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Hello Pinay brides!

I am having a big, fat Filipino wedding. Ok, not as big as my auntie's (1000 people!!! it boggles the mind!) but fat for American standards: about 350 adults & children, and then 40 kids under 5 (mini baby boom amongst my thirtysomething girlfriends and relatives). 

We have strict capacity requirements for our venue (thank God -- or else we'd probably have close to 500).There is no way we can go over 400. Absolutely no way.

So, I am trying to figure out how..

1) to get Filipinos to RSVP!!!! I know I've been guilty of this as well. We, as a people, just do not know how to do this. At my niece's wedding, four families (with kids, in-laws, and even boyfriends and girlfriends and dates!!!) showed up when they didn't RSVP. One family showed up uninvited!

2) To word the RSVP card politely so that I give a strong signal that ONLY family and long-term partners are invited, and not random dates or plus ones. For example, I have written (on the insistence of my family) "and family" on the invitations, and have included the children I know of on the guest list and on total head count. Now, how do I make sure that extras don't come along, or "+14" doesn't get written on the RSVP. Now, I know that one option is to put "X seats have been reserved in your honor." But sometimes people cross that out...

Unfortunately, asking my mom to call folks and clarify who is invited and how many "and family" means just isn't an option. She's really disorganized and we don't have everyone's numbers, and she's such a softie she'll end up telling them they can bring the neighbors as well.

 Help!

thanks for everyone's responses!

ilovenycmissie: yes, you're exactly right, it definitely it is a filipino thing where the whole village is invited!!! And very true -- the struggle is trying to remain true to our deeply rooted cultural beliefs about a wedding being a community celebration (which I really love and feel strongly about) while having to adhere to stuff like venue size, head counts, etc etc that are so important to weddings in the United States. The funny thing is that even with members of my family who have been here for many decades, generations, even -- still can't do things like RSVP on time, or they bring extra uninvited heads to the reception!

I guess I'm just going to have to put "__ seats have been reserved in your honor" on the RSVP cards even though one of my BMs thinks that's horribly rude. I mean, I do agree with her on one level, but at the same time, I just can't afford welcoming the entire village! And most Filipinos just do not understand that the only people invited are the ones listed on the invitation. What do you think? Would you get offended by this on an RSVP card?

OMG...I totally predicted this would happen. And how ironic to see in my initial post, I predicted this scenario EXACTLY, down to the number someone would write on their RSVP.

So my mom has eight first cousins she has only met once in her life -- in 1967 when she and her siblings and parents visited the Philippines. Well, with two exceptions, most of these  first cousins live in the United States and are spread out across the country and they have been separated from one another (typical Filipino diaspora -- Saudi, midwest, Merchant Marines, etc etc). Not one of them have EVER visited us in California (though my grandparents worked their whole lives in the fields to help send all of their nieces and nephews to private school and college in the Philippines). These cousins have all found us via facebook, myspace, etc. With the exception of one couple I met back in 1976, I have never met any of them who now live in the United States. None have ever taken the opportunity to visit us or my grandma, their only Auntie.

My grandma is elderly -- 88 and not doing well health-wise. One of these cousins finally came and visited us and saw how poorly her aunt was doing (she hasn't seen her since 1986). She must have told her siblings that it was "now or never" to see their Auntie. So now I was told I had to invite all of these cousins, since "they wouldn't all come, anyway!" Well, now they seem to have all put their heads together and decided THEY WOULD ALL COME and make it a huge family reunion!!! And I mean HUGE! My mom's older brother told me today that he heard from one of these said cousins. This cousin, whom I will call Emilio, told my uncle that he and his ENTIRE family were coming. FOURTEEN PEOPLE. YES, you heard me. FOURTEEN PEOPLE. They have all bought their plane tickets and are so excited to come and meet us for the first time. They are coming from the southeast coast. Mind you, I wrote "FOUR seats have been reserved in your honour" on their reply card (because my aunt never bothered to get back to me on how many there were in her cousin's family and I just guessed).

I am going to cry. The guest list is already bursting at the seams at 400, 99.9% family. My dad's side is equally as huge as my mom's side. The venue can only hold 400. I can't afford more than 375 anyway and will have to put everything on credit card. So far, I have 26 RSVP cards returned (deadline is in mid-Sept) and I have NO DECLINES. If this pattern continues, I am fully expecting every single person and more to come. My Filipino caterer says she is seeing a 95% response rate, which is typical for a recession since a wedding is seen as a free meal and entertainment (non-recession response rates are closer to 80). And we are also fully expecting more relatives to pull these kinds of shenanigans.

Mind you, we/I am paying for 99.9% of this wedding. My family is dealing with retirements, foreclosures, layoffs, and furloughs, so they can't help us much ($2,000 tops is what they are kicking in).  Now my aunties and uncle and mom are all excited about this reunion with their long lost cousins and telling me that I just need to find a place to seat these people. They said they will help me a little bit financially. They're just so excited to have this family reunion. I keep saying that they should plan a separate family reunion (the sum total of just that one side of the family is 200+) and we shouldn't be expected to shoulder the financial burden of one. We will be in serious debt for years after this wedding.

To make matters worse, I had 20 close friends on a B-list that I was hoping to invite if I got any declines.

Look, I totally understand our culture. I teach it. I research it. I know the village culture of everyone being invited down to the fifth cousin once removed. And I respect it and embrace it -- that's why my guest list is already at 400, with 99.9% family and extended family. I know it's not just my day. I know it's my family's day. I just feel like I have to draw the line somewhere. I am so frustrated and sad that I can't have some of my close friends there because some family members that I have never met, and will most likely never see again, want to use this opportunity to have their long overdue family reunion.

So the compromise I presented to my family is this...that four of this family that I had accounted for in the headcount can come to the seated dinner part...and the 10 extras (I honestly have no idea who these people are -- cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, grandchildren, friends?)  can come to the reception after dinner for the dancing, cake, entertainment. No response yet from the family (I emailed it along with our floor plan to show how I would have to sit outside and eat my dinner on the grass if I had to let 10 extra people in).

thank you for reading this long vent...HELP!

WOW!  I thought I was having a hard time.  We've decided to have a second wedding in the Philippines for the "reunion" and it's at a fraction of the cost of having everyone go to our local wedding. As my dad says, "That's the thing about Filipinos that will never change."  Guilty as charged.  Didn't RSVP for the last wedding we were invited to even though we're trying to avoid it for mine.

I agree with pinaybride....that is the only way to control the guest list. 

Most of my family is on the West coast, but I'm in NYC, so from the beginning, I was dead set on having the wedding in New York so I could control the size of the wedding.  My mom insisted on having the wedding in California at first, but I wanted to avoid the 400+ guest wedding.  The wedding is set for March 2010 in NYC and now my mom keeps asking me to add family fiends to the invite list, but we are trying to keep the wedding to 100-120 guests (especially since the FI and I are paying for most of it). 

I am also trying to have a very intimate wedding (75-100 guests) while dealing with the possibility of Filipino relatives inviting themselves and who knows who else.

To try to enforce the guest list, I am going to try to simply add the specific names of those invited on the RSVP cards AND on our online reservation.

While I am trying my best to honor my parents and all their Filipino traditions, my fiance and I are completely paying for the wedding and simply can't afford to invite people who we never see and/or don't even know.