VERY different families . . .

[LuluLovesDisney]

My boyfriend/future fiance's family is very spread apart- his parents divorced 18 years ago, his mother doesn't speak to anyone in her family except her father and a few cousins all of whom live in Poland. His father has a girlfriend of a few years that have a very tumultuous relationship and are always on the verge of breaking up. He doesn't get along very well with either his mother or his dad's girlfriend, although he does get along well with his dad and is also close to his grandfather in Poland.

My family has been planning and saving for my wedding since I was born. I have 3 older brothers, 5 nephews and just a huge family that is very close and my parents always dreamed of a huge Catholic white wedding with 300 guests for me. I am no longer Catholic, btw, so I don't need a church wedding.

Both of us are huge Disney fans and he is the one that pushed me to choose a Disney wedding if that's what I really want because he says he'd love it. He'd be happy with just like 10 people, but with my family that's really not an option.

I guess I am just wondering if anyone else had "unbalanced" halves of the potential guest list and how you handled that.

Also, how did you handle a.) divorced parents or b.) a mother that the groom wasn't particularly close to: ie: wedding ceremony, mother-son dance song, etc.

Thank you so much!

 

[WDWAurora]

I think part of what you're saying is a pretty common dilemma. My own DH did not have anywhere near as many people invited or attending our wedding because he had moved around a lot and we were getting married in my hometown (a 6hr drive from where his parents currently live). I'm a small town girl, lived there forever, and know everyone. Since we got married in my hometown, I had a TON of people to invite and who attended from my side. We handled that balance by only seating parents/grandparents on the appropriate side and having everyone else sit in the best seat possible when they arrived, with no sides.

Sorry I can't help with the rest, but the unbalanced halves isn't a huge problem-We survived it! Hope that helps some.

 

[gradtchr]

My family came, his didn't how's that for unbalanced? That was one of the many reasons we did a destination wedding his parents can't travel, one of his sisters watches over his parents, and the rest of his siblings just could not get away and would not have been able to get away even if we had the wedding locally to us. One might have but not sure.

He was fine with it and so was I. My dreams came true in that my family was there and my dad got to walk me down the aisle.

Disney was a perfect location for us and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

[webray]

I wouldn't worry about being unbalacened guest wise.

If you parents can afford the whole everyone coming to disney wedding then go for it.

If not..then have the immediate family at the wedding and then do a reception/dance in your hometown for all the members of the family to enjoy.

We have a huge family and our daughter still wants only immediate family disney wedding, no hometown anything. It all boils down to what will make you the happiest. And honestly..lol, the immediate family disney wedding will be way more expensive than a lavish affair in our hometown..lol

 

[ahutton]

Our guest list was not particularly long, but DH had 3 guests plus the BM, I had 27 plus the MOH. Some of my family (all of whom love DH) were arguing about who "got to sit" on his side in the WP.

As for the parent split, FIL and MIL are very easy going, but SMIL is not so much. All of them realized how much it would hurt us if they didn't play nice, so they did. They didn't talk much, but they sat in the same row, and MIL and SMIL both lit DH's side of the unity candle. We seated them at different tables at the reception. Since DH has a relationship with both MIL and SMIL we decided that during the Father/Daughter dance he would dance with Mom, then we did a second dance where he danced with SMIL and I danced with FIL. It seemed to make everyone (specifically DH) happy.

 

[Luvndisney]

I agree with everyone else here. You really can't worry about the unbalanced list because you are having a destination wedding. Either way my family is smaller than my DH2B's family. We have 104 people invited to our wedding and only 20 of them are my family or friends! The 84 are his! Talk about unbalanced? But it will work out and it is what we wanted.

webray - is that really true that a big wedding in your hometown would cost you less than a small disney wedding ( for your daughter)? Wow I can't even imagine that! Where do you live? I for one am saving tons of money having my wedding in disney. A wedding that big in the New York area runs 40,000 dollars..and we are spending half that.

 

[LuluLovesDisney]

I agree with everyone else here. You really can't worry about the unbalanced list because you are having a destination wedding. Either way my family is smaller than my DH2B's family. We have 104 people invited to our wedding and only 20 of them are my family or friends! The 84 are his! Talk about unbalanced? But it will work out and it is what we wanted.

webray - is that really true that a big wedding in your hometown would cost you less than a small disney wedding ( for your daughter)? Wow I can't even imagine that! Where do you live? I for one am saving tons of money having my wedding in disney. A wedding that big in the New York area runs 40,000 dollars..and we are spending half that.

I, too, am in the NYC area (close to Staten Island) and for what an "average" wedding in my area would cost, I could easily do a FTW. My brother got married 4 years ago and it cost him 42,000. For that, I could have what I really want!

Thanks everyone for the advice- we've just begun looking at engagement rings, so I have lots of time but I love all the advice I've gotten on here to far. I'm a little worried about future MIL and future FIL's girlfriend- they're both very strong characters.

 

[WDWAurora]

I agree with everyone else here. You really can't worry about the unbalanced list because you are having a destination wedding. Either way my family is smaller than my DH2B's family. We have 104 people invited to our wedding and only 20 of them are my family or friends! The 84 are his! Talk about unbalanced? But it will work out and it is what we wanted.

webray - is that really true that a big wedding in your hometown would cost you less than a small disney wedding ( for your daughter)? Wow I can't even imagine that! Where do you live? I for one am saving tons of money having my wedding in disney. A wedding that big in the New York area runs 40,000 dollars..and we are spending half that.

This isn't directed to me, but I definitely think it's true...I invited 450, had about 300 attend, and was able to have all flowers, my dress, the church, the reception food, dj, etc etc etc for probably $6000...that's with no alcohol, but WAY less than a disney wedding would have cost for just our immediate families and it was much more elaborate.