An Introvert’s Guest List

So here’s the thing. I’d heard over and over again that crafting the Guest List for one’s wedding was the hardest, most arguingest part of the whole planning ordeal. I was a little anxious about it. I’d heard if a couple is going to throw household items at one another, this was when it went down.

I’d also imagined a bit of trading, like with baseball cards, i.e. “Your aunt Millie for my second cousin Arnold” mixed with some mildly condescending examinations of familial bonds, such as “you haven’t seen your Great Aunt Mary since you were 6, so no dice.”

I told this to Sky and he laughed and said “OK let’s do it now, then. I bet it will take 15 minutes, tops.”

The funny thing is, he was right. We did it in a cafe — just listed out our family members and then sort of mumbled some stuff about of course friends and people we both knew, keep it small, want to be comfortable, and VIOLA! We were done.

Or so we thought. I had imagined that, all told, our list would be about 50 to 60 people. A few weeks ago, Sky mentioned something about feeding more than 100 guests. Huh? One hundred? Woops. So we went back to the list and started talking about the people who weren’t family.

Turns out Sky has about 1 million friends and I have 5. Or thereabouts.

I’m just not a gal who has a ton of friends. I’m okay with that, and the truth is I prefer my own company to that of most people. Not in an uppity way, but in an extremely introverted shy way. I know that most people would take me for an extrovert, because when I’m around a lot of people I get a bit manic and talky, but I can’t keep it up for long, and it wears me out quickly. I much prefer to sit and read or space out on my own.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like people – I do! I just don’t have a lot of close friends. I’ve got a best friend that I’ve had since forever and I’ve got a mom and a dad and a sister and a Sky. They all know me very well. It’s a good team.

So now I’m grappling with how to not feel weird about having a lot less people at the wedding than Sky. To be fair, a lot of his friends are now my friends. I don’t want to be keeping score of His vs. Mine. It’s just hard to find a good balance between who we (both) want to have there and how many people I’d feel comfortable having there on an important and strangely intimate day.