Guest List Problems Resolved? (414 Days to Go)

So Jeff and I came to an agreement on how to divide up the guest list.  I'm extremely grateful that he understood where I was coming from in that my mom and I needed to be guaranteed that we could invite a certain number at bare minimum.

It's amazing to me when I read all these posts and information provided on the internet and in books about how people traditionally split a guest list.  So many people go with 25/50/25 or 33/33/33--or should I say that they all seem to recommend that split.  I'm beginning to chalk those numbers up towards the top of my list for pretty bad wedding advice.

What I couldn't understand is why when Jeff and I are paying for the wedding was it assumed that the split should be made so unevenly?  I'm sure there are always exceptions, especially since these aren't rules, just guidelines.  But even when a family is relatively lopsided in size, there should be some give more so towards even than in the other direction.  In the end Jeff and I did go with our split of 20/45/35 in order to try and balance between the sizes of families but also to make sure that our own friends are invited as well.  I think once it was out of the heat of the moment, he realized that his friends were also being pushed off the guest list too.

So how does one come up with the right balance for the guest list?  There are limitations made by the venue.  So my first piece of advice to other brides-to-be would be to get the venue booked first.  And if you can't get enough peace from the in-laws jockeying for guest list dominance before the venue is booked, get an idea of how large a venue you're able to a) find and b) afford.  For Jeff and I, it looks like we'll find something around 200.  But based on location and budgets, this will vary quite a bit.  Next we looked at the numbers that each of our parents was giving us and the number of friends we wanted to invite.  Then we started to get realistic for our parents.  Sounds a little cruel, right?  Well, you have to be.  Sorry, in-laws! Jeff's parents were way over and my mom was slightly undershooting just to cover the "must haves".  I then came up with a split that would give his parents a slight majority to cover their larger family, gave my mom just enough to cover the must haves in our family, and trimmed Jeff and I as much as I dared considering our large number of bridesmaids and groomsmen.  In coming up with our split I made sure that everyone had enough for the "must haves" but that myself and Jeff's parents both had to start making some choices about who needed to get shifted to a "B-list".  The B-list is not the abyss of the guest list.  Essentially the plan is to send out invitations to the "A-list" or the "must haves" and set a RSVP reply date far in advance of the caterer's final count deadline.  Once some people begin to RSVP that they cannot make it is when you start sending out the invitations to the B-list.  Odds are very likely at least in my case that most if not all of the B-list (as long as it doesn't get any more out of control) will end up receiving an invitation.  However, this does make sure that Murphy's Law does not go into effect where I end up with fifty more guests at my wedding than I have food or seats for.

Granted, it'll be about 6-9 months before I know whether or not my crazy idea of establishing a rule will actually work to save my sanity.  In all likeliness it will result in me scrambling to make more invitations than I thought I needed and trying to find more supplies and time as it comes down to the wire.  But I'm hoping that at least in the meantime that it will end a lot of arguments over who deserves to control the guest list.  By creating a split, I wash my hands of everyone else's guest lists.  Essentially, I don't tell them who to invite, and they don't tell me who I can invite.  It's everyone's responsibility to prioritize their own lists and hand them over with updated mailing addresses to me by fall so that I can start to send out save the dates to the A-lists.  I've already made the sworn promise that going over on numbers will result in me whacking names from the list starting at the bottom.  For instance, if my mom gives me a list of 45 rather than 40, I drop the last five people no matter how awkwardly I split up the Yoder family.

Allergies, blech (416 Days to Go)

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. My allergies have gone completely haywire on me.  Add onto that a bucket of wedding related stress and you have a maelstrom better known as the common cold with a side of vengeance.

Beaver County Times

So I eventually found the photo that the photographer took while at the Penguins game Saturday night.  Surprisingly I'm not disappointed in how my hair looks.  Perhaps I should be photographed from behind more often.  The poster has been tucked away in our basement to be saved for another day. Granted, if the weather keeps up what it's been doing yesterday and today, I'm not sure we'll be going out to the game Saturday.  Or hiding Easter eggs for the nieces either.  But rain is a way of life in Pittsburgh.  You either get used to it or you go crazy.

Saturday, I taught my four students at Jo Ann's.  We finally found a time that worked for everyone's crazy schedule.  It was highly entertaining working with all of them.  But that's usually what you get from two sisters and their two daughters.  There was a lot of teasing flying around the table.

After both Jeff and I were done with work, we went to his parents' house for dinner.  And that's pretty much when and where the weekend started to meltdown for me.  I'm starting to reach a high level of frustration having to do with the wedding.  So it doesn't help that nearly every time we go to visit them, they want an update or to discuss the wedding in some form.  So, Jeff and I showed them the venues we plan to look at in early May.  Which then led to a discussion of the guest list since the venue will determine the max number of guests.  Jeff and I are trying to find some place that's decently large but finding a venue to hold more than 200 is frustrating and often expensive.  I did not cope well at all with Jeff and his father both joking around saying that we'll just send out 500 invitations and see what happens.  Top that off with Jeff's mom insisting that there are a minimum of 150 people from their family (not including any family friends) who just have to be invited.  No matter how much I told them it had to be prioritized and brought down, I kept being told that I was wrong that people wouldn't come and I should relax.  I did the opposite.  I started to cry.  Yep.  I started to bawl like a baby right at the dining room table and ran away.

I still don't think Jeff quite understands how much stress I'm under.  I'm constantly being told to just do it myself, and yet, I'm also constantly told that my best isn't right or good enough.  That and I don't like the idea of someone telling me (repeatedly) that Jeff's family is more important as far as getting invited than my family or friends.  Just because his family is larger, doesn't make it more important.  It just means they need to prioritize a little more and I'm sure that they'll understand that we have both budget and seating constraints.  But I can't start cutting my portion of the guest list back down to just my mom and grandma.  Heck, just to invite our bridesmaids, groomsmen and their dates will be 24 guests.

So yesterday, I made a proposal to Jeff about setting the division of guests into stone.  My initial proposal being if there are hypothetically 200 seats available, his parents get 70, my mom gets 40, he and I split the remaining 90.  This means that he and I each get 45.  From our 45 gets subtracted 12 each for our respective members of the bridal party and their guests.  That means we each only have 33 guests to choose ourselves.  So, if the parents have too many guests, they go to their respective child and ask to use some of our remaining 33 spaces.  If we use them, too bad, so sad.  Re-prioritize and give me a B-list for when we start getting some "no"s back on the RSVPs.  

I feel like this is the only way to be fair.  That way my mom has a fair chance of getting to invite family and friends and so do I without having to feel pressured.  Although, right now, bullied feels like a more appropriate term whether or not that's Jeff's parents intention.  I'm fairly certain that it isn't their intention to bully me, but I'm under way too much stress right now to feel differently.  I mean, at one point my FMIL actually told me that my friends from work didn't matter because as soon as I got a new job they wouldn't care about me anymore.  Um, didn't I just spend Friday night hanging out with one of them?  Yeah...  Didn't one of them convince me to get on Match to meet Jeff?  Yeah...  My friends from work are my friends. Period.  Just as my friends from college are my friends.  They've been there fore me quite often more so than my own family.  Like hell they don't get invited.

Am I slightly crazy for trying to get the numbers broken down over a year in advance and set into stone?  Perhaps.  But I'd like to think that if Jeff and I agree on a rule, that it will end a lot of these stress inducing conversations about who deserves to be at Jeff and I's wedding.  Because in all seriousness, I'm ready to call the whole thing off if things don't start to get better soon.  No I don't mean leaving Jeff.  No I don't mean getting eloped.  

Speaking of which, I'd be one dead girl if I eloped.  My eldest cousin did that and she was nearly murdered and she's the "perfect one".  Being the youngest, I have no excuse of "I didn't know it was taboo" because I have very clearly gotten the imagery of me with knives impaling my chest if I elope or have a destination wedding in which my family would not be able to attend.  I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be a better picture if I have the wedding nearby and still don't invite my family simply because there "isn't room" after Jeff's family fills the guest list.  I just don't think that's going to cut it with them.

But anyway, I'm about ready to settle in for a lifetime engagement if this is what wedding planning is going to be cracked up to be for the next 416 days.  Already my immune system has thrown in the towel.  What more do they want from me?