WIBU? Party etiquette.

[100DaysofSummer]

It's ds birthday party soon, he's in reception. There venue I've booked allows up to 35 children. But realistically I think that the venue would be more comfortable with around 20-25 children maximum.

So in a class of 30 there's 12 boys including ds, and of course the rest are girls.

It makes sense to invite all the boys as there's so few. Then there are probably 8 girls who ds really likes and mentions, that would of course mean leaving 10 girls out out of the class which I'm not completely comfortable with and not sure if that's bad form to leave a third of the class out.

Then there are 5 children out of school we want to invite and some of the parents also have babies and siblings who would have to be considered in. So this would bring it up to and possibly over the 35.

I'm fairly sure that not everyone would be able to make it but what to do?

Do I invite everyone including the whole class and pray that 10 don't show up? Leaving 10 girls out seems mean but it would also be mean to leave an even smaller number of boys out.

Help!

inviting 20 out of 30 is fine.

inviting 27 out of 30 would not be fine.

does he REALLY want to invite all the boys? does he want to invite as many as 8 of the girls? I got DS to prioritise, by asking If you can invite 4 people, who would they be? Ok, and if you can invite another 4, would would they be. It was an eye opener! after the first couple of rounds I had to ask, if you could invite another boy , who would it be...

Personally I would invite half the class or less, or the whole class. I'm sure the 10 won't feel singled out, but they may feel a bit left out as the minority. Imagine 20 kids coming in on the following school day all excited and talking about the party with the 10 listening.

Just invite who your Son wants to be there!
You only want 25 kids, only have 25 kids. It is irrelevant if the venue holds more.
Siblings come IF you want them to.
I don't agree just inviting everyone. There is bound to be some of them that your son doesn't really get on with at all.
You don't say how old they are but at some point they are going to have to learn that you don't always get to go to everything.
It is less special if everyone gets invited as a matter of course.