Guest List Help!

So this was definitely something we were struggling with when we started planning. Our situation wasn't quite as extreme as yours, mostly because I'm not really in touch with my dad's side of the family and I'm not sure I actually know any of my second cousins.

My FH's family is really just him, his parents, and his sister. He has some German and Austrian relatives, but they likely would not have made the trip and there still probably would have only been 15 people from his side of the family, max. Mine was more like 45 once I made the list, and that didn't include anyone's kids. Once we added family friends his list was around 25 and mine was getting close to 60. Then we added our friends and our list started inching towards 125-150 and we just really knew that was so much larger than he was wanting.

We played with the idea of an intimate ceremony, but it was getting extremely hard to draw the line on who to invite and who to not. When it comes to intimate ceremonies with large receptions, you really want to keep the ceremony to about 30 people or fewer and have very clear rules - wedding party and immediate family members, perhaps.

I ran this past my mom and she was having none of that. We either needed everyone at the entire wedding or we needed to have a smaller wedding overall. So we did just that and we're going to California and only inviting 40 people 😅

Okay, sorry, really rambled about me there. My bad.
1. Your ceremony really needs to just be immediate family (parents, siblings) and maybe your besties/people you would have in the wedding party if you're going to have a separate, smaller ceremony. Once you start adding cousins or other friends, it starts to get dicey trying to avoid hurting people's feelings.

2. Just be honest with your mom. "Mom, I'm so glad you want to share this day with your friends, and I'm thankful for the role they've played in my life so far, but ultimately this day is about us as a couple and we'd really like to prioritize our own friends in terms of our budget and the space at the venue"
3. I'm still working on this one, so I'll get back to you 😂😅

In order to "tier" your wedding you have to make sure you're not offending anyone. If you plan to have a private ceremony, it has to be truly private. You don't want guest A getting hurt that guest B was invited to everything and they weren't. Some people here have done just parents and siblings for the ceremony. I think if you want to go that way that would be a good place to draw it.

As far as the reception goes, if you don't know people's names I would say they shouldn't have an invitation. Don't "tier" the reception and ask people for an "afterparty", it's rude for the same reason. (I know you didn't suggest that, be someone might).

Who is paying for the wedding? Whomever is paying will likely get the final say on budget. Budget will determine a lot of this.

Just curious .... What do you mean by "tier"-ing the reception? We have a large group of friends that we meet every year in Disney, and correspond with daily-ish via a private FB group. There is no way we can afford to invite them to our wedding, so while on our honeymoon in Disney we are hosting a celebration party at a Disney Springs restaurant. It will just be a wide selection of hot and cold appetizers, wine, beer and soda but live music via the restaurant's normal entertainment. Since the group isn't paying for anything, and are generally super happy for us, why would this be considered" rude"?

A tiered wedding is when you have some people to everything, some to ceremony and dinner, some just after dinner, and some only to ceremony etc. Any time you make some people more important than others on the day, you will risk hurt feelings. Since it's against etiquette to hurt the feelings of the guests, it's considered rude (at least in North America, it's a bit different in the UK).

Your party really wouldn't be considered a "reception" in the true sense of the word, since this seems like an entirely separate group and a separate party. In my own opinion, I think that's within etiquette. Your group sounds fun!