Guest List Management

So, you sit down together, come up with a list of all the fabulous people you know and care about in your life, and when you're done, you have this massive list of about 300 people to come to your wedding.  Then you have to prune and pick down and cut off this person and that person.  In the end, you have to feel crushed because you couldn't invite Auntie Margo, or your friend from high school.

I actually envy brides who have so much trouble, though.  I wrote down a list of the closest friends and family that I wanted at my wedding, including those people on Josh's side, and I had a list of 35 people.  Joshua came home and added a few more, upping us to 42.  I'm going to guess that there might be more people I've forgotten, or who we might become close with, or that I might let some out of town friends bring guests...  So I'm rounding up to 50, to be safe.  But this is pretty much every person close enough in my life that I want them in my wedding, and I find this a bit sad.

But maybe it's just that I'm very good at saying 'this person is my friend, but we only really talk every once in a while', or 'this is my family member, but I haven't seen them since I was 10.'  Maybe it's because I moved a lot as a kid, and had to get used to growing apart from friends.  Or maybe it's just that I am able to separate my wedding into a "Joshua and Me" category, where I know that just because a person is close to me, doesn't mean that they're important to both of us.

FIY, on my side of the family, I'm having my mom, dad, and brothers, as well as my Grandma Bonnie (Mom's Mom) come.  That's it.  I don't mind, though, because my aunts and uncles and other grandparents haven't really been there for me.  When I graduated, both high school and college, my Grandma Bonnie was the only person who came from California to see.  Besides, Joshua's family IS my family, so I'm just so glad to have all of them there by my side that I don't mind if my distant family doesn't come.