It’s going to be a *small* wedding.

Wedding planning test of endurance #1: The Guest List.

There’s so much advice out there about this part of the process, it was hard to know exactly where to begin. Well, where we began: I read somewhere to start with a giant list of everybody you would or should invite and weed things down in chunks by “noes,” maybes” and “definitely yeses.”

Well, I have a huge family. HUGE. Nick and I are also very lucky to have a lot of friends both in the Twin Cities and all over the world. Our families are also very… productive, so there are many children to be considered in our guest list equation. Let’s just say the initial giant list we created with the intention of not inadvertently forgetting anybody was *way* beyond anything we could accommodate, spatially or financially – and even the “maybes” list was way too big, considering we can only fit around 100 people in the space we have available.

I asked one of our friends about this because I was a little overwhelmed. She and her husband had an intimate and wonderful wedding Nick and I both really enjoyed. She said when planning, they made a conscious decision to invite family only – for whatever the “family” definition meant to them. In addition to countless friends and acquaintances there were some aunts, cousins, uncles, and extended family they didn’t invite. There were some friends they invited because for all intents and purposes, those friends were family by choice. After thinking about that (and readily agreeing with their sentiments), we made a few decisions:

We’re not inviting a sadly huge chunk of our friends, co-workers and former co-workers. This was a hard decision on both counts, especially considering Nick and I MET at work and just adore our friends! There are plenty of former co-workers we’ve both remained friends with over the years. But even though our family is big, the list is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of awesome friends and coworkers we have. Between our jobs, the various states we’ve lived in, Nick’s four bands and my various nonprofit affiliations, there are a lot of people to consider.

Next: the only under-13 invitees will be family only, and for just a couple reasons. First, well – they’re family. Secondly, while our friends will hopefully have their family available to babysit, most of our local and visiting family will probably be at the wedding and unavailable to help with childcare.

The last decision was a particularly hard one, and I hear this is exactly where the drama and bitterness occurs: we had to cut down the family list, too. Which means, we’ll be inviting some first cousins but not other first cousins, some aunts and uncles but not others, etc.

I read somewhere during all of this mess that if you blog publicly about the wedding, you’re obligated to make it a more open and inclusive event. I’m not sure I agree with that. I’m an avid blogger anyway and because some of our friends and family will unfortunately not be able to make it regardless of invitation status, I’d like to continue sharing via this blog. However, I still feel like I should issue a blanket apology here to anybody that feels potentially left out or disappointed… the last thing I want to do is hurt anybody’s feelings! If we had unlimited space and money, we’d be inviting EVERYBODY… Any disgruntled comments can be sent directly to management: a link to Nick’s facebook page can be found at the bottom right. 😉 Only kidding.

Though I’m feeling guilty even as I write this and though I’m a little sad we won’t get to celebrate with everybody we love, I do have to admit I’m a little relieved that we’re both inclined to make this a smaller event (as much as possible, at least). Having a more intimate-ish wedding will be a much less stressful experience, keeping the focus where it should be. On the food! Just kidding again. ON ME! Wait, I mean – on us, on us.

Next on the to-do list? Save the dates. Yargh.

Oh, and I almost forgot. HAPPY NEW YEAR!