We are getting married in November 2020 so a long time to go yet.. however my mum and I are disagreeing on this one subject. I also need to know numbers for booking my caterer and to plan where my ceremony will be held at the venue.
We live in Scotland, where my fiance is from. The majority of our guests are also from here. Our venue is about an hour away from where he grew up/his family and friends live. I am from the south of England where my family and a few childhood friends will be coming from.
We have sat down and worked out our guest list. He only has 12 members of family in total - including only one cousin who is 16. I have a larger family and will be inviting (from my mums side) three great aunts and two great uncles, my four uncles/aunties and my eight cousins and their partners (this, in addition to my smaller dads side totals my family guests to 35).
We have hostel-type accommodation at our venue and many of the rooms include bunk beds. Our friends are all happy to bunk in together. Our families will probably rent hotels/cottages nearby I think.
However, my problem is. We have decided that we only want children in our immediate family (2x nephews who will be 3 and 4) and any infants that are under 12 months (we think a few of our friends will have babies by then and it's not fair to ask them to leave them at home all day when they're so young).
Some of our friends have kids now, and by the time of our wedding they will range from 2-9 in age. Although we'd love to have them, we're not inviting these as it will add about 10 extra guests to our list. We also feel the parents would have the option to stay in the on-site accommodation if the kids were not there with them. There isn't enough space for each family to have a room.
Two of my cousins have children who will be 11 at the time of the wedding. I have only met them a handful of times. It might annoy my cousins/uncles/aunties if I don't invite these two kids. There are other cousins who have children but they're separated/step children so I'm not inviting them and they won't see that as a problem. But my argument is, I never see these two, and where do I draw the line?
So my question is do I just not invite my cousins children and deal with any backlash/them possibly not coming? (My wedding is a Monday so they will probably have school anyway)
Do I invite my single cousin's daughter as her +1 as she might not have childcare - but this may annoy my other cousin and her husband?
Or do I just invite both and say to my friends we're having family children/infants only?
Thank you!