Still invite people to DW if they can't go?

Most people understand when they aren't invited to a DW. Just stick to your guns and say you are keeping it small. Some people will complain - but that is plain rude so ignore them. One thing you will have to draw the line at is family. DH's family is gigantic. We had to draw a very firm line on that - only aunts, uncles, 1st cousins. It sounds like you may need to refine that even further to keep it small.

Same here! I would have to invite too many! When I started planning, I was so worried like you. So many people will want to go. Luckily, the ones that I really didnt want to come (like cousins) couldnt afford it. So that eased my mind. What I did was make about 60 invites. That's my limit. I will just send invites to important people. Depending on how cheap accomodations and airfare will depend on how many might come.
I really think that STDs are a must in DW. I really didnt understand the reasons before but now I totally understand. So what I would say is, do a cheap STD postcards to everyone that you feel "you should invite"... send them out... wait about 3 months and then send out formal invitations to those who are coming. I didnt send STDs out like I should have, just an email. And a few months ago I spoke to my aunt and mother who arent going to be able to come, and they wanted me to send them an invitation and thought that I should send my aunts and uncles one too...thats how I decided. I guess it depends on how important weddings are to your family. I would talk to your mother and your Fiance's mother to get an idea of what you should do. My FI's family probably wouldnt care if they didnt get an invitation but mine would! oh yeah, I didnt do a rsvp return request. What I did was have everyone RSVP through my TA, shes taking care of all of that. I log on to her website and can see who is coming and where they are staying and when they arrive and leave.

Let me correct myself here...we will be sending the formal invite to family members even if they have initially told us they can't make it. (because they are family) - we just quit sending them reminders, etc.

my grandmother is having a hip replacement just before the wedding and is too ill to travel otherwise. whether or not she would actually come otherwise is a whole separate question, but i am sending her an invite anyway to keep the peace. i think it would be rude not to send it to her even though i know she cant go.

i think that is very nice. we are doing the same.

im in the same boat - our big catholic families all have to get invitations regardless of whether they will decline, which on my side, most will decline. they wanted me to have a typical wedding and are pissy im not, but guess what, its my wedding and not theirs. theyre not paying for it so they have no right to tell me what to do or to complain about my choice.

amen to the part about you dont invite everybody you would if you were doing it at home. that was the whole point of doing a DW for us too. we didnt want a big wedding.

we personally are sending out a lot of courtesy invites (which is against my wishes, but we have to since we are not paying for the wedding, and i am ok with that), especially in mexico. we did not send the STDs to anybody in mexico because that isnt a cultural norm there. the first and only news you hear is usually the invite itself. even for a DW. my FI said also that there are people we know wont come, and they will reply no with the STD, but sending them a formal invite will remind them about the wedding, and if their plans have changed they will let us know.....and he said if they still arent coming it will remind them to send a gift hahaha but really, in his culture it is totally impolite to send someone a "preliminary invite" and then not send them a real invite too, he wouldnt do that back home and so he doesnt want to do that here either.

We have not sent out the official invites or the save-the-date cards yet. We needed to have as many people as possible put down a deposit for the flight+hotel packages so we sent out a few emails letting everyone know the plans etc... This has been going on for a few weeks and although some people have said they cannot come, we are still keeping them on the mailing list. I think we will still send out the invites to everyone too, just as a courtesy thing, and also because you never really know. We had about 6 people tell us that they couldn't come when we sent out the initial email, and whom after we sent a second email with pics and the deposit info have changed their minds. We just received our final "booked" list from the TA and all of those people who said they couldn't make it actually put the deposit down, and oddly enough, some of the ones that said they would be there didn't! haha! so i guess you never know, and we'd rather keep everyone informed and in the loop because alot can happen in a year's time

I invited everyone so that way no one would feel left out. Even though they say they can’t make it there is always that chance they may come. Although invitations are expensive.

I think I may have done it not by the book...but I sent over a 100 STD's that I would potentially have at our after party. However, a year later (now) I sent invites to only those I knew for sure wanted to attend our DW or had serious interest just because I felt it was kind of a waste if they expressed they couldnt go. THey know theyll get a AHR invite so I justified it that way, I guess:)

This is bad etiquette but I really don't care, I sent STDs to everyone but I'm only sending invites to people who have actually booked the trip. I wanted to do message in a bottle invites and there was no way I was making and mailin 125 of them. When we get back we are going to send out announcements to everyone else with a pic from the wedding. I know some of my parents friends will be ticked, but my wedding isn't about them.

We're sending invitations to everyone we sent a STD to even if they have told us they can't come. There is always a chance they could change their mind and wanted to keep the invitation out there.

I did this exact same thing - we sent STD's to everybody that we thought would want to come - then when we got the RSVP's we only sent actual invites to the people that said they would come, However we are sending an announcement of our marriage along with the AHR info to everybody - and we also requested no gifts at our AHR b/c we already live together and really honestly don't need anything - In my family I just thing that some people would've felt like getting a marriage announcement w/ our AHR invite all in the same thing that they were thinking we EXPECTED a gift - and I don't want anyone to think that! - I don't want to offend anyone or make anyone feel left out either!