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We had the same problem with cousins (Mr. Peng is godfather to one of his cousins, even), but ultimately had to axe all cousins. It just wouldnt be fair :(
Any chance your in laws would want to throw you an at home reception after the fact where ALL family was invited with a big emphasis on NO gifts? That way they won't feel like they're being solicited for gifts after not being invited to the wedding, but instead just being invited to a celebration of you as a couple. It's not unreasonable to not be able to invite 70 cousins to a formal wedding and I'd hope most rational people could understand that!
I would just make a rule of no cousins and stick to it - if you are good friends with the close cousins explain it to them and they should understand!
Good Luck!
we kept all 30+ first cousins, but when my mom wanted to start inviting her cousins, Iit was tough, because I'm close to some and not to others...and ultimately we just had to say no.
It's always the hardest with family, expecially when you're invited to their weddings and can't invite them to yours.
Speking from personal experience...don't overfill your venue! We were below the max capacity and it was still way too tight.
I like penguin's idea of having a second no-gifts at-home reception. I think that as long as people feel as though they get to celebrate with you in some way, they'll just have to get over it not being at the first, swanky wedding. While it might be difficult to do, I think it's easiest for people's feelings if you're just consistent. Stop at a certain level, whether it's aunts/uncles/and first cousins, or just aunts and uncles across the board. That way, no one feels like they're personally getting slighted if you're drawing hard and fast lines in the sand.
Thanks for the feedback so far. I (sadly) have to agree that you ladies are probably right and no cousins is the only way to keep people happy.
But I have another question: Is it okay to invite cousins on my side of the family but not on his? The difference is that my cousins number barely in the double digits while his near the triple digits and most of my cousins are young and still live at home while most of his are older and have children of their own.
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family! We are sending out save the dates next week and have encountered a new problem. FI's mother has 11 brothers and sisters and around 70 cousins and second cousins. That is a lot of people! We had originally decided to just invite his aunts/uncles and their SOs because our venue is small and we can have 125 total. Plus then we wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings by inviting this cousin, but not that cousin. The problem is that there are certain cousins that we really, really would like to invite to the wedding because we actually hang out with them and I know they would be offended not to be invited. Other cousins we either do not talk to at all or just don't see very much. But how can we pick and choose cousins that we invite and ones we don't?
The tricky part is that his family can be kind of sensitive about things. Like for example, when his grandma died and the inheritance was divvied up some people got mad at each other and didn't talk for years! I am worried that by only inviting the cousins we want we could cause another rift. But at the same time, is it better to not invite certain people who would really want to go just to keep everyone else happy?
Additional detail: Ninety percent of his family all lives in the same town, so its not like people just wouldn't know. They all talk and hang out with each other all the time.
Help! I have no idea what to do.