'AITA for asking my fiancé to cut 200 people from his guest list?'
"AITA for asking my fiance to cut 200 people from his guest list?"
I, 31 F, and my fiance, 32 m, recently got engaged. We have started making our guest list as part of our wedding planning. My fiancé is a very social guy, he’s been in the restaurant industry for 10+ years and has made a lot of friends and business connections.
On the other hand you have me, I have a very small but close group of friends, I get over stimulated easily and have to prepare for big group interactions, and usually can only last a few hours before I need to wander off and recharge a little.
We made our first pass at a guest list, I have about 45-50 people on my list (this includes mutual friends and their plus ones.
these are the people I can’t see this day happening without. He made is list and has close to 400 people on his. This includes people who he’s met in business and wants to essentially “shake hands and kiss babies” with, I forgot to mention he’s opening his own business soon.
He said he will take another pass at the list and cut it down so we have 400 in total. The thought of this makes me physically ill. I want to be supportive and invite everyone he views as important to him...
but there are a significant number of people on the list that I have never even met, some I haven’t even heard of before this list. For context we have been together for 2.5 years.
I also saw names and when I asked him who they were he said “well I was invited to their wedding 3+ years ago…” some people he only exchanges “happy birthday” with every year and says they “need” to be at the wedding.
Again, I want to be supportive. But I have a hard time justifying paying 250+ per person on people I have never met and who he only says happy birthday to.
I’ve tried explaining this to him but I know we are both passionate people and sometimes I have a hard time expressing how things make me feel. I don’t want to sound like I don’t care about his friendships, but to me, some of his reasons for inviting people just seem childish or irrelevant.
Ideally I would like a wedding with 150 people, he wants closer to 500, I think I could do 250 without having a full panic attack and meltdown. I don’t want to sound like a diva, but the thought of being around 200+ people I’ve never met and being the center of attention makes me want to crawl into a corner and hide.
Last time I brought it up to him he got really defensive and said I was making him feel like I don’t care about the people who are important to him. I don’t think that’s the case but, AITA for wanting him to cut down from 400 people to 200?
Let's see what readers thought:
vouch6 writes:
NTA. Some people try to balance it out for each person. So the bride and the groom each get to invite roughly the same amount of people.
This would mean if you are inviting 50, he should be inviting around 50. Not everyone follows that rule, but I also think that it’s fair to want it to be more even than what he’s suggesting but not necessarily perfectly even.
Have you suggested he keep it strictly family and friends? I know he wants a lot of other people there, but it’s your wedding and if he’s inviting people just to schmooze with them for business reasons I think it’s valid to tell him he needs to revise his list.
Your wedding should not feel like a public socializing event you are anxious to attend. You should be excited to celebrate with the people you invite, not nervous about all the people you only sort of know who will be there.
Also, there’s the cost. 250 per person and a 400 people guest list? I’d tell him to shrink the list purely because that’s an insane amount of money to spend on a wedding.
I’m not sure if you have a budget or a set limit for what you plan to spend, but generally you always end up spending more on things like catering, decorations, etc., than you anticipate. Shortening the guest list might help keep you guys within or under any budget you’ve created so far as other expenses stack up.
agah788 writes:
Honest question....what's the difference between 200 and 400 people being there? I can't really imagine being anxious at 400, but 200 being okay, because at that point it seems the same. Either way, compromise is important, but you need to be able to put that into words.
But, logistically, how does this work? Is he incredibly wealthy and can afford 400 people with no major effect on finances? Would you be able to have the same kind of venue? I'd think that, depending on where you live, it'd be way harder to find a venue that accommodates that many.
Also, when you invite that many people, ones that kind of seem like obligation/networking invites, you have less of a sense how many people will be there. So, that makes it harder to book a venue if there's 100 people who you have no clue if they will come.
agpou writes:
NTA, tell him that you don't want to invite people to the people that you have never met or heard of, or that you will not get a chance to talk to.
Tell him the ceremony, photos and reception will last x hours and you want to be his primary focus for most of it! That realistically he will have 2 hours at the reception to talk to people tops. that if you invite 200 people he will get 30 seconds with each of them to shake hands and say thankyou for coming. Ask him to do the maths. and that you will not be doing it with him.
Does he really want to invite hundreds of people that he will literally smile and wave to at most. We had ~80 people and the day just flew past.
back7 writes:
NAH - don’t blame you for your stance, it would stress me out too, but a wide social group sounds like who he is too.
Is there a potential middle ground - have 50 each just for the wedding/meal and then the bigger group for a fab party/reception afterwards when the attention isn’t so much on you guys and he can mingle?
flao8 writes:
If you are overwhelmed by 400, you will also be overwhelmed by 200. If he wants that old-fashioned business networking wedding and he’s paying for it, consider scheduling in some down time moments for yourself to get out and recharge.