Now, just 16 days after Andrew’s proposal I have already booked a ceremony location, reception venue, photographer, and purchased the dress of my dreams. Yes, I am on a roll people, out of my way I’m kicking asses and taking names. Kidding. But seriously we all know that there are a million things that a bride to be has to consider and plan for and since our wedding is planned for just a short 6 months away I wanted to get moving on things as soon as possible.
It seems that most of these details thus far have been pretty simple to accomplish and as I was whisping through my list of 4 million things to do it started to happen…..
Andrew and I had already made the decision to have a small wedding from the beginning. We both agreed that this is one of the most important days of our lives and we wanted to be sure that it was shared with people who loved us both and were there to support us as we transition into this next phase of our lives. As opposed to a lot of extra folks who may just want the free food, facebook pics, and a twitter update with a point. So to avoid having to pick and choose from our friends and aquaintances we decided to have an intimate family only wedding to avoid any hard feelings from those that may not be invited. When deciding to have a smaller more intimate wedding many brides may encounter the bumps in the road that I have thus far. The one I will reference here is the sense of entitlement!
Should you decide to have smaller wedding you may encounter friends or maybe even more distant relatives that feel a sense of entitlement to be invited. Granted a wedding is a very special occassion and there are going to be so many people that want to share that wonderful experience with you for all the right reasons, but for one cause or another it may not be in your plans. Whether you have personal reasons, financial restraints, or space limitations, I personally don’t think that any bride or groom should feel guitly about not inviting their mother’s third cousin’s, neice’s, brother in law just because he invited you to his wedding 3 years ago if you get my drift. So here is my advice to brides to be out there who may encounter this as well.
1. Once you have decided on having a smaller wedding be sure that you share that information so that no one makes assumptions. You may plan on having 50 people but if your mother has told 30 more people that you are getting married and to expect an invite, someone will end up with hurt feelings. Remember it’s much easier to establish this from the beginning than to try an back track and univite people who were never formally invited from the beginning.
2. Make a list and stick to it (within reason). Once you have established a guest list that you and your groom are content with, try not to allow too many adjustments to be made to it. If you say that you want 60 people at your wedding but everytime you go to cousin Martha’s house she remembers a couple relatives that you left off, your guest list of 60 easily becomes 70 or 80 when you include a guest for each invite and possibly children.
3. Try to avoid having different guest lists for different events through out your planning. You wouldn’t want to invite some people to you wedding but exclude them from being allowed to attend the reception. Or invite guests to your bridal shower but not to your wedding. Now, obviously there are some circumstances where this might make sense to do and you have to make that judgment based on your situation but in general it may seem a little rude to pick out only certain events for your guests to attend. Plenty of brides are faced with this delimna because of space and budget limitations and when it comes down to it, do what you you have to do, but things are just a lot neater if it’s more of an all or none situation.
