The Guest List Won't Stop Growing

I'm getting married next year and somehow our guest list has become the biggest source of stress in our entire relationship.

When we got engaged, my fiancé and I agreed we wanted around 80 people. We were paying for the wedding ourselves and wanted something intimate.

Fast forward 6 months and we're sitting at 134 guests.

Every time we cut someone, a parent adds another person back in. My future mother-in-law keeps saying things like "you have to invite them, they invited us to their daughter's wedding ten years ago." My own parents have started sending me names by text as if they're entering a contest.

The worst part is that some of these people are complete strangers to me.

I feel guilty because everyone keeps saying weddings are about family, but I can't stop thinking about how much each extra guest costs and how little control I feel over a day that's supposed to belong to us.