Tracey & Neil's UK Bonfire Night/Disney Wedding (Nov 2016) & Disneymoon (May 2017)

[tracey1302]

Hurrah! Yesterday, Neil and I booked our wedding at the Fleece!

We had a meeting with the wedding planner this time last week and we loved her and the venue even more, so we booked! (How do I change the title of the thread, as the date is now wrong haha?!)

The wedding can, now, in theory, go on the backburner for a bit while we look for a house! However, naturally, I'm still planning like a good 'un

I have now secured three of my bridesmaids:

1) My sister, Katie (MOH)
2) My Goddaughter, Megan
3) My best friend, Olly

Neil has also selected his Best Man, Olly's boyfriend, Ben. I'm thrilled he's chosen Ben. He's known us both for years and he's a lovely guy who I know will do a good job. There's a lot of material on Neil for the BM's speech, let's put it that way!

Now, I just have 1 more girl who I'm definitely going to ask, and then I'll hang fire! We can afford the wedding at the moment, but I don't want to go over budget with bridesmaids, just in case!

I wanted to ask some questions to you all about etiquette as I have a few dilemmas with guests. I know it's early to be fretting, but I do like to plan ahead!

We've got a core guest list of 81. These are people that we see all the time that we definitely want to invite. The problem is, because of where we live, these are mostly my family and I feel bad We also have a lot of mutual friends who make up about 30 of these people The thing is, by their own admission, Neil's family isn't as close, or as big as mine.

Neil's Mum, Sue, has five cousins down South, who I have never met (and Neil and I have been together over five years) By Sue's own admission, these cousins are very slack (they organise family get togethers and then don't show up?! ?!) Neil's Dad, Dave, has one sister, who is not very well, she has motor neurones. She is a lovely woman and I've met her a few times. She needs someone with her to look after her as she is not very mobile. Sue says that she would like to invite some close family friends. These are a party of four who Neil and I know very well and love to pieces so this isn't a problem. But then she keeps bringing up these cousins as well! She said, 'Oh, I'll have to mention it to them, but I doubt they'll show!' Not exactly ideal when you're trying to pin down numbers. Plus, I'm loathe to invite them anyway as I've never met them! Neil agrees with me.

We also have my Dad's family. My Dad isn't particularly close to his family. He has two brothers and a sister. He visits them on birthdays but doesn't socialise with them on a regular basis. I haven't seen some of these for 5-10 years. Neil hasn't met any of them. I feel like I should apply the same standard to them as I do to Neil's extra family. But then I feel bad for my Dad. (He does have some family friends going though, including his business partner and best friend)

My question is, am I expected to invite all these extra family? This would bring our guest list up to about 100 which is a lot of extra mouths to feed!

I've had a look online at the etiquette for this sort of thing. The general answers I've found have been that if the parents are paying, they can choose, but if we are paying, we can choose.