Do I HAVE to invite him?

The next step is coming up with a guest list. You think this will be so easy - but it really isn't.

The first issue is that you can't invite everyone - unless you're not serving a meal or you have an incredibly large budget. If you can invite everyone, good for you! Remember not to get too upset about inviting your dad's second cousin, it doesn't mean you will have to remove someone from your preferred list of people.

For those of us that do have to set a cap on the amount of people we're inviting, it's a little more tricky. You will want to balance the amount of people your parents wants to invite with your own close friends and family. The issue here is that your parents are probably helping with the budget for the wedding, and they really want to show it off to all of their friends and cousins - people you might not know. I have a few tips for this:

• Remember that not everyone you invite will come!
• Some might live out of town and just not be able to make it, some of the distant relatives your parents want to invite probably won't make the effort (I'm not trying to be rude I'm just saying it's true. You would do the same thing), and some people might have prior engagements. For the first round, just write down everyone you and your parents can think of, and give everyone a "rating". A 1 for "Must invite", a 2 for "Want to invite" and 3 for "Parents' Picks". Hopefully your "Must Invite" list is smaller than your max amount of people, but even if it's not, you can assume some of them may not come. I can't give you an estimate percentage or anything like some sites will, because I don't think it works. It really depends on your friends and family. Really go through everyone, especially out-of-towners and decide if it's more than likely or not likely that they will be able to make it. Let's say you have twenty people you think may not be able to make it - invite 30 or so from your want list and your parent's want list, since there are probably people in that addition that might not be able to make it, etc.
• My guest list cap is 150, I told my caterer and venue I had a minimum count of 130, and I think we will end up inviting around 175 people in total.  I think I can make an educated guess that 140 people will come, granted my parents don't sneak a few more people onto the list.
• Really think about the non-relatives that you want to invite.
• If you look back at your pictures in 20 years, will you be able to remember their name? Will they still be in your life? Or will you wish they weren't in that picture? Some people are life-long friends and some people are friends for now, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• Will they really want to come? Or would some of your girlfriends honestly rather party with you at your Bachelorette party and then just look at the wedding pictures afterward? They will still be included and you won't go over-budget or exclude any family members from the wedding.
• Really ask your parents WHY they want to invite certain distant relatives
• Is it because they feel obligated that they were invited to a wedding of theirs a few years ago? Chances are they did that out of obligation as well.
• If it's someone they are close to and want to see you get married, really try to work them in, even if it's just for your parents. Really they just want to show you off.

And that's pretty much what my thought-process was.

Also: ALWAYS keep a hard-copy of your guest list!!!!
I was working on mine, highlighted all the people invited on my side and.... the puppy jumped on my keyboard! She managed to delete it all, save it and close it, all in that one jump. I was NOT happy, and stressed for about an hour trying to remember them. Finally I called my mom and she reminded me of the hard copy. What would I do without her?