushers. Am I bothered? Not really. :cool:

dragoneye454

Ours guest list is the same. Although OH has a large family of aunts and uncles, he doesn't stay in touch with them so doesn't want them there.
Out of the 33 (small wedding) on the day celebrations, only 6/7 are actually his and the rest are my family. I have pointed this out but he is quite certain that is what he wants and as long as he is happy that's all that matters

fi1102

I understand your position Daisiegg. My OH is Irish and has an absolutely massive family. His mum is one of eight and his dad one of three and all the brothers and sisters have at least two children. My parents however have one sibling each so my side is one third of my OH's. To be honest when I saw OH's guest list I did feel a little swamped and did question whether everyone absolutely had to be invited (a little mean some of you might think). My extended family is not close and I can count on one hand the number of times that I have seen my own cousins and don't feel obliged to have them at my wedding seeing as I was not invited to theirs. I am having very few extended family members and just some close friends who I have worked with over the years. I personally have just moved jobs and am not inviting anyone from work at the moment as I don't know anyone well enough.

I think one side does tend to be larger than the other. A friend of mine had 12 on his side and his wife had nearly 100 but again she came from a large family. I did speak to my mum about feeling a bit swamped and she did point out that the people OH wanted were people who had watched him grow up and would like to be there on his special day and would be upset if they weren't invited.

I am thinking of it as he is inviting the people he wants to share his day with and I am doing the same my group of people is just smaller and I am happy with that.

I hope that helps.

kelbag_2

We have the same situation as well, my h2b just has his mum. He's an only child and doesn't speak to his aunts and uncle whereas I'm one of 4, we all have kids, my dad is one of 7 who all have kids, grandkids etc and my mum's sister has 5 kids.

We worked it out and found that if we invited everyone I'd have around 75 family members and he would have 4. He will be just out of the army next year as well and all his mates are still in with no chance of making it plus I don't really have too many close friends as I find it difficult to open up properly and people can see it as being standoffish.

In the end we've decided on Rhodes, close family only and no party when we get home. It still only leaves him with just his mum though.

9ja4life

Had this discussion with my in laws the other day. I have 1 BM, OH has 2 GM. However out of the almost 150 guests, only 28 are from OH's side and that includes mutual friends of ours.

Don't worry about it. Like others have said, you'll all become one family on the day anyway.

TheSeventh

we've got a very similar situation.

His family is small and close-knit. mine is huge and sprawling! to help the numbers a bit, we're keeping my side to grandparents, great-aunts/uncles, parents, aunts/uncles only and he's inviting quite a few of his close friends to the actual wedding.

In the evening, the hordes of my family will descend! along with more of his friends and so on. We're also asking 'branches' of the family to send a couple of representatives, rather than the whole lot of them traipsing across the country. so, for example, the 'South Wales' branch are sending just four people, instead of the whole 32 of them!