The Guest List -- Part One

It is a fact that the best way to control the cost of a wedding is to limit the number of guests. This isn’t as easy as it seems especially if you actually have family and friends.

I’d been attending our church since 1979. The groom’s family had been there since 1990. We had a lot of mutual friends so the question was never, “Who do we invite?” It was, “Who don’t we invite?” After that many years, both our families were fairly well known to the congregation. Our children had been active in Sunday School, choir, youth group, Vacation Bible School, and mission trips. Many wonderful people had lovingly taken an interest in them throughout their lives. I had to chuckle that it was a blessing to have so many dear, affectionate friends…until it was time to create a guest list for a wedding.

As I mentioned in my last entry, one of the first challenges was finding a reception hall that would accommodate the number of guests we were considering. More guests meant more food, more cake, and the need for more room, all of which costs more, more, more! Fewer guests, obviously, meant we might be able to have the reception at church. But, speaking for myself only, I wanted to celebrate this joyous once-in-a-lifetime event with all of my family and friends, not just a select few. I assumed everyone felt the same way. Silly me.

There's nothing like having a great big party with ALL your friends!

This led to the first major disagreement between my daughter and me. It came when the couple expressed a desire to invite no more than 150 guests. (The groom even suggested that he’d prefer to cut it off at 100 guests but that number was quickly dismissed as impossible.) If we belonged to a small family this would’ve been a completely reasonable request, but our family added up to nearly 50 people when we included grandparents, aunts, uncles, and first cousins! We had no idea how many would come from the groom’s side. Even eliminating everyone from church except the most intimate friends would leave us hard pressed to keep the body count at 150.

Several evenings were spent bickering. In an attempt to restore peace within our household my husband encouraged the couple to elope. The groom blithely remarked that he didn’t care as long as he got married to my daughter. “Absolutely not!” I cried! I don’t think there was a male friend I knew, including our pastor, who, upon hearing of our logistical challenges, didn’t immediately suggest that the couple elope…the cowards! Perhaps it was selfish of me, but I knew I could make it work.

I consulted with the mother of the groom and, throwing caution to the wind, made up a tentative guest list of 250 names. The list included all the family members on both sides, most of our friends from church minus infants and toddlers, a few close friends who don’t go to our church, and school friends of the bride and groom. I handed it to the couple and said, “Okay, you tell me who to cut.” Their quick perusal of the list brought this response, “Well, there’s--  hmm. What about--? Hmm…” With a sigh of resignation they said, “We see what you mean,” and agreed that all should be invited.

Tomorrow -- some very tough decisions.