A Thought to Ponder…

I have a question…even though I’m pretty sure that I already know the answer. Can you un-invite someone to your wedding?

Ok, that question was a little TOO simple. Try it like this: Can you un-invite someone to your wedding that you already sent a Save the Date to?

Yeah, see? That one’s a little bit harder. But it’s a question that I ponder as I sit here and tally and total the guest list and the costs per person that encompasses my ever-growing guest list. There was a time when Mr. CC and I started out planning this shin-dig when it wasn’t quite this large.

Why is this on my brain, you ask? Well, you see…someone at a party over the weekend happened to ask about my wedding. It was a company party, and since Mr. CC and I both work for the same company (although at different locations now) everyone knows that I’m a bride right now. A bride planning her wedding. A bride planning her wedding that is only 3 months away…

Ooh. I have to stop myself. I’m feeling a little bit faint.

All right. All jokes aside, this is a popular question that I get from all fronts. “How’s the wedding planning going?” is a great question for someone that you don’t know all that well, since more than likely the bride will latch on to the smallest bit of curiosity from an outsider about what is hands-down THE most important day of her life and start to prattle on and on, leaving you just listening. Why does a bride do this, you might ask? Because she’s already driven all of her own friends and family MAD with talking about the wedding. Seriously. It’s a proven, scientific fact that brides lose friends.

But since this question came from someone that knows me a little better than a passing stranger, and she was recently a bride herself, I knew that she could relate. I tried to stem the gush of information that I almost overloaded her with, and tried to play it cool like I had everything under control. Did I mention that she was recently a bride? Yeah…I’m pretty sure that she knew that I was blowing smoke…

Either way, she posed another question. “Is it a small wedding?” I answered yes, before I stopped and really thought about it. Yes, I think that my wedding will be small, in that it’s not our first wedding (for either one of us) and therefore we don’t have to submit to the strict rules of etiquette allowing your parents to invite people that you haven’t seen since you were a baby, but by-goodness they went to their daughter’s wedding and spent over $100 on their present, so these people WERE getting an invitation. Our guest list is MUCH smaller than that of a first-time bride/groom for this very reason. We’re really only inviting family and friends. There shouldn’t be anyone at the wedding who hasn’t known each of us personally. Yes, our parents are all inviting some of their friends, but we’ve at least met and spoken to these people at some point in the past two years…

Yet, once I started to answer with my resounding YES this was a small wedding, I stopped. At a guest list that nears 200 at its peak, is it still a small wedding? Where does a bride draw the line in the sand between small, intimate, and over the top?

I wouldn’t say that our wedding is intimate. Intimae weddings to me seem to be something with fewer than 50 guests in attendance.

A large wedding, in my opinion, is any wedding with over 300 in attendance.

Now, those numbers are based on final head counts…and my count of 200 is our guest list. There are people on the guest list that we’re sending an invitation to, but we seriously do NOT expect some of these people to make the trip in for our wedding. At the same time, they are important in some way to one of us, and we feel the need to include them and make them feel welcome at our wedding. Even though we know that they know that we know that they won’t really plan on being there. It’s the thought that counts.

I heard that a good rule of thumb is 75% when you’re trying to estimate a head count. That means that 75% of the total number that you invite is what you need to plan on being there. That means that we should plan on having 150.

So is 150 guests in attendance still small? This is what I wrestle with. I want small. I think that 150 is on the small side for weddings. Do you agree?

But when I look back over our guest list, I see a few people that I could cut from the list…trim the fat so to speak. Is it rude to not invite them now, once I’ve already sent them a save the date? Part of me says – YES! But a small part of me says that I could probably blame the dwindling economy and get away with a few invites being “recalled” between now and the actual wedding.

Like the lady that is letting me borrow some flower girl stuff. I had her on the list because I thought that I needed to do that, as a courtesy. MOH assures me that she lends out her wedding hurricane vases ALL the time and does NOT expect a wedding invitation from each bride that borrows them. Then again, since this is someone that I work with, is it just easier to let it go and be done with it?

What do you think? Is it rude to not send out the invitation after they’ve received the save the date? Do you think that I’m a terrible person for even considering doing that? I hope not…but I need some honest feedback here, and I know that you won’t let me down!