oh the guestlist

I wanted something small.  Intimate.  Just close friends and family.  Fun, easy, peaceful.

What I have instead is an 18+ hour day for the bridal party (a mere 12 hours for those invited) and almost 300 people on the guest list for 2 different receptions.

What happened?  Family happened.  Between my parents and his, the guest list ballooned.  I should have expected this. (I can see all you once-brides nodding your heads.)

I forget, sometimes, that just because my parents aren't in town to help plan, they do have a huge say in what goes.  Now, my parents are lovely and really quite functional people, so this won't be a rendition of Motherzilla of the Bride, the B movie.  Quite the opposite.  My parents have been a huge help to me in all of this--although they do not quite understand the idea of deadlines.  Actually they do, but they are either very busy because of their job or they lose track of emails like it is their job.

I had hoped to send the Save-the-Dates out on January 1st.  Today, we finally mailed the last few to those who have no email address.  It's only a month late, but it was a two month long process of getting my parent's guest list (they still haven't gotten back to me about one couple), asking for addresses.

The in-laws are easy.  They'll hand out the invitation and RSVP cards--which we may or may not get back--to the families on their list.  See?  100 easy invitations....

All the same, I learned a very important lesson through all of this.  Don't abbreviate Save-the-Date on a notepad at work: it looks scandalous.