AITA for asking my fiance to cut 200 people from his guest list? ?
A Redditor shared her dilemma about wedding planning with her fiancé, a social butterfly who has compiled a massive guest list of 400 people. While she values intimate gatherings and has invited about 50 people herself, he insists on including many acquaintances, business contacts, and people he’s only casually interacted with.
She asked him to trim his list to 200, expressing concerns about the cost and emotional toll of being surrounded by hundreds of strangers. Now, she’s wondering: is she being unreasonable or setting fair boundaries?
‘ AITA for asking my fiance to cut 200 people from his guest list? ?’
I, 31 F, and my fiance, 32 m, recently got engaged. We have started making our guest list as part of our wedding planning. My fiancé is a very social guy, he’s been in the restaurant industry for 10+ years and has made a lot of friends and business connections.
On the other hand you have me, I have a very small but close group of friends, I get over stimulated easily and have to prepare for big group interactions, and usually can only last a few hours before I need to wander off and recharge a little.
We made our first pass at a guest list, I have about 45-50 people on my list (this includes mutual friends and their plus ones.) these are the people I can’t see this day happening without. He made is list and has close to 400 people on his. This includes people who he’s met in business and wants to essentially “shake hands and kiss babies” with, I forgot to mention he’s opening his own business soon.
He said he will take another pass at the list and cut it down so we have 400 in total. The thought of this makes me physically ill. I want to be supportive and invite everyone he views as important to him, but there are a significant number of people on the list that I have never even met, some I haven’t even heard of before this list.
For context we have been together for 2.5 years. I also saw names and when I asked him who they were he said “well I was invited to their wedding 3+ years ago…” some people he only exchanges “happy birthday” with every year and says they “need” to be at the wedding.
Again, I want to be supportive. But I have a hard time justifying paying 250+ per person on people I have never met and who he only says happy birthday to. I’ve tried explaining this to him but I know we are both passionate people and sometimes I have a hard time expressing how things make me feel.
I don’t want to sound like I don’t care about his friendships, but to me, some of his reasons for inviting people just seem childish or irrelevant. Ideally I would like a wedding with 150 people, he wants closer to 500, I think I could do 250 without having a full panic attack and meltdown.
I don’t want to sound like a diva, but the thought of being around 200+ people I’ve never met and being the center of attention makes me want to crawl into a corner and hide. Last time I brought it up to him he got really defensive and said I was making him feel like I don’t care about the people who are important to him. I don’t think that’s the case but, AITA for wanting him to cut down from 400 people to 200?
Take a look at the comments from fellow users:
daGroundhog − Was the $250 per person a typo? That is waaay too much unless you come from royalty. NTA. He should understand that that size of wedding will overwhelm you. EDIT for more information: I married off my daughter 16 years ago, cost was (IIRR) \~$40 per plate, $1000 for the rental of the hall (country club), she wanted a fancy cake which IIRR was $400, 150-200 people, plus bar tab. Southern Wisconsin, medium size city.
2ND EDIT: For those responding to this post, using the CPI inflation of 1.46 X from 2008 to 2024, that only $58.40 in today’s dollars. Even dividing the hall and cake over 150 guests, and a bar tab of \~$800, and inflating that to 2024 by multiplying it by 1.46 ($1000+400+800 = $2200 x 1.46) that only amounts to $3212, or an additional $21.41 per person for 150 people, or a total of $79.81 per person in today’s dollars.
Momadvice1982 − Nta. He treats your wedding as a networking opportunity. To him it’s a soft launch for his business without any regards for your feelings. I would be surprised if even half show up, I would not go to someone’s wedding when I last saw them 3 years ago.
ReviewOk929 − I don’t care about the people who are important to him. NTA
1. You’re entitled to feel comfortable on your big day
2. Sounds like he wants a business convention not a wedding
3. There’s no way on earth he has that many people that are that important to him that they absolutely need to be there
4. You’re trying to compromise, he is trying to guilt you
5. Time for him to figure out if you are truly his priority or these people you don’t know are
mdthomas − Your wedding is NOT a place for your fiance to network. You need to remind him that this day is about the two of you. It’s not a business event.. NTA
UnfairEntrance159 − NTA. 400 people in one person’s guestlist sounds insane to me. I can’t even name that many people. Your husband won’t even have the time to talk to all of them during the wedding.
Jerseygirl2468 − NTA that’s insane. A wedding should be for the people close in your life, family, friends. Not business associates and everyone you have ever met. Even 200-250 is a big wedding. If you have 400+ he won’t be able to even say hello to everyone, it will be overwhelming for you, insanely expensive, and just too much.
YearOneTeach − NTA. Some people try to balance it out for each person. So the bride and the groom each get to invite roughly the same amount of people. This would mean if you are inviting 50, he should be inviting around 50. Not everyone follows that rule, but I also think that it’s fair to want it to be more even than what he’s suggesting but not necessarily perfectly even.
Have you suggested he keep it strictly family and friends? I know he wants a lot of other people there, but it’s your wedding and if he’s inviting people just to schmooze with them for business reasons I think it’s valid to tell him he needs to revise his list.
Your wedding should not feel like a public socializing event you are anxious to attend. You should be excited to celebrate with the people you invite, not nervous about all the people you only sort of know who will be there.
Also, there’s the cost. 250 per person and a 400 people guest list? I’d tell him to shrink the list purely because that’s an insane amount of money to spend on a wedding. I’m not sure if you have a budget or a set limit for what you plan to spend, but generally you always end up spending more on things like catering, decorations, etc.,
than you anticipate. Shortening the guest list might help keep you guys stay within or under any budget you’ve created so far as other expenses stack up.
Spike-2021 − When my husband and I got married, we paid for the whole wedding. He was in a business world where he knew hundreds of people. We knew we couldn’t accommodate everyone who thought they should be there. We excluded way more people than we invited.
Our criteria was: family, lifelong/long-time close friends, people who knew and cared about BOTH of us and we happy to see us marry. The last group excluded the most people as there were more people who just wanted free food and something to do on a Saturday than REALLY caring that we were getting married.
You should tell him to have a second party/reception on another day for his schmooze group. One somewhere you can step into another room with a small group of people who care about you and let him network?
InflationDecent7193 − NTA, but you could cut him some slack since he is the heir to a great oil fortune. I assume… otherwise, I’m not sure how he could think 500 people at $250 each is a good idea.
Bold-Belle2 − NTA. what kind of insanity does he have? how do you even know that many people who are close enough to justify them being at your wedding? i cant even fathom a wedding with more that 50 people, let alone 400.
Is it fair to ask a partner to cut their guest list to make the event more manageable for both parties? How would you handle the balance between honoring your partner’s social connections and maintaining your comfort zone on your big day? Share your thoughts below!